20241 replies to this topic

[corenfa]

As the neighbour of a pianist,a clarinetist and a violinist, I can tell you that any stuff I hear from them usually is just background the way I might hear a telly on in the background. I certainly am not consciously listening out for them with a critical ear

[Violin Hero]

As the neighbour of a pianist,a clarinetist and a violinist, I can tell you that any stuff I hear from them usually is just background the way I might hear a telly on in the background. I certainly am not consciously listening out for them with a critical ear

My experience is the same. I used to have a neighbor with kids who played the piano. I could hear them playing it it but paid no attention to it and it didn't bother me at all as long as it was not at stupid o'clock. 

[Banjogirl]

My quartet always rehearse at the same house. Just before we arrive the neighbours always go out! It must really bug them when we change our rehearsal night.

[Dr. Rogers]

I'm sitting at my desk in tears.  An apparently deranged arsonist has attacked the studios of Kyoto Animation in Kyoto, Japan.  The BBC is reporting 33 deaths, with many more in hospital, some in critical condition.

 

Kyoto Animation has a high reputation in the industry and in the fandom.  They have been pushing the limits of the medium over the past several years, really raising the bar on art and storytelling.

 

I feel the same way I did when Notre Dame burned, maybe even more so because of the deaths of many people whose work has brought me so much happiness over the years.

[Gran'piano]

Originally this would have been a 'Happy Day' one as the main road over our local pass is closed for several weeks. This means there's a lot less traffic in my way as I get near the autobahn on my bike. However, this morning it became an Aaargggh as obviously the GPS shows a 'backway' which avoids both the closed pass road and the twenty kilometre official diversion. And that 'backway' is a lovely quiet stretch of steep road through the woods - and part of one of my circuits. 

Slight compensation is the look on the folks' faces when they have crossed the narrow bridge at the bottom and are suddenly faced with a 12% slope, and again  when they come out of the woods at the top and see nothing which resembles the sort of road they were expecting. The little things in life...

[Aquarelle]

Beware – this is a rant !

When we first moved here we had to take our rubbish down to the centre of the hamlet and put it in a large container. After a while we got 2 containers and were asked to put household rubbish in one and recyclable rubbish in the other. We also had a glass bank. This worked for several years. Then each household was issued with a grey bin for household and a yellow bin for recyclable and collections were once a week – two lorries so you put out both bins on the same day – if they were full.

 

The new  “improved” version began a year ago. We were all issued with a calendar and told that collections would now only be once a fortnight and not on the same day. It fell to us to have to put our grey bin out Thursday evening for collection early Friday morning and our yellow bin out Sunday evening for collection early Monday morning.

 

Now having to sort the rubbish when you have a big house means having quite a few indoor bins. In fact you need two in each room which is used. So we have 2 in the shower room, 2 in the bathroom, 2 in my study, 2 in the home hospital room where my companion now lives, 2 in the kitchen and even 2 in the garage. We also have to have a container for used batteries, another for used ink cartridges and a couple of boxes for glass. Of course these are not all full every fortnight but the ones in the kitchen are. Rubbish starts to loom large in one’s life!

 

The council provided grey container  has to have the rubbish in black bags. Only there are no black bags on the market that fit it. My solution was to use 100L bags and to tie up one of the handles and ease the bag over one corner of the bin so that it remained open and I could put things in it as well as empty the contents of the 50L kitchen dustbin in when this was full.  So far so good. However my partner being bedridden, uses  quite a lot of disposable stuff which is bulky. This means  I usually have three 100L  bags to squash in each fortnight. We are not allowed to put in so much that the lid won’t close and I am always careful to manage that.

 

This week I made a mistake. I have been doing a lot of clearing up since the holiday began and was at maximum rubbish level. I had one closed bag at the bottom of the bin  and one above it, tied up to keep it open. Only when I put the third bag in I clean forgot to untie and close the middle bag. I lugged the container up to the gate on Thursday and went to get it back when I took the yellow one up this morning. And I found that the dustmen had left the two lower bags in the container. Now, OK it was my mistake. But it would have taken him a matter of seconds to realise that the middle bag didn’t fall into the lorry, to pull the wire undone, close the bag and empty the rest of the bin. It was obviously just a mistake and not done to be awkward. However our dustmen go through the village at break neck speed and I suppose it is too much to ask of them to be a little concerned for their clients. I now have one third of a household dustbin to last me a fortnight.

 

I have always done everything we are asked to do to make the dustmen’s passage easy. I have always put my bins where they can stop their lorry without  blocking the road. I have always put the handle facing the road, as we are asked to do, even though I am not keen on doing that as the bins have a large label with the resident’s name printed and this is then on the roadside for anyone to read. So from now on I shall leave the bins where it suits me and I will not put the handle on the road side. I have never overfilled my bins but I am going to compress the rubbish as hard as I can – every last cubic centimetre of it. And I am not going to tell anyone where I will put the rubbish I can’t get into the bin this week.

 

I have been becoming progressively greener and more concerned for the planet but I get very angry when the powers that be tell us that fortnightly collections are so much better than weekly ones and when the dustmen couldn’t care less what difficulties they give the people for whom they are supposed to be providing a service.

 

Well, now I’ve got that off my chest! And  please don’t anyone mention the “improved” services of banks which means that you pay them more for the privilege of doing  more of their work yourself!

[Hedgehog]

Commiserations Aquarelle.  Not a good situation.

We have 5 bins. 1 general rubbish, 1 food waste, 1 glass/cans/plastic of certain types, 1 green for garden stuff which we have to pay extra for and some black boxes for paper/card. There is a regimen where they are collected on alternate weeks.   We have a calendar to follow.  Generally we line the bins up on one side of our house entrance and we can therefore manage to drive in and out without difficulty. However the bin men regularly leave the emptied bin or bins in the middle of the drive - great if you're out   so when you come in you have to partially turn into driveway, stop across the path, still sticking out into the road to stop other traffic, and move the bins before you can complete the manoeuvre into the driveway.  We live on a fairly main road which can be busy at times.  We have seen other residents writing about this problem in a local forum, and before the local newspaper "died" they would regularly write to let off steam.

Good luck with condensing a fortnight's rubbish. 

[PatC]

I'd just like to speak up for Hackney (north London) here.  I have 3 types of waste - food waste in a blue caddy, mixed recyclables all together in a green plastic sack, and "other" which in my case is in a black bin bag.    Many people live in flats with no personal outside space and therefore little room for dustbins, so just put the bags on the street the night before bin day, which is weekly.    There is also a garden waste system of brown bins or bags, which is fortnightly, and you are allowed to request a limited no (2 a year?) of special collections of large things.

 

There is an unofficial system whereby people also put out things they think other people might use, so they are visible to the passer-by, sometimes with a note on them  eg. to say they are still working, or perhaps an instruction manual.  These usually disappear very quickly.  I assume people on the lookout do the rounds of the streets in the evening before bin day.

 

Unfortunately some people take the mickey and put out stuff that attracts vermin,  like half empty fast food containers, the night before, in which case there can be a lot of ripped green sacks and scattered contents after the foxes and magpies have paid a visit.  I am amazed the way the chaps deal with this random stuff put out, and not bagged up properly; they usually take it all, apart from the really outrageous things.  And a road sweeper often comes round to deal with any leftovers.

 

The main fly in the ointment is people who put out their bags an hour after the bin men have called; very annoying.

[Banjogirl]

Aquarelle, that sounds like a bit of a nightmare. Here in Selby District we have good, clear recycling and rubbish rules. Anything goes in the general bin, including any hens that have died. Ours is filthy inside but it's a bin! Glass, tins, plastic, paper and garden waste all go in their separate boxes at no extra charge. Recycling and rubbish collected alternate weeks. It's an excellent system creating no extra waste of plastic bags. The bin men will take extra paper if it's in a cardboard box that they can put in the lorry. Every year the council tells us how and where the recyclables are processed, nearly all locally. It's one of the things they do really well round here.

[Banjogirl]

Aquarelle, do you have tips in France like we have here? If we have any extra rubbish I can always take it to the tip where nearly everything is separated and recycled, and it's free to use.

[SingingPython]

Aquarelle, in our area certainly and I think it would be common, you can request extra bins or other arrangements if you have medical or other needs that lead to more rubbish or recycling.  Can you enquire about any special provisions that could be made that would help?

[Gran'piano]

Beware – this is a rant !

 Rubbish starts to loom large in one’s life!

 

Sounds really horrific. What I love most about it all is that just as one has got it hacked (and made sure that other members of the household know that we don't put out ordinary rubbish in an ordinary rubbish bag!) the powers that be think up a new method and we start again. The normal rubbish ruling has just be altered again. Only special surcharges rubbish bags are accepted. Tied and put into special containers, the contents of which are collected once a week, officially on Friday but being Swiss and 'over-punctual',  they actually collect them on Thursday.

Fortunately we have a cellar which means that we keep plastic, PET, broken crockery, Wood, metal, glass, tins, cardboard and DANGEROUS CHEMICALS down there in separate containers until there is so much around that we cannot get through to the winerack...and we go up to the Collection Point with a carful. The car is driven onto the scales and after you have emptied the boot putting everything in its correct container there, you go onto  the scales again. You pay per kilo. If you are wise, you make very sure you remove any electrical goods before weighing though, as you pay a charge for their disposal when you buy them (deters folk from dumping them in the forests) so they are 'free' at the Collection Place. Newspapers are collected once a month and there is a container in one of the garages where we can put them, neatly tied with string, not more than 15cms high and weighing five? kilos.

The dangerous chemicals (paint and stuff) one takes down to the town on special dates a couple of times a year. First time I went, I was very surprised at how nice they were - accepting my very large bag of sundry paints, thinners and other suspicious looking liquids (several of them having long since lost their labels) - with a smile and a thank you.  I had rather expected a serious telling off in good Swiss manner.

I'd forgotten how complicated this all is...  my memory is not failing after all.

 

My sympathy goes out to Aquarelle in particular. Hope you find a good solution some time in the near future.

[Banjogirl]

I've got shingles.

[Latin pianist]

Have you caught it early enough to have medication? You're the third person I've heard of with it recently. Sympathies as it can be unpleasant but let's hope yours is a mild case.

[Banjogirl]

Thanks. Yes, I'm on the anti-virals which will hopefully lessen it.