One man's rubbish...

I was led to muse on the matter of taste by seeing a frequent visitor in our back yard, rooting through the recycling bins as he often does on collection day; this made me ponder on several lines of thought. My first impression on seeing this man poking in the rubbish skip early one Sunday morning, was one of disgust; he arrived in a car, and to my mind to have enough money to afford a car surely means that people do not have to resort to digging in trash to augment their living? I was secretly hoping that he would be discouraged by accidentally bursting one of our sacks which contained the rejected cat litter or the bones of a chicken that had been there almost a week. The phenomenon of going through garbage cans can be seen in almost any place in the world, here in Quebec I would presume people are often searching for discarded drink cans, as there is a 5 cent deposit on each can. I find it difficult to see how people have so little personal pride that they resort to raiding the recycling bins; and in a sense it offended my sense of privacy.

Nobody in their right mind would throw personal data in the recycling without shredding it. This does not remove the fact that the recycling bins are somewhat personal, as they contain a cross section of the packaged goods which a household consumes during a week. I doubt market researchers resort to this kind of thing, but there is something almost as unpleasant to me seeing someone going through recently recycled items, as seeing a stranger exploring my clothing cupboard! Another side thought, surely the recycling becomes property of the company which is providing the bins, either the municipality or the disposal company. The general public is effectively stealing by removing anything from the bins after it has been discarded. I realise I am beginning to sound increasingly Meldrewian in this vein, but my gripe is over. Reflecting on this strange character this morning made me think of Noddy Boffin, the "golden dustman" of Dickensian fame. It is probably true that going through trash and recycling could result in discovering things which could bring down whole governments, start wars, and end careers, not to mention occasionally resulting in discoveries of amazing value.

All this musing brings to mind a piece of my past, not deliberately left behind, but rather lost in the events of life and the necessities of moving continent; my strange nack for turning cheap or cast off things into models or usable items, and a prediliction for hoarding. When I was at the height of "boredom" with the life I led, I invested considerable time searching for materials to replicate items in real life, for building models for my garden railways. This was an influence of my late friend Graham, whose life was tragically cut short by his long term alcohol abuse. In his lucid days, he was a great person and also a wonderful example of ingenuity; we scoured the charity stores together, mostly in search of small figurines in the toys section, which could be adapted with a little imagination into all kinds of dioramas and set pieces! I recall particularly the discovery of an evil, brutal looking Disney figurine which lent itself admirably to my "demon butcher", complete with a chopping motion of his arm and bloodied cleaver, powered by a discarded toy mechanism.

The modelling, the creating from scratch from so many discarded materials, was a hobby which I am missing a little... even when I was making many of these models, I technically did not have the time, because I "should have been attending church meetings", according to doctrine; model making was one of the few releases in an otherwise unbearably high-pressure life, and creating these microcosms was a comforting way of taking control and living vicariously in the lives of others, much as with my writing . Now would not be a good time to begin with this hobby again, both because hoarding junk and making finely detailed models is incompatible with having feline family members, but also because I am scared of becoming too absorbed in the models and not giving enough attention to those things which matter, such as keeping a clean home, having enough food, and earning a living. There is always a balance to be struck, and to do this I would need to allow a little hobby activity, and concentrate on that at times when I am bored. It is too easy to waste large amounts of time on the computer, and have nothing at the end to show for it... all these musings even, take more time than I can spare, but enable me to get my thoughts in order.



On an altogether different note, I am really pleased to have some green in our home at last! A very thoughtful gift from a distant penpal has grown, and for the first time in many years, I have a crop of cress almost ready for sandwich production! Of course, I could easily have bought the seeds locally, but sometimes we need our friends to sow the seeds of ideas in our brains- and also to give us a little push. With the success of the cress seeds fresh in my mind, I have in mind to grow some bean sprouts eventually. The choice of seeds in Canada is not too limited, although the general public does not take vegetable gardening at home very seriously. Today's is a quick-solution society, where people seem to have lost the patience to wait for seedlings to emerge, the patience to nurture and then enjoy the fruits of their labours! Of course this is not typical in every case, and I would not like to pigeonhole people- it seems that people do not even have time to peel and chop their own potatoes, according to a recent commercial, something I find rather sad. It is the same with food preperation; of course, some busy people do not find the time to make their own pizza dough or burger patties, but perhaps they are not aware how easy it is to freeze both these items and use them when there is less time; the added advantage of course being that one is totally aware of the contents of these foods!

Writing this has reminded me that I have a batch of pizza dough on the counter, just risen to perfection; I have already prepared the pineapple and ham for Sylvie's pizza (she prefers Hawaiian) and the bacon, tomato and sliced onion for my own, so we simply have to roll, top and bake them when supper time arrives. It feels wonderful to have a fully equipped kitchen, but also, to have an accommodating wife who is willing to allow her husband to take on a share of the cooking! I enjoy cooking, but not when trying to entertain at the same time, and hope that I will find more time and energy for the latter, when I have built up enough confidence and experience in the former! Now I must attend to the kitchen and attempt to discover the perfect Victoria Sponge cake!