Top tip

More out of neccessity than an innate appreciation for the symbolism, we went to the tip yesterday, for a spot of ‘out with the old’. This was long overdue. Now that domestic appliances are all smaller, there thankfully wasn’t a massive pile of stuff, but it was made up of a fair few items which all needed sorting through when we got there.

For thems who’ve never been (and understandably so, It’s not really much of an afternoon out. Huge queues AND the picnic area’s tiny) you drive your car into a slim car park with an entrance at one end, and an exit down t’other. Down one side is a series of vast open topped metal trailers. One is for metal goods, one for small electrical appliances, one for stone and concrete (but NOT plasterboard) and so on.

Televisions have an area of the car park off to the other side. You’re not encouraged to toss them carelessly onto the pile as you are with the items bound for the metal trailers. Spoilsports. Throwing a broken strimmer from a lofty height doesn’t feel anything like as rock ‘n’ roll.

Anyway, I ain’t grumbling about the sorting, I can see the benefit to the recycling process of distinguishing your office chairs from your timber from your televisions. But in having it all laid out seperately in front of you as you add to its volume, rather than a landfill of disparate items, it does make it all look quite appealing.

I’m not treading the old road of saying that I wanted to start retrieving bits and bobs for the living room, sterilising old dog blankets and gaffer taping up the cracks in discarded lava lamps. But all that junk does seem to look a lot more like a resource rather than waste.

The two containers for wood (‘natural’ and ‘man made’) were the best example of this – erratic planks and offcuts of different lengths, strewn criss-crossed in a shallow pile.

There wasn’t even that much of it. But having seen it, I’d bet that the kids of those who worked at the tip must have the greatest tree houses known to man.

That was supposed to be it. A quick jaunt to get rid of some stuff we no longer needed, wanted, or could find use of. What was more telling, was quite how enjoyable I’d found it. Earlier this afternoon – a full 24 hours after the tip trip – while we were both folding sheets or something, I suddenly said to my partner: ‘It was good at the tip yesterday, wasn’t it?’

I really meant it. And rightly so, she laughed at me.