Five months exactly!

Hiya again

Today it's five months exactly that I arrived in this lovely town on the western edge of Scotland. Wow!

To celebrate the day -- a glorious, warm sunny day -- I spent much of the afternoon out of doors. I've long wanted to remove litter both ancient and recent from where stupid people stuck it between the outer fence and a wire-mesh fence that separates our garden (it's more like a weedy wilderness, actually, but a garden nonetheless) from a lane linking the road to the north of our house with a well-established housing estate beyond the stream to the south.
The way many Scots treat their environment, you'd think they lived on rubbish dumps -- I find it simply appalling.
While I was extricating tiny bits of aluminium foil, plastic so ancient it was disintegrating into tiny fragments as I pulled at it, lots of drinks cans, broken pens and lighters, bottle caps, shards of glass, crisp packs full of smelly water, I spoke to a few people walking past me. Some of them, mostly older people, were full of praise while some young ones politely said "Hiya" or "Hullo". Some of them I asked to not throw litter away on the ground, ever, anywhere, but take it to the nearest bin and they earnestly promised to do that. Most young ones just walked past pretending, as their generation tend to do, that they or I did not exist. Some of them I greeted with a smile, hoping that at least a vague memory of a slightly crazy elderly woman picking litter off the ground will perhaps jog a few grey cells next time they want to toss something away.

Nice to know, however, that I'm not the only one to be on the litter-picking warpath. When I went for a walk afterwards -- skiving, really, but I just couldn't work indoors on such a splendid evening --, I came across a man who was picking up litter: crisp packs, drinks bottles, plastic bags. As this slowed him down I caught up with and spoke to him -- doing what's here called "having a wee blether". He takes his three dogs for a walk twice daily over by the sports fields and picks a bag of litter each time. Much less during the holiday period.

In at least one previous post I mentioned a lovely rocky outcropping nearby, from which one can enjoy a glimpse of the sea north of Oban, and overlook the whole town, all the playing fields and the glen east of our house. Well, I had been wondering why it was always so litter-free, which is not what one would expect in an area so close to the school. The man I blethered with today confirmed that he picks the litter off that hillock on a daily basis, which is why the place is so neat.

In actuality, he and I are doing what the council should be doing, and what the teachers should be telling the kids to do...