Scribbling #22: Rubbish

Well.  It's about rubbish, not that it is going to be rubbish, so bear with me.

Anyway.

Over the past week or so, I have had the exquisite pleasure in following a couple of rubbish trucks to work on two separate occasions.  This post may seem boring so far, but still, stay with me here.  The first time around wasn't so bad, until I noticed the large branches, and here I mean branches, not mere twigs or pieces of sapling, but big, proper, huge, neolithic (I just liked that word just now, totally inappropriate that it is, but hey, it is twelve past midnight) pieces of wood that flew out of the top of the truck, thankfully to one side into a ditch and not going through my windscreen (translation for Canadians and other exotic species of mammal: windshield, because it shields the wind, not rain or anything else, obviously) and impaling me (translation for Canadians blah blah blah: VIP).

My first reaction to this was unprintable.

My second was to overtake said truck, which I successfully did and carried on with my day, such as it was.

The second time around I was travelling towards our new home that we're currently destro- er, 'renovating'.  On this occasion, large bits of white polystyrene were coming out of the truck and since it's light, said polystyrene was being taken by the wind and being thrown at me and my *cough* our  car.  Cue driving over one large piece and having the satisfying effect of seeing it, in the rear view mirror, explode into a million pieces, forming a polystyrene hailstorm into the driver behind me.

After that piece of inconsequential drama, and after working at the house, tidying up the rubble that was a result of Mrs. C's and our friend's 'modifications', it feels to me that a few things are different already in just being in the process of living in a village.  We've already met our neighbours, the old lady down the road, the grandmother of the next door neighbours and her rather aggressively friendly dog.  We've lived in our flat in Sala since February and we know the crazy post woman (no judgment, but she is mental) and the other lady who likes shouting at Christina every now again about cleaning the stairs. That's about it.  Oh, we have friends in Sala who live outside the flat, but there's something good about walking next door and just saying 'hi'.  A flat encloses you, you only see people go up and down stairs or in and out of cars.  Unless you do a barbecue on the balcony and everybody thinks the place is on fire, nobody will say anything other than a 'mornin'' to you.  And that last sentence is someone else's story.

And its always handy to have someone around with a mini-JCB, just in case.  Well, it is in our village.  You should see how much polystyrene we have to get rid of...