Storm warning

I'm battening down the hatches, putting sandbags around the doors, disconnecting the tv and radio and I'll not read any newspapers or news sites on the Interweb. Somebody email me to let me know when the last whine about global warming causing some pretty routine bad weather, the like of which we've not seen in this country ever at all over the past ooooh, several thousand years, has passed. High winds, bit of rain, bit of damage. Get over it.

Elsewhere...



Re the post below. Inspired by the collecting litter thing and willing to do my bit, I gathered together two willing slaves, nephews young Luke and younger Adam, several plastic bags and one of those picky claw things. We were aiming at the 150 yards between this house and the crossroads, a stretch of road that has been blighted for many years by those for whom carrying something while not eating or drinking it is a distinct challenge. Half an hour later we'd got 50 yards down the road and got this much. We came back, got some more bags and carried on. After another hour and a brief excursion into the wood after Luke saw some cans there, we'd tripled the amount. There must have been 200 cans, mostly Tango and manky cider and a large horse feed bag of plastic bottles. We gave up on the other rubbish, we couldn't carry it all.


There were a couple of intriguing finds. Three identical small bottles of vodka both in the ditch and the wood. In the wood I can understand, the roadside not. We're not plagued by groups of roaming drunken teenagers so who exactly dumps those? Drivers? Many of the cans of cider were in carrier bags, knotted and thrown into the ditch but nearly always with a Tango can. Is this a new cocktail? There was a brand new aluminium flask, the kind cyclists use, complete with orange juice contents. Some cans were slightly older. The picture below shows Luke retrieving a couple of plastic bags he saw poking out from beneath the leaves. It was another old Tesco bag, two in fact and both in excellent condition. Their contents were something I'd not seen around for some time either. About a dozen Courage Light Ale cans, the black and blue ones if you're familiar. The ring-pull shape made me look for the best-before date: June 1986. I saw a can poking out from the leaves around the base of a tree trunk. A Top Deck Limeade and Lager can, in perfect nick (I preferred the shandy myself - not more than 0.2 percent proof, I seem to remember, used to get one at the Co-Op before getting on the bus home from school. 5p). Must have been about 25 years old. I crushed them all and immediately regretted it because I reckoned I could have got rid of them on Ebay for decent return. I've sold worse, you'd be amazed at what people collect. These monkeys don't realise what they're chucking away half the time.

Wind's getting up.