belgianwaffle

Archives for January 2015

Glamour, Excitement, Bins*


Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Ireland

Bin services in Dublin have been privatised and are no longer provided by the city council.

This has led to much woe, not least of it related to the truly phenomenal amount of dumping of domestic refuse in lanes around the city. Apparently the private contractors are not as willing to continue providing for rubbish collection when the punters do not pay. I happen to know that the city council will provide this service free of charge for 5 years as that is the length of time they continued to collect bins from our tenants while we lived in Brussels – happily collecting the bins while the tenants happily ignored the bills and reminders. When we terminated the lease, said farewell to the tenants and moved back to our house, the city council presented us with a steep bill for rubbish collection for the previous five years and refused to collect our bin until we paid it. Appeals to the (departed) tenants were unavailing and we ended up having to fork out a fortune.

While this did not leave me with any particular affection for the council regime, the move to private providers has been appalling for us. Greyhound, the only bin company which serviced our last house regularly forgot to collect the bins at all. Mr. Waffle had to ring them most weeks. They only began collecting your bins when you had made payments in advance. But they didn’t tell you that. It was shambolic. When we moved house we had the option of another company and we transferred with delight to Oxigen (I don’t know why they spell it that way but please don’t think I can’t spell oxygen) and all has been sweetness and light until today when they did not collect the bin. Mr. Waffle called them. “Oh sorry, you should have got a letter, we are no longer collecting from your area, we have transferred your account and your credit to City Bin.” Call to City Bin follows. They don’t do our area. Oxigen agree to mediate with City Bin to persuade them to cover us. Oxigen will do one last pick up for us. In fact, it looks like there is only one provider who will service our area. Oh excellent, we’re back with Greyhound.

The free market is not doing it for me. Total disclosure requires that I reveal that privatisation of city bin services in Cork has created no problems whatsoever. Cork is perfect, though.

*Only two of these words are relevant to the content of the post. Honestly, could this be more exciting?

Weekend Round-Up


Posted in: Boys, Dublin, Family, Ireland, Michael

On Saturday we went to an old friend’s house for lunch. We’ve lost touch a bit over the years for no reason really just continuing our busy lives. It was delightful but, regrettably, we can never have them back as their house is undoubtedly the tidiest and one of the most beautiful we have visited. I particularly admired the floors which were varnished and had no gaps between the planks. They made the builders re-lay them as “you could see the foil backing of the insulation underneath in the gaps!” As I sit here looking at the foil backing in the insulation visible in the gaps between my floorboards, I can’t help wishing that Mr. Waffle and I were more forceful people. I am often reminded of Mr. Bennett’s assessment of Jane and Bingley when I think of us:

“Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed you income.”

I am not sure about the generosity but I can vouch for exceeding our income.

After visiting our friends, we called around to the grandparents. Of late, Michael has become obsessed with getting home before dark. It is hard to be home before dark all the time in January. Michael spent his time looking reproachfully out the window which made for a not entirely restful visit.

Sunday saw the Princess up to do the first reading at mass. This was a huge relief as the second reading which she normally gets was 1 Corinthians 6:13-15,17-20. One of the unfortunate teenagers had to work her way, very gamely, through that one.

On Sunday afternoon we prodded the children out. They were not happy. We went into town to get Herself runners and wandered around Trinity a bit aimlessly. We went into the Book of Kells and the Long Room library – interest levels from boys despite being told that it was the model for the Jedi archives (or was it): zero.

It’s nice though:

Untitled

And it was all pretty empty on a late Sunday afternoon in January. Of course, we weren’t home before dark. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness.

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