Monday 28th July 2025 - A Coincidence? and Growth

Regular readers of my blog will be aware of the problems we experienced last year, in the village, with full rubbish bins and more accumulating around the bases.  I used NNDC’s online reporting form to make them aware of the problem.  I asked them to clear the rubbish; they basically ignored the problem and over the coming days, the situation got worse.  This happened several times until their inability to make sure the bins were emptied during peak holiday period, wound me up.  I decided I was wasting my time and decided not to bother submitting any further forms.

Now into summer 2025 and we’re in peak holiday period again and guess what, the bins have not been emptied and once again been overflowing with a variety of litter around the bases.  What to do?  I definitely wasn’t going to use the NNDC online reporting form again but thought I would see if Fix My Street could solve the problem.  So far, I have reported four problems in the village to them and all have been fixed.  Yesterday morning I took photos of four of the bins in the village, which hadn’t been emptied for about four days and as a result had rubbish spewing out from the top, three of which had litter around the base.  Back home I submitted four separate forms for the four different locations to Fix My Street.  Out walking around the village in the afternoon, I was surprised to see all the bins in question had been emptied and surrounding litter removed.  This leaves me with the question, was this a result of me reporting the problems or was it just a coincidence and the council were going to come out to empty bins anyway?  I don’t suppose I will ever know but if I see the bins overflowing again for several days, I will definitely be back on Fix My Street’s website.

Despite the weeks of dry weather with just the occasional shower, there has been a fair bit of growth in our garden.  Shrubs have needed regular trimming and the fruits on the greengage are large and will hopefully be juicy when they’re ripe and ready to pick next month.  With very few apples falling during the period of the ‘June drop’, we should get a good crop.  However, despite hanging a pheromone trap in the branches I would be surprised if some of the apples have not have been invaded by codling moths.  All this points to it being just the surface of the soil which has dried and that there are good sources of moisture further down.  We know we have a couple of streams running under our garden, as they make their way towards the cliffs.  It is probably these which are benefitting the deep-rooted plants and trees in our garden.

Today’s photo is of one of the four bins mentioned above.  Not exactly the most exciting picture but it shows the unacceptable mess outside the public conveniences on Pauls Lane car park.