to the dump

I went to the dump this morning to get rid of some of the long grass we cut down in the back garden.  There were seventeen bags of it, which at the current rate of progress will need at least three trips.  I could only get five bags in the car today, but maybe as it wilts and packs down a bit I'll be able to squeeze an extra one in the boot.  They could go in the council brown bin, but at one collection per fortnight that would take three or four months, at the end of which I'd have a fresh collection of bags of other weedy waste I don't want to put on the compost heap.

The compaction machine for green waste at the dump must have broken.  You used to be able to empty your bags into a metal bin at ground level with a ram moving too and fro which pushed the contents away into the dark recesses of the skip.  That disappeared, and we are back to the old fashioned method of having to lug the bags up a flight of steps and empty them in at the top. Except that today I didn't have to climb the steps at all, because three different members of staff rushed to take my bags and empty them for me.

I was happy to have my bags emptied, even though I am perfectly capable of carrying five large bags stuffed with cut grass up a flight of steps and emptying them over the side of a skip.  If I had been a perpetually militant feminist I might have been offended by the implication that I was not able to carry them, or enraged at being cheerfully addressed by all three as Love and Dear.  As it happens I was not at all offended.  They were trying to be nice, and it's always good to appreciate attempts at niceness in others.  And although my back is fine at the moment and perfectly up to carrying bags, lots of people do have back and shoulder problems.  And I don't think that calling me Love or Dear was intended to imply that they considered me a lesser human being.  While lots of things do bring out the militant feminist in me, the cheerful staff at the Clacton dump are not one of them.