Batten down those hatches, it's recycling day

It's blowing a hooley out there. 

The wind is lashing against the windows and the dogs are play fighting in front of the Aga before one of them goes too far and I have to break up the party.

It's recycling day today and the wind knows it, whipping up through the street into the square and down the alleyway from the church to present the village with a soggy mess of paper, cereal packets and plastic all along the side of the road, a twice-monthly confetti for the marriage of consumerism and environmental guilt.

You can tell a lot about people from what's in their rubbish. Forget about stealing ID, I'm talking about their character - where they shop, the type of people they are.

A small, white bottle with a label denoting that it's kefir, a fermented milk drink good for the gut, rolls around my doorstep. It's not mine. 

I pick it up to dispose of it and can feel there is still some miracle juice inside. It was clearly not to the user's liking. A fad, perhaps, to make up for the fizzy drink the previous week? Because, you see, there's an empty can of Coke a bit further down the road.

My mind wanders. I think of the television advert that implies we should forget Advent and the Bible story, it's the appearance of the Coca Cola lorry that really signifies the festive season has just begun.

So has the Santa lorry been and gone, with only a single can to remind us he was ever here? 

When the Coca Cola marketing bods sell us that clever piece of spin each Christmas, they don't show us the tin cans trailing from the back of Santa's sleigh like he's riding a honeymoon car. And that fairy-dust snow sprinkled in his wake? That's the sugar from more than nine-and-a-half teaspoons in each can.

Then I see a Method cleaning product bottle scuttling off down the road, as if it's on a mission to meet a mop, bucket and floor.

I wish it could put its environmentally friendly credentials to the test and clean up the mess at the side of the road while it's at it.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x