My garden is overgrown, particularly the front hedge which is trees and bushes. The local council has sent me a warning letter to get it cut back in 14 days. But I’m physically not capable of doing it, I’m on a low income and my garden is a haven for birds, squirrels, sometimes hedgehogs and bats. I’m going to try and get it done, but will have to rely on friends as my hubby died 18 months ago.
What is worse is I struggle with anxiety and having a letter addressed to the both of us really upset me. I found myself crying on the phone to a council worker. It makes me feel like my heart is breaking. I just wish hubby was still here. Meanwhile I will try and plead for some more time.
This morning the neighbour was hammering again but I ignored him, I had an appointment with the optician. I decided to walk the few hundred yards as want to try and get a bit fitter. As it was it took me about 25 minutes to walk 800 yards…. I’m just getting more unsteady and it’s a vicious circle of pain and shaking with the Parkinsons.
To the opticians, as I thought my cataracts are getting worse, he agreed, but that at least means I might be able to get one eye operated on.
I picked up a few groceries on the way home, enough for one bag. I needed some vegetables and porridge. Then home slowly in the sunshine.
When I got in I decided to pay for my garden waste collection. I tried ringing the council but got automatic voice messages explaining that I would have to pay online and no one would personally take my call. After feeling frustrated I decided to text my local councillor. That’s hit and miss as I have to spell check everything because I don’t always hit the right keys. This was asking if I could ring another number and get a real person!
Finally I tried the council number again. I chose a different option and a man answered. He put me through to the waste department and I got a real person, a woman to speak to. She asked if I could get a relative to pay, but one is dead, another lives 80 or 90 miles away and the other one is abroad. I could go down to the library she said. I explained I had already been to town and was tired out (my car was blocked in or perhaps I could have driven). Eventually it got through to her that I wasn’t going to be able to do it so after speaking to a manager she took the payment over the phone. Looking back I could have been nicer but I was tired and flustered. I she told me to use my key pad on my phone to type in some numbers and I didn’t realise she meant the phone keypad, I was looking for a qwerty keyboard! I did apologise for taking up her time.
So then I fell asleep and dozed for a while. It’s taken me a while to get this down on my phone keypad. I don’t normally have the energy to do so much in one day, my feet and ankles ache and I’m feeling a bit grumpy!
Someone banged on my front window this morning, insisting my garden is overgrown (it is) and saying the council wants him to cut our trees down! I asked his authority and he said he was doing a local survey for the council and they would take action unless I got work done? He had no id and was really bullying and pushy. He had tree surgeon and land survey written on his vehicles. I said I was already going to get the work done (I have someone who can help). He said neighbours had complained. (the neighbours houses are empty!). He then glanced at the hedge and said he would charge £550. By then I was shaking and my anxiety was high. But I held my ground and asked him where he thought I would get the money from? He replied he has four daughters and needs to work 6 days a week! I told him to come back in a few weeks and it would be done (why?). It was only after speaking to my councillor that I realised he had not shown me his id, he mentioned no laws or legal information, and he did not mention where his authority for coming round and making demands came from. I put in a written complaint to the council. I think it was a scam, and if in fact he did represent the council he was not professional. He was a bully and demanding. I cannot imagine him being employed by them. Beware, Cold Callers can be very persuasive.
Ugh! I got up really early to move the car. My parking pass has run out, so I can’t park in front of my house between 8am and 9pm so I’ve had to find a spot in another street.
The good news is that I have applied for the pass. I had to use the Internet as the council does not have an office open to the public anymore. Everything is via their website. What about people who are not computer literate, or don’t do online banking? Poor people are gradually being disenfranchised. They could use a library. But lots of them have been closed due to budget cuts.
So I have done the forms online and got a receipt to prove I’ve paid. But I still have to wait for the pass to be posted to me. The bad news is that post isn’t delivered as frequently as it used to be. At one time post was delivered on the next day all around the country. That includes most of Scotland, Wales and the far south west. Now, however, the royal mail is concentrating on parcel deliveries. It’s letter service is a lot less important (all those emails…) and to add insult to injury the price of a first class stamp is now £1.10 (at least depending on its size). I can remember when you could buy a stamp for 20 pence.
Worse still, the email says that due to high demand, it may take ten days for the pass to be posted out! That will be ten Working days, two weeks.
So at least I will be getting up early for a while. Although I can have a lie in on Sundays and bank holidays!
I just realised my parking pass is due to expire and I’ve only just realised it. In the past out council used to send out a reminder. No more. They have closed the building where you could apply for them in person. Now the choice is either via email, or by post.
The postal service only has a 74% next day delivery rate, and there is no assurance that it will arrive in time.
My email is not working yet. I’m booked to get it done on Monday (long boring story, the repair man has been ill). But not everyone has email addresses. Not everyone with a car is online.
So I rang up for the address to send my information to. It’s a PO box, meaning there is no physical place for me to hand deliver my documents to. If it goes to a PO box, then the council courier service needs to sort the mail and deliver it, meaning there is another time delay added into the mix!
Our alleyway is blocked off by this pile of rubbish that a builder has moved off his land. I have reported it to my council a few times over the last few weeks. I haven’t chased it up as much as I could because of my sisters death. I hope it will be moved soon as it is preventing my neighbours access to the back of their properties. I think it’s disgusting that someone can just tip this and not face some form of action. Apparently the flats he has been working on are due to be shown on a TV housing auction show! Perhaps if he is paid an appearance fee he can use it to pay to clear up his mess!
Excerpt from an email to my local councillor about flytipping on our alleyway :
“Dear Councillor
Over the last few weeks the owners of xxxxx and the owner of xxxxxx London Road have dumped all this waste on our alleyway that includes access to the rear of our property at xxxx and also number x and x effectively blocking access for all three properties. The waste was originally moved from behind the xxxxx shop, they removed some of it but dumped the rest behind the flats. The owner of the flats or his workers dumped it on our alleyway. It is four or five feet high and at least twenty foot long. I have spoken to various people at the flats who promised it would be removed a fortnight ago. Instead the heap is getting bigger.
The owner said he was told to dump it on the alleyway and the council would remove it, he says he has chased it up with an officer called xxxxxx who assured him it would be removed by last Friday. I gave him my email address but don’t know if he will do as he says.
Will you please visit to see the problem. I am concerned that we will be left in a situation where we have to remove it which I cannot afford. It was rubbish on the left of the path including fly tipping and buddlea that had grown there over several years.”
I went on to add some personal details explaining why I cannot deal with this without my councillors support.
I saw this on WordPress Reader and had to share. The council claim its only a minimal cut (of around £600,00!). Its important that our industrial heritage is saved, otherwise Stoke on Trent would lose its raison d’etre.
Mystery Play mask. From 2018 or 2019. An outside play we did in the summer. One day only. About the history of the potteries. Set in a pottery museum that comes to life.
Why this? Because our local council want to cut jobs for curators and close the Gladstone Museum in Longton, Stoke-on- Trent, for five months a year and reduce the opening times for the Potteries Museum and Art gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Why aren’t we promoting tourism, getting people to visit? The council say their £600,000 will only have a minimal effect!
It’s happening here in my home city all the time. I report it but the council probably don’t have the staff to deal with it anymore because of the cuts (austerity cuts in local government by our National government). A few years ago the council used to have days when people could have their bulky rubbish collected, but now people have to pay to take stuff to the tip and they don’t have the money. They should be encouraged not charged to use the tip. Also I guess covid isn’t helping…
The world is full of rubbish, plastic, toxic waste, pollution, CO2, fluorocarbon, the list seems endless. What we leave in our neighbourhoods is just a small part of the wreck we are making of the Earth.
Mallaband-Brown 