Sting in the tail of the big chill.

The white stuff has melted and now miles of potholes, piles of rubbish and flood warnings came next. The road to and from work was already crumbling and now potholes in their thousands had emerged as the cold spell continues. It takes a very skilled driver to avoid these gaping holes, plus some very bad drivers to contend with.

Please don’t just fix the potholes. The whole road network needs resurfacing properly by people who actually know what they were doing. Don’t let me start on the gritting. Which roads were gritted in Coventry??? We only saw one empty lorry whizzing towards the Ricoh on the first day of the snow. That’s it !!!

Rubbish, rubbish, piles of rubbish everywhere. Our bins was last emptied on the 24/12/09. That was 4 weeks ago. Overflowing bins of various colours, black bin bags and boxes line our street, alongside the parked cars. There are about 20 houses here. Imagine the amount of rubbish and the health hazard it might cause. Luckily, it’s still winter.

What winds me up was that the bins and rubbish on the main road was collected last Saturday. They had conveniently forgotten/missed the side road leading to our cul-de-sac. Moi was fuming. So today sent an e-mail to the City Council and to Councillor Hazel Noonan and rant and rant and rant. Credit to her, she did respond but when I returned home…nada, zilch…still not emptied.

Heavy snow (yaay :-)) is predicted this Wednesday. The usual day for the bins to be emptied is on a Thursday. Now you can guess why I’m fuming. The roads will be icy again and the 26-tonne dustcart won’t be able to manoeuvre itself. And the rubbish will pile again. AAARGH…..H-E-L-P……

Breathe in, out S-l-o-w-l-y….ranting over. Compared to what’s happening in Haiti, potholes and rubbish seems so minute. My heart weeps for the people who had suffered so much. Today, we’d a cake day at work and tomorrow a tombola. All proceeds will go to the DEC. Please do your bit. Who knows, we might be next.

I called in sick last Friday cos I’d muscle spasms in my neck. It was so stiff that I couldn’t turn my neck. If someone was speaking to me, I’d to turn my whole body. I felt it since the beginning of the week and it just got worse. The doctor prescribed me Diazepam which made me so loopy and stoned that I can’t be at work. According to Babe, I was really a goner :-). It did ease my neck although I do feel the twinge from time to time.

I spent the early weekend watching the snow melting!!! Mr. Bushy tail said hello and had a good time feeding happily with me observing him. I kept nodding off watching the Masters Snooker Championship. I was so very, very pleased that Selby, the Jester from Lester deflated O’Sullivan’s rocket 10:9. I just couldn’t stand him. How rude of him to leave when the ceremony is still ongoing???

No weekend was completed without nipping into Brandon Marsh. The snow has disappeared and the sun came out to play. The car park was full and the path to the hides was … flooded. Huh…There were soo many people that even the robins went AWOL.

This lovely redwing (Turdus iliacus) was feeding happily outside my office window. Even with my sore neck, I couldn’t miss the golden opportunity to capture his photograph. He was quite happy to pose for me. Bless him. Check out the gorgeous red flanks on its underwings.

It’s Black Monday today. I do hope that your Monday doesn’t turn to Black. Take care and if it snows on Wednesday, wrap up warm. Funnily, snow seems to be sent to Coventry on a Wednesday. Another day off perhaps….:-)

Kevin's sister Trish is still missing, a month has now passed and still no sign. Please pray for her.