Twice a year we have a general clean up service from the council in addition to our normal household waste collection. These collections bring out some strange activities.

There are the people who slowly cruise the streets, checking out other people’s rubbish piles, taking the stuff they think they can salvage (and hopefully not messing up the rest of the pile too much).

There are the people who, EVERY collection, seem to put out half a household worth of rubbish (I’m wondering if they’re actually the same people as above, who get home with their loot and think “Wait a minute - this rubbish is RUBBISH!”).

And there are the ships in the night, the people who come and add their rubbish to someone else’s pile in the middle of the night, so you get up the next morning to find your bag of green waste and cardboard box of old magazines has suddenly expanded to include a broken television, half a dolls pram and a suitcase of moldy clothing.

I’m feeling pretty pathetic this week, no-one has even slowed down to peruse my pile, I guess it really is junk *sniff*.