Trash to Treasure.

 
It's Belly's birthday this week and last night we had what I reckon was a bit of a landmark conversation!! Bell promised to throw something OUT!!!

It is time for the 'Kerb-side Collection', which is when everyone stacks up all their crap on the footpath and then on a date published well in advance, the Council come along and take it all away.

The truth is though that the collection takes place well after the stuff has been picked over by all and sundry and the posher the suburb the more pickers there are.

Belly had been out and finally found a handle the right size for her vacuum cleaner, which she has been using while shuffling along on her knees and which could possibly have been found last time there was a 'clean up'. I might have made this up, but it is certainly possible.

I remember when I was packing up my house at Camp Hill to go back to live in London, that the timing was ripe for a collection, so I stacked things neatly on the footpath. Steve was there and thought the whole idea was a bit twee. One morning as I was leaving I noticed that my neat little pile had been well and truly disturbed and that a box of books had been taken. I was unaware at the time that this was usual practice, but was pleased with the idea that someone was going to be able to use the books. But bugger me if the next morning, the bloody box was returned and just thrown higgley piggely back onto the pile. Apparently the picker was a bit of a book buff and the pickings from my place were just not up to scratch. I have never been able to work out why they brought them back, they could have more easily just popped 'em outside their place, so I suppose they wanted me to know that my stuff was such shit that even for free no one wanted it.

So anyway when I suggested that Belly could do with a new dining table for her birthday, she got a bit excited but then we negotiated that she would in fact pop the other poor old neglected piece of pooh outside for the pickers to have a go at. It is more than a little frayed at the edges and I reckon some visitors could well have come to harm from the sharpies and the splinters. She is not keen on throwing out stuff EVER, especially if she can imagine a time when it might become useful even in another form, so this was quite a coup and a damn fine indication of the rootedness of said table.

I am truly hoping that her pickings do not amount to more than the tired old rickety table. We will see on Thursday.

I don't know how I bred such a greenie.