Blowing in the wind

It used to be the case that on 'recycling day', as I walk to work on a windy day, I'd see lots of bags of recyleable materials blowing down the streets, onto the fields and generally causing more problems than putting them in landfill. After quitely grumbling about them for a year or so, I'm really pleased that the council has replaced them with good strong plastic boxes with lids for sorting and separating the recycling.

After a few weeks of using the boxes, I can say that they are excellent and far better then the old system. Horray!

All we need now is to switch from a 2-weekly landfill rubbish collection to a 3-weekly one, with recycling collected every week and I'll start to feel like recycling is really important.

It would be good too if it became cheaper for businesses to recycle than to landfill....

On another note, Elvington (and nearby) residents, have a look at this fantastic opportunity: Alpha in Elvington.

Doggy Bag

There's a lovely little bit of woodland near my office, with a footpath through it. I make a point of waking through it when going to and from the office - a bit of piece and quiet between the fast pace at work and home.

Lots of other people walk through that strip of Eden too; it's a regular for people walking dogs or simply taking a short-cut.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of plastic bags in it...nothing too unusual about that perhaps, but these plastic bags are full of dog poo!

Why oh why does [at least one of] the regular dog walkers "scoop" and then leave the plastic bag of dejecta on the path? It's not like there isn't a suitable bin at the end of the footpath, only 30 metres away from the growing pile!

What possible reason can there be for it? If you're man enough to do the hard bit and pick it up, surely you can carry it?

Smell Gas?

I've reported four (suspected) gas leaks in the road/pavement recently.  

It's quite easy to report them (after you have plucked up the courage to ring the "Gas Emergency Services" on a number ending in 999). What if they weren't really gas leaks...I hope there's no such charge as "wasting gasboard's time".

Outside, gas disperses so easily that the smell is quite faint. I wasn't sure if the smell was gas, or just a pretty flower or exhaust fumes.

I saw that they did dig up the road in at least one of the places I reported it, but that's the only feedback I got. It would be nice if they would give me a ring or write to just say "you were right, they were really gas leaks, oh and thanks". The lack of response makes me wonder if my nose is imagining things.

All four leaks were in busy streets and must have been passed by thousands of people. I've been noticing a faint smell of gas for months myself before reporting it.

If the gas companies really do care about gas leaks, there are two simple things they could do:

1. In their marketing for the gas "emergency" number, make it clear that you can call this number to report a leak, even if you don't think it's a life threatening emergency. 
2. Tell the people that report the leaks whether or not the leak was confirmed. Just tell me whether the smell was real or my imagination!

This is of course in contrast to Yorkshire water who did phone me up after reporting a water leak to confirm that it was a leak and thank me for reporting it.

Social Network

I have never tweeted, yet I have stacked up 40 followers. When you can't be bothered to even log in to block/delete the ones that are spam/pron ..it is time to close the account. I'm sure that the 37 won't miss me.

I log into facebook about once a month. I feel out of the loop.

I still use RSS lots; I keep up with some good blogs that way.

I might write here more frequently. A timely resolution.

Any the bathroom is about finished. Only the floor to tidy up and the hallway wall to fix.

Sinking issues

I learned two things over the weekend. 

1. At 3am Sunday morning, I learned that the toilet is close enough to the sink to provide a possible solution to simultaneously dealing with both symptoms of Gastroenteritis.

2. At 3:15am Sunday morning, I learned that the possible solution above isn't actually a very good one.

The sink is now out of order.

Apart from the illness delaying work, it's quite a setback to the bathroom progress because it looks like I'll have to remove the sink again.

All creatures great and small, and then there are wasps

I'm told (and Wikipedia says so too) that wasps are an important part of the biological cycle. Specifically, "Wasps are critically important in natural biocontrol. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that is a predator or parasite upon it. Parasitic wasps are also increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they have little impact on crops. Wasps also constitute an important part of the food chain.

However, I do find them to be the most intolerable of all the common forms of life that are found in the garden, county, city, park. Well, everywhere. There's just no escape. At this time of the year, you can't eat anything outside without at least one buzzing around.

I thought that we were OK living out in the countryside; for the past two years at least we have had relatively few. It was far worse in the city where there are lots of rubbish bins and other soft targets. 

However, this year we've been hit as well. Last week there were a dozen or so buzzing round the wheelie bin, which contained little more than dirty nappies. They somehow got inside too. Yesterday, there were at least fifty around our compost bin.

Later in the evening, I did turn the compost so that any food scraps in it were buried deep within, rather than being near the top. That certainly helped with the composting as well as wasp reduction; there were none near it today.

In looking for reasons (other then reminding me to turn the compost from time to time) to justify to myself why these things deserve a second chance at survival if they come near me, I search the internet and discover that there are many different kind of wasps.  The family Vespidae includes over 5000 different species of wasps. I'm sure you only see one or two kinds though, probably the familar looking Vespula vulgaris, the common wasp

I came across this forum question that says that wasps are good for getting rid of carcasses, and the BBC's article explaining how Teesiders should love wasps because they are good at recycling (erm..making nests out of chewed up wood).

I'm not convinced.

As I look into my garden tonight, I see lots of bees, hoverflies and other flying things all eagerly visiting all the flowers. They are so interested in the flowers don't even notice when I walk past. I'm glad they are enjoying them and I'm glad to help the dwindling bee population.

A solitary wasp floating near the bin (now empty) makes a wasp-line for me as I pass, I'm sure it's looking for a fight, stinger at the ready... If I had been suitably armed, that wasp would have not survived the night. Lucky for him, I was not.

Wasps: room 101.

Walking away

We've all read the books about how you must go into a negotiation knowing your walk away position. However, I find that it is rare to fail to reach an agreement, so you never really need your walk away position.

Today I discovered that there is something satisfying about walking away from a negotiation.

I was looking for a new pair of shoes. In the first shoe shop I found (Clarks), I found a nice pair of shoes at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, they don't have the right size for my foot. (This is no great surprise, I don't have a large sock.)

They do however have my size in this very similar pair at £70. They were indeed comfortable. I had aimed to get something under £50. In the current economic climate I decided to see if they would be tempted to reduce the price to get the sale.

You aren't meant to reveal your walk away position, but the salesman's generous offer of (shocked face) "we don't do discounts" didn't quite do it for me.

So I walked away, wearing my old, worn out shoes and a smug smile on my face. I'm sure there's some irony here.

The shop round the corner had an almost identical shoe for £20 less, which did me fine.

Grumpy Science

Are bus drivers grumpy? After a spate of particularly grumpy drivers a few weeks ago, I decided to do some science.

Hypothesis: most bus drivers are grumpy.

We'll need to know what grumpy means though.

Definition of Grumpy

Exhibits one or more of:

Facial expression is one of general displeasure

Makes a negative comment

Emits grunting sounds in a negative manner

Does not acknowledge the passenger except for dealing with ticket

Eye contact limited to glaring or frowning

Complains about something

Definition of Cheerful

Exhibits one or more of:

Smiles or has generally positive facial expression

Makes smalltalk, excluding where it consists mainly of grumbles or complaints

Emits a positive comment

Eye contact, excluding glaring or frowning at passenger

On each bus journey I take, I'll record whether the bus driver is grumpy or cheerful when I board the bus.

The results will appear in another post.

Moist Maker

If you ever saw the friends episode with Ross' sandwich and thought it sounded nice, I can confirm that it is in fact excellent, especially if warmed slightly in the microwave. Yum.

Christmas Presents

Great Christmas presents for the geek who has everything.

• Meccano 
• Lego
• Binary clock (for the living room!)
• Domino race
• Big garden loppers

I had a great Christmas! :)

(OK, the Lego wasn't actually for me.)

It's not Tetris

For the complainers that thought that the last entry was too techy, try this...

It's not Tetris, but what a great idea that anyone with children and building blocks can relate to!

99-bricks

Express Morning Delivery

It all happened fast, relatively speaking anyway. In a blur of NHS organisation, I very nearly delivered the package myself.

Despite us being in the hospital for four hours, a midwife could not be persuaded that we were reaching the end of labour (or take the time to check). Still, a head appearing pretty much made the point and then Daniel was born, 2.87kg (6lb5 in old money). All are doing well, and the hard bit begins (for me anyway).

Speaking of NHS organisation, you'd think that there would be a procedure (or at least a checklist, even a well-oiled routine) for something as important and as frequent as childbirth. Either the procedure has radically changed in the last three years, or everyone just makes it up as they go along and somehow things seem to turn out generally OK.

I am determined that this site does not become yet another series of rants, so I'll end by saying that most of the midwives that we encountered were great!

We don't have any plans to come back though.

Outdoor activities

We spent today panting: boobs and pants.

Apparently.

It's about time Jonathan learned to pronounce the letter L.

Outwit

My two-year old can memorise the location of every card turned over in the "memory" game, flawlessly. He's far better than me!

... Fortunately, his attention span is still a lot shorter than mine, he loses interest before he wins, so I'm still in with a chance.

What a waste

I overhead someone grumbling that they were 'fed up' with the two-weekly rubbish collection from the council; their bin, it seems, is always overflowing after one week, let alone two weeks (...)

Last week, being bank holiday, I completely forgot to put out our bin, so the chances are that after four weeks, it might almost be ready for collection.

With the recycling collections, how can anyone possibly fill a wheelie bin every week (or even every two)? What can they possibly find to throw away on that scale?

On a related note, now that Tesco have stopped giving out carrier bags, please will the recycling collection men stop taking our precious carrier bags that we put our recycling in for collection?

On a scale of Green to not Green

Keen to reduce our water usage (during that hot, dry week a few weeks ago) I ordered a water butt to use for watering the garden. It seems a good idea to use rain, instead of tap water in the watering can.

I fitted it yesterday and within 24 hours of unspectacular British summer, I had 100 litres of fresh rainwater. It's all very exciting.

But what have I actually saved? It cost quite a lot (£70) including a downpipe so that I could put the water butt where I wanted.

I use about 5 watering cans (of 5 litres) to water the garden, that's 25 litres. If I do that 30 times per year (assuming that there is sufficient water in the butt) then 750 litres per year. It doesn't seem an awful lot.

To put things in perspective,

• Apparently, having a shower uses 35 litres, flushing the toilet uses 8 litres, so that puts me on about 22,000 litres per year, just from the bathroom.


• The average water consumption per person is about 140 litres per day, so 51,100 litres per year.


• A few weeks ago I reported to Yorkshire water that there was a water leak on a busy road in York. It had been leaking for about 6 months. Judging from the amount of water that was going upwards to the road this leak might have been far wetter than our dining room roof during drizzle. So guessing at 200 litres per day, that is 73,000 litres per year.
  

Ironically, I got stuck in the traffic jam on Sunday caused by the water company fixing the leak.

Pure Brilliant White

The problem with painting skirting boards is that when you finish one, there is always another one, or a door frame, or a stair rail. The job is never done.

After painting all evening, I'm worried that the probability of accidentally leaning/kicking touching one of them before they are dry is rapidly approaching 1.

I'm Swimming in the Rain

When it rains, the attendants at the outdoor swimming pool (that we can see from our office) call the people indoors.

We've joked about it being to stop them getting wet, but we now wonder if it's because the life-guards don't want to get wet (presumably not getting wet is not in the job-spec of a lifeguard!)

Jobs

I was once in the routine of doing one "DIY" job every day, perhaps only something small each day, but something. It was a good routine because it got things done and I didn't spend the whole evening in front of a laptop writing reports.

I don't know how I got out of the routine, perhaps one day there were no jobs to do(!)

There certainly are jobs now, however. I am hoping that by writing this down I'll stick to it this time.

Sunday: garage door frame undercoat.
Monday: garage door frame topcoat.
Tuesday: err. TBA

In case I "can't" think of anything one night, here are a few things to keep me going:

• fix that annoying bit of skirting board that keeps coming off


• paint the gloss in the dining room


• water butt


• paint that bit of polyfilla by the dining room window


• put some trellis by the compost


• floor of downstairs loo


• gloss paint in downstairs loo


• put up coving in living room


• paint coving


• fix loft hatch


• paint loft hatch


• move header tanks in loft (probably several evenings...)


• knock down the wall in our garden


• check the sealant around the sink


• write a new list

And exams aren't getting easier...

1 mark for spelling and 1 for an inspirational insight.