I didn’t really need a second van and driver for today but just instinctively booked it, as I wanted to be absolutely certain we were finished at the end of it. “I’m convinced someone up there is looking after you,” says Canice when the first van gets a massive puncture and I’m fine as I weirdly decided to spend on a second one. He says it before Lee from the unit next door undercuts the RAC for cash and changes the tyre for us right there. He runs a Mercedes garage and has the tyre and the tools. We’ve been pissing him off blocking him all week so I’m glad to bring him some business, and I think Canice might be right that someone has got my back.
We got it all signed off. Final load was a pile of cut up steel. Canice and I drove it to the local scrap metal dealer and they have no time today. Shit. There’s a great big artic unloading in there. So we drive out to the marshes.
It’s another world out there. The streets are lined with shit. I know it’s expensive to tip things, I’ve spent thousands in the last few days. Pure wood is cheaper than “mixed”. We drive past sofas, old mattresses, all sorts of detritus, just thrown off the back of vans in the dark. It’s like an apocalypse movie. Who knows how long it has all been there. I get it, you’re broke, you rent a van to get a room clear or something, you don’t know that you can’t get vans into the tip without paying. It happened to me with a mattress aged 24 or something. So we parked the car and walked to the tip carrying it. They wouldn’t let us in carrying it either. So I waited until it was dark and then drove around until I found a quiet place where someone else had done the same and … well who knows if I leaned it up against a wall and fucked off or not? I know. Hopefully I thought better of it, but perhaps I was just clueless and broke and antisocial and don’t want to admit to it publicly in case someone says it’s a crime.
Still it’s horrible all that junk, and of course it is nobody’s job to go get it. It could be put back round if it was, but no good Samaritan is gonna pick it up as it’ll cost them. If the government started paying individuals to clear old flytip sites it would have to be worth their while and it would be wide open to abuse. Dump it, then pitch to clean it up.
I’m done anyway. I have two good tools I didn’t have before. One of them would be amazing if I was a bike thief but I can’t seem to find my multitool or my DeWalt charger. I’m sure they are buried in my living room somewhere. Nobody would have taken them thinking I wasn’t paying attention to them.
AlBarclay 