A TROUBLED DAY AT AVIES

Before I commence this tale of aggravation and frustration I need to explain that on Tuesday Morning,the Local Authority refuse collectors failed to take away our re cycle, ours and several others in the lane.

So it was that yesterday Pa gave them a call about it and they promised to come and collect the stuff this morning.

This morning at 6 55 am I was awakened by a violent hammering on the door and a lot of shouting, it took a while for me to collect myself and as I struggled down the stairs(There was not time to call the stair-lift) I wondered if perhaps there was a gas leak or perhaps the river was about to inundate us. I opened the door and there in the lane I saw the errant refuse collectors.

One of them,

a red faced individual with receding hair emptied our food waste bin and them holding it high above his head he proceeded to throw the object as hard as he could,so hard that it landed half way down the garden path. During the course of his actions he had continued to rant,b it was not until he returned to the house in company with fluorescent yellow colleague that I realised the burden of his utterings.

“Where's yer plastic, where is it eh, where's yer plastic.” In fact there should have been a large bag of plastic waste with the food waste. Unfortunately we have been obliged to remove it from the pavement as it kept getting blown about and had caused a number of complaints.

The red faced character gave me to understand that it was all my fault that he had been sent out at the crack of dawn.....that it wasn't his round,that we were wasting his ******* time!!

All this he screamed like a man demented while flailing his arms.

I attempted to explain to him the reason why the plastics bag was in the yard and not on the road side,it was clear that he expected me to bring it out to the road. In my nightdress and slippers and still half asleep I gave him to understand that he would have to get it himself and the sound and fury became even greater as barging past me he took the plastics bag to the truck before casting it to the ground at the side of the road.

Of course I have lodged a complaint and I expect to here within a few days.

Later in the day I received a letter from the Estate Manager to let me know that they intend to begin the destruction of my orchard soon. Would I like to talk about it,he asked....you bet I want to talk about it. He tells me he may use contractors rather than estate staff, this is ,presumably so that when the wild residents in the orchard are disturbed it will not be estate workers in court.

They may well tare down the trees and level the fruit beds but every move they make will be filmed and should any harm befall either bird or beast I shall have the evidence to stop any further inroads.

This has worked before and it will again. I cannot imagine how they can level the ground on which there is a fox earth without destroying the cubs which will be born in a few weeks time. Even if the work begins next week,this will leave the foxes no time to find another earth. The earth has been used by the same pair for some years, and we have watched the young kits playing in the orchard,they have become members of our family and although they lead totally normal lives in the wild the have been know to come and ask for help when in trouble.

There are at least half a dozen hedgehogs hibernating in the undergrowth soon to be ripped out.

Hibernating newts frogs and toads.

There is never a good time of year to destroy such valuable habitat, every living thing will be destroyed by the action of a greedy landlord and a local authority which cares more for section 106 money than it does for the land in its care.

We have fought a bitter battle and in spite of all we shall fight on, because if a conservation area such as this is not safe from the developers then nowhere and nothing is safe.