Nice People Thread Number 10 -the official residence of Nice People

Itismehonest

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'm always bemused when I am in a lane that gets narrower and narrower, so the bushes are brushing the car on either side and suddenly ...... there's only a driveway and two signs "Private Property" - fair do's, it's their garden.... and "No Turning"..... as if, at that point, I've a choice. If they'd put a sign up earlier saying "Dead End, No Turning" I'd have not found myself there.

Not one of the b*gg**s who opens our gate to turn round on our drive, are you?
They could drive right down the lane but they chicken out.
They could reverse up the lane but they can't, apparently, reverse without bouncing off the banks :wall:
Ah, the joys of living in a tourist area.

Itismehonest

Generali wrote: »

We get 3 bins: recycling, rubbish and green.

Rubbish goes every week and the other 2 on alternate weeks.

There is an Aussie tradition known as the 'bin run'. If you have a lot of rubbish you go round the neighbour's bins at dusk topping them up.

We are not allowed to tip the bin men. A slab of beer (24 bottles) used to be the norm though.

On top of that we get 2-4 times a year 'council clear up' where you stick you old junk out on the kerbside. The council chuck it out for you however if anyone spots something of value before the council comes round they'll reuse or recycle it. TVs get stripped of their cords for the copper, bikes etc are taken to be done up and sold. I have a large cupboard with drawers in my garage which provides very helpful storage that I picked up from the kerb. The kids had a plastic playground thing for a while that we picked up too.

Similar thing happens here except you have to make arrangements with the Council to collect. They'll only do it twice a year.
As we live in the sticks we don't get a green wheelie for garden stuff but we have a green box for recycling bottles & plastic, a green bag for paper, a brown bag for cardboard (recycling collected weekly) & the dreaded black wheelie for rubbish which is collected fortnightly. Oh, & a brown compost caddy & black compost bin.
That's the easy bit.

As a normal bin lorry can't get here, they come round in a little pick-up with a cage on the back so the rubbish can't actually be put in the wheelie (they can't tip it out) & so we are given black bags.
Apparently, we are meant to put the wheelie outside on the lane but get the bags out & leave them beside the wheelie. Are you keeping up with this?;)
Anyway, as the foxes & birds eventually discovered there was treasure to be found under the sheet we used to cover the black bags with I rang the Council & was told I could put the rubbish out in an old-fashioned dustbin & it would be emptied.
Anyone else wondering why a fortune was spent on wheelies, brown caddies, brown bags, green boxes, green bags, compost bins etc. when the old black refuse bag & dustbin works just fine & isn't comparable in the eyesore stakes?

PasturesNew

Itismehonest wrote: »

Not one of the b*gg**s who opens our gate to turn round on our drive, are you?
They could drive right down the lane but they chicken out.
They could reverse up the lane but they can't, apparently, reverse without bouncing off the banks :wall:
Ah, the joys of living in a tourist area.

I'd never open a gate! I prefer to turn round if the lane's twisty/narrow and half a mile long.

lostinrates

Have to say, wheelies are much easier to put out though, I leave ours out near the bit where we park and put the rubbish in it on way out to yard when I go, then just wheel it out when needed.. Lugging bins out much harder. When I was a kid one of the reasons I was allowed to drive the car off road was to drive the bin bags down the long drive when i was home. Horrid stinky job.

Itismehonest

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd never open a gate! I prefer to turn round if the lane's twisty/narrow and half a mile long.

You'd be surprised how many people do. DH got so peed off with it that we went through a stage of padlocking the gate :rotfl: He got fed up with having to remember to take the key when he wanted to go out, though :beer:
Walking Joe Public has even been known to open the gate & come in to rest on a garden bench which we used to have beside our ponds :mad:
I'm glad I don't live in Clovelly. Joe Public regularly let themselves in through the front door there. At least I've only had that happen once in nearly 30 years.

lostinrates

Opening a gate is rather rich. I think I'd be locking them too.



We've been making sweet things. Just making them has made me feel a bit queasy, but DH has marshmallow bowl licking going on.

I don't know what we are going to do with all the Florentines either.

Itismehonest

lostinrates wrote: »

Have to say, wheelies are much easier to put out though, I leave ours out near the bit where we park and put the rubbish in it on way out to yard when I go, then just wheel it out when needed.. Lugging bins out much harder. When I was a kid one of the reasons I was allowed to drive the car off road was to drive the bin bags down the long drive when i was home. Horrid stinky job.

Ah but you don't live on a 1-in-4 hill, LIR. If I left mine out the neighbour at the bottom of the hill would quickly become the local wheelie bin collector

lostinrates

Itismehonest wrote: »

Ah but you don't live on a 1-in-4 hill, LIR. If I left mine out the neighbour at the bottom of the hill would quickly become the local wheelie bin collector

Lol, no, we don't.

We used to live ona steep hill e though, but we had a level drive going of it, cut into the bank, so we could wedge the bins against the bank there. (It did go down the hill once only that I remember in weather, and the neighbour at the bottom of the hill brought it back......memorable event not because of the hill nor the bin, but because the neighbour did a good deed..). In fact, in retrospect neighbour wasprobably complaining about our bin, not being kind bringing it back, but he was greeted like a hero none the less. :rotfl:


Flat here is great. The wind these last weeks has meant I've put a bit of baler tine on the wheely handle and looped it under and over a rail and over a post of the fence so it can wave about a bit but not run down the road to the next village. Fine when its full....when its empty its a different kettle of fish!

Yorkie1

Generali wrote: »

If it's just for you I'd consider getting a Remoska as well as a standard single oven with the features you want.

I've found that the more expensive ovens tend to have more accurate temperature and if you bake that can be important. Miele ovens are fantastic if you can stretch to them. Otherwise Zanussi/Electrolux products tend to offer plenty of bang for the buck.

A Remoska is great for one or two people. Slow cookers are a good alternative too if you make a lot if stews. Both are cheap to buy, cheap to run and give great results.

Thanks, Gen. I have a slow cooker but struggle to be sufficiently organised to use it as much as I should ...

I picked up a Zanussi brochure at a local Euronics store this afternoon, and their sparky is coming round later in the week to give me a quote for the hard wiring work - so I know what I'm dealing with to start with.

Generali wrote: »

There is an Aussie tradition known as the 'bin run'. If you have a lot of rubbish you go round the neighbour's bins at dusk topping them up.

There's been on-off fuss here in the UK about councils considering whether to charge residents for waste collection according to the weight of their rubbish. People got very hot under the collar about the Big Brother nature of this, and of course you can't prevent other residents minimising their cost by upping yours ...

So far, it hasn't seen the light of day, for which I'm very grateful!

lostinrates

DH and I were just talking about how much money we save not having kids.

I mentioned that there was (I know this from MSE) a 'Harry potter world'' and its expensive and DH asked how much tickets were and I just looked than up and he agreed with me it was expensive.

Then said, 'Do we know any kids who'd want to go if we took them? I mean.....I'd quite like to...but....you'd need kids to look reasonable wouldn't you, .'

I think he missed my original point.