Craic On

It’s a great day when the bin lorries arrive. There’s one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. It used to be that one was black bin one week and blue the next and the other bin company was vice versa, so you could put out your rubbish with one of them whichever week it was. Now both come within a day of each other and only every 2nd week for the black bins.

That doesn’t make any sense and was caused by one of the companies giving their staff a week off at Christmas. Now, they’ve got the problem till next Christmas it seems.

One of the problems now is that sometimes, if you’ve been saving it for two weeks, that your bin won’t completely close. I’m sure quite a few of you have put the bin out and then gone out later to see that the crows have been in and dragged all sorts of stuff out onto the pavement.

The crazy thing about it is that they always seem to know when it is Tuesday. As I missed the bin lorries two weeks ago my bin has been full plus a bit extra for several days now. However, the crows haven’t come near it until today.

As I go out to bring my bin out I can see them lined up on the telegraph lines and on the rooftops behind me. When I came back from the bank earlier on I could see that they had already been into a neighbour’s bin which was just ever so slightly ajar and pulled out some rubbish. Now they were waiting for me.

I remember people used to complain, and even write into local newspapers, saying that people were leaving trash beside the bins down the Green instead of putting it in. However, I was watching out the window of the Waterfront one sunny day and saw the crows go into the bins and drag stuff out. They’ve changed the bins down there now to make it harder to do that.

As soon as I came back into the house the crows started to arrive down onto the wall beside the bin. I sent out my dog and after a brief bark the first time, when I looked out the window again the crows were back and she was just watching them. As it wouldn’t be long before she would go and ‘assist’ them devour the rubbish dragged out I brought her in again.

Every so often I stop from my work to go and open the front door and send them up to the wires and walls again.

Perhaps they’re trained by the bin companies so that people don’t have overfull bins. they always seem to know when it is Tuesday.

Ha!

I see the bin lorry coming along the River Row. Now I can relax for another couple of weeks and the crows won’t be back in any great numbers until then. They say that they are the most clever in the bird family. It must be confusing them that it is only every second week now.

I wonder if they knew to come on Tuesday one week and on Wednesday the next.