This week marks the end of a long and frustrating saga of local bureaucracy. We have been waiting years for a kerbside collection of plastic, tins, glass etc. Many people in Devon have had it for years, but not our little backwater on the very edge of the county.

Early this year, my neighbour ordered green recycling skips for the 3 houses in our hamlet. She was told this would take some weeks (we all know how scarce plastic is!), and when the skip eventually turned up, there was just the one. I rang East Devon Street Services up, to be told that “oh well, you can’t order a skip for someone else – you have to do it yourself.” I pointed out that since they didn’t know who I was, I could easily impersonate my neighbour so why did it matter – but that was received rather frostily. “You’ll have to wait 8 weeks” – why? Do they get them delivered one by one from China perhaps? So, I rang up, and my other neighbour did the same.

Eventually, the other skips turned up, so we all trotted down to the end of the lane to leave them for collection on the appointed day. No-one emptied them for three days, so the neighbour rang up to ask what happened. She was surprised to be told they would send a lorry specially from the depot (about 15 miles away) to pick up a few bagfuls of recycling. Hmm – very green.

This happened two more times, so we gave up in despair and just took the stuff to the big skips when shopping.

But I was recently impelled to have another go – and this time, whatever they did actually worked, and the stuff was taken away on the appointed day (10th October).

So, grudging thanks to Devon for finally getting their act together, But I can’t help thinking a commercial organisation that was this sluggish would have gone out of business years ago. Since we pay almost 1/5 of out monthly income in Council Tax, it doesn’t seem like stellar value for money!

Update on 21st November - it seems I spoke too soon. The next collection was a day late; the one after that never happened so we drove the stuff to the local centre; this week, they came a day early, and it was only because I'd put the box out early that it was emptied at all. How hard can it be to organise such a simple routine, one asks?

Regular readers will know that this fruity combination is one of my favourites.

A new twist that I tried out last night!

Ingredients per person:

One Bramley apple, or other baking variety
Small handful of ripe blakberries
2 teaspoonsful of sugar (more if fruit unripe)
2 tablespoonsful of red wine

Method:

Core the apple and make a cut in the skin around its 'equator'. Put it into an ovenproof bowl or dish that allows about 1-2cms all around. Stuff the cavity with as many berries as you can cram in, and scatter the rest round the apple. Pour over the wine, then sprinkle on the sugar. Bake in a medium oven (gas mark 3, 160° C) for 30 mins or until the apple fluffs and starts to collapse.

Serve with custard, cream, vanilla ice cream - or, as I did, just spoon it down as it is. Mmmmmmmmm.

(Folklore has it that we should no longer be picking blackberries, as the Devil spits on them at Michaelmas. However, my theory is that this is an old wives' tale invented to explain the fact that the berries get pippy and dry - or just flyblown and mushy, at the end of the season. This unusual growing season means that there are still fine juicy berries for the picking, over a week after the alleged incident of hellish expectoration.)

As some of my friends have already noted, today is National Poetry Day. This year's theme is Dreams - but I already had planned to put this more seasonal offering on my blog, so I'm afraid I'll have to be off-topic.

The end of summer

Indian summer weather has gone at last – no more warm blue afternoon skies and still, dewy mornings.

Suddenly the sky is full of flying grey tatters of cloud; and rooks are practising their synchronised wheeling, like stray tea-leaves swirling in a rinsed teapot.

A cool damp wind soughs through the sere beeches. A few brown-edged leaves rustle and whirl from their branches to join the rooks with every gust.

Rain spatters in the air, releasing the scent of wet earth from the newly-harrowed fields, and I can hear the surf roaring distantly on the rocks.

It's the end of summer, and I am strangely elated at the year's turning.

Written late September 1996