Squeezeweasel

I’ve been doing this daily for two months now, so I suppose I can tick it off the list. It’s really been worth it – the garden is full of birds. We’ve had some really interesting ones visiting, too; some goldfinches, long-tailed tits, wrens, a lot of tree sparrows (which don’t sound interesting, but they’re on the red list), and a sparrowhawk (who came specifically to eat one of the sparrows . . .).

It’s important to feed them all year round, not just in winter. Food can be scarce even when the sun is shining. Bird food is not expensive, and if you go to a pet superstore you can get 10kg sacks of wild bird seed for very little money.

The compost bin is nearly full to overflowing, and I was expecting another two Green Waste bags for compostable materials from the council waste contractors yesterday morning. (It was their recycling collection day.) My black paper/glass recycling boxes were returned, but they didn’t leave any new Green Waste bags.

I’ve had to call the council again (second time in just over two months) to get them to call the contractors to give us some bags. Very frustrating – they’re going to be having to make an extra trip to our village just to drop them off, which is wasteful in itself.

I have just tidied all the old papers off my desk. I’m an editor, and I end up printing off great reams of stuff, marking them up on paper, doing dull stuff with some typesetting software, and then leaving them on the desk.

It was like geological strata down there, all in descending date order. I recycled the lot (and archived a few bits), and found:

• Three CDs
• A hairband
• £3.45
• A teaspoon
• A lipsalve
• A birthday card I received four months ago with an amusing kitten on it
• Vitamin pills

I am now wondering whether to keep on top of it or whether to let it build up again and enjoy the surprises I find when I next excavate it.