Reading that Walsall council have decided that they will refuse to collect rubbish if anything is in the wrong colour bin
(http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2012/11/22/wrong-rubbish-blitz-sees-walsall-bins-unemptied/)
makes me feel rather more at home here in my apartment in China. Outside the apartment the rubbish pile continues to grow. It is now twenty five feet long by twenty feet wide and four feet deep throughout and hasn't been collected for eleven weeks. It stinks so bad that on the fifth floor I am unable to open my windows and whil I haven't yet seen rats it certainly seems to be the main attraction for a million flies.
People back home don't know how lucky they are.
As for the so-called "pot-hole crisis",
(http://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2012/11/22/councils-warn-of-potholes-crisis/)
over here most of the streets – whether lit or not – have holes dug in them by the workers who leave them unprotected and unsecured at night. So far I have managed to avoid falling down any but it's more luck than judgment. One of my friends fell down one outside her apartment last year. She was fortunate to escape with only minor injuries. I'll bet that I can't walk half a mile in any direction from my front door without climbing over at least three or deep, dark holes.
It all makes me feel quite nostalgic for the dear old West Midlands.
