A good use for A210 or AA316 course cds.

I have discovered an excellent use for my Open University course cd's. They are now hanging from my runner bean poles and cloches in order to scare away any thieving birds that might take a fancy to my lettuce, French beans or cucumbers.

As I tied them up with green gardening twine a smile played across my lips. I wonder what the stuffy course guests who appear on said cds would say if they knew they were relegated to an allotment in Hertfordshire, swinging in the breeze??

All the pretentious twaddle they spouted and now they are flashes of sunlight reflecting on my marigolds, clicks of plastic on bamboo as they tap against my canes...

Recycling jobsworths ... idiots.

Right. Another day and another thing that has riled me... What is going on? I am usually such a happy bunny! I got home from work to discover that the bin men had refused to take one of my bins. We have various bins here - one for card, food, garden waste. One for glass, tins, plastics. One for paper. They had left the one that is full of paper in an insert box and plastic, glass and tins in the main bin.

Their reason for the refusal? Their reason for the large label on my bin marking it as Toxic?? They had found one sheet of A4 paper in the main bit of the bin. Yes, you read correctly.... ONE SHEET OF A4 PAPER.

Can you believe that? Two weeks worth of recycling, carefully sorted and one sheet of paper in the main bin instead of the insert box means that we have to wait another two weeks. I don't even know where the paper came from. It could have come from a passer by opening my bin and throwing the paper in.

I am so cross. What is wrong with these people?? Are they such jobsworths that they have to be so anal over things?? I could understand if we were abusing the system - not recycling, or putting any old thing in our bins... but ONE SHEET OF PAPER??!!

My sister in law lives 5 minutes away and does not recycle food at the moment. She just chucks it all in the bin to go to landfill. I separate all my stuff - plastic, glass, tins, paper. Bloody nora ... I work hard to do it right. And these idiots leave me with a bin full of stuff.

I have emailed them and will phone them tomorrow to try and appeal to their sense of fairness. But I don't hold out much hope. I will let you know.

Goodbye Gift Wrap - hello Imagination, Recycling and Beautification!

For quite a while now I have been into recycling and my aim is to train my family to do the same.We are pretty close to h aving nothing in our landfill bin - it all goes in the recycling.One thing that has irked me for a while now, though, is ... wrapping. Having had my birthday yesterday I am an authority on the wrapping paper usages of my friends and family.

One of my friends gave me half a dozen eggs from her own chickens. They came in a much used egg box which I thought was really cool.Most people, including myself, use wrapping paper. I was really interested today then to read this article by Razmataz about 'not wrapping'. She gives some really lovely ideas for gift giving and decorating.

If you click on this link you can go to her site and see some of her ideas. I hope you enjoy - I am certainly going to be using them.