One day the week before last a skip load of rubbish appeared on the triangle of land that lays at the end of our garden. There is a lane going along side of our house and garden then turns and eventually peters out into a small path between a couple of gardens leading into the next street. It's a good shortcut and quite a few people use it, and it's is a pretty big space when you consider that it used to boast about a 2 dozen garages.
We've lived here almost 20 years now, the garages were mostly empty when we came here. I suppose the first 10 years were the most exciting, as at sometime during each school holiday a garage would be attacked by the local children and would almost always get burned out. How we laughed as the fire engines tried to squeeze up our lane! Ho Ho..
As an aside here, this is Aberdare, in the Valleys. I'm not Welsh, I'm English, I was born in Kingston upon Thames. My childhood school holidays were spent mucking about on a big river, or in one of the 3 royal parks we had to hand, terrorizing sheep and deer. But we tended not to set fire to things. Here in the Valleys they seem to go in for arson at a very early age. Given a couple of dry days over the Easter holiday, and every hillside for miles will be alight. Talking to some of the old folks around here, this has been going on for years! So bearing this in mind, a few empty garages going up in smoke is neither here nor there.
The official demolition took place about 10 years ago when the local constabulary finally put two and two together and realized that large gatherings of very young teenagers close to an off licence in the dark and relative shelter of the garages left with any roof and away from any streetlights, was attracting some of the less law abiding citizens, who saw our little triangle of common land as something of a business opportunity. Since then the grass has grown, the children seem a little less destructive, and folk just use it as a shortcut again.
Until last week that is, when a vehicle must have gone up the side of the house and a little further and deposited what amounted to a big skip load of the detritus from a renovation [doors and windows etc. glass intact] filled out with all the other stuff you usually only see in skips, emphasising IN skips. Not just piled up at the end of the lane.
We do have neighbours, one whom I like to think of as Mouth Almighty, His real name is Dennis. He and his wife must be in their 70's and have lived in their house since it was built in '45, apparently, I'm not good at maths, but they must have married young. Anyway, when he is in the garden he shouts, she shouts, us poor ignorant English sit in our garden and listen to the shouting. I promise you, in 20 years of listening to this high decibel conversation, we have never understood a word, we're pretty sure it isn't welsh, and not a bloody clue what what else it might be. There are some old men who converse at a similar volume in a similar language when on the bus returning from town, I have to assume this is a local phenomenon like the fire raising.
Another neighbour who translates for me when she can get a handle on whats being shouted told me that that Mouth Almighty had phoned some one to complain about the pile of rubbish. This sounded right, down the years he's done a good deal of complaining and 'Reporting to the authorities'. Almost everyone in the neighbourhood has been on the receiving end for one reason or another.
So, first contact made with council about pile of rubbish, something should happen soon, surly it is a health hazard with half term on the horizon.... I will tell you more in my next post..
We've lived here almost 20 years now, the garages were mostly empty when we came here. I suppose the first 10 years were the most exciting, as at sometime during each school holiday a garage would be attacked by the local children and would almost always get burned out. How we laughed as the fire engines tried to squeeze up our lane! Ho Ho..
As an aside here, this is Aberdare, in the Valleys. I'm not Welsh, I'm English, I was born in Kingston upon Thames. My childhood school holidays were spent mucking about on a big river, or in one of the 3 royal parks we had to hand, terrorizing sheep and deer. But we tended not to set fire to things. Here in the Valleys they seem to go in for arson at a very early age. Given a couple of dry days over the Easter holiday, and every hillside for miles will be alight. Talking to some of the old folks around here, this has been going on for years! So bearing this in mind, a few empty garages going up in smoke is neither here nor there.
The official demolition took place about 10 years ago when the local constabulary finally put two and two together and realized that large gatherings of very young teenagers close to an off licence in the dark and relative shelter of the garages left with any roof and away from any streetlights, was attracting some of the less law abiding citizens, who saw our little triangle of common land as something of a business opportunity. Since then the grass has grown, the children seem a little less destructive, and folk just use it as a shortcut again.
Until last week that is, when a vehicle must have gone up the side of the house and a little further and deposited what amounted to a big skip load of the detritus from a renovation [doors and windows etc. glass intact] filled out with all the other stuff you usually only see in skips, emphasising IN skips. Not just piled up at the end of the lane.
We do have neighbours, one whom I like to think of as Mouth Almighty, His real name is Dennis. He and his wife must be in their 70's and have lived in their house since it was built in '45, apparently, I'm not good at maths, but they must have married young. Anyway, when he is in the garden he shouts, she shouts, us poor ignorant English sit in our garden and listen to the shouting. I promise you, in 20 years of listening to this high decibel conversation, we have never understood a word, we're pretty sure it isn't welsh, and not a bloody clue what what else it might be. There are some old men who converse at a similar volume in a similar language when on the bus returning from town, I have to assume this is a local phenomenon like the fire raising.
Another neighbour who translates for me when she can get a handle on whats being shouted told me that that Mouth Almighty had phoned some one to complain about the pile of rubbish. This sounded right, down the years he's done a good deal of complaining and 'Reporting to the authorities'. Almost everyone in the neighbourhood has been on the receiving end for one reason or another.
So, first contact made with council about pile of rubbish, something should happen soon, surly it is a health hazard with half term on the horizon.... I will tell you more in my next post..
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