Hope that a few more start reading the threads.Any way John hope you had a great week end. I did but the weather tailed off.In the evening I had a lovely meal out - fish and chips . Then onto a pub. It's pretty small. 6 is a good crowd. It is full of all those bits 'n' bobs that look interesting, but you wouldn't necessarily want at home - cases of mounted beetles and locusts on the wall, cinema posters, salt and pepper sets (like 2 slices of bread in a poster and Mickey and Minnie Mouse), Dinky toys etc. etc. Good beers too.
Anyway, a chap has been hovering about for the last few days. He is from Derby, and is, I think, an HGV 1 driver - articulated heavy goods vehicle. He works for a few months and then goes off exploring in his much modified camper van. He is one of these chaps who rarely buys anything, preferring to use other peoples' cast-offs, which he finds lying around, in tips and in waste containers.
I met him just after he had found, in our nearby dustbins, a camping gas refillable container, with some gas still in it. He knew that he hadn't got a suitable valve to get at the gas. He could make one (of course) but if I had one, it would be very much easier. I hadn't.
He had arrived at these bins, near Sainsburies at castle moorings, on his bike. An ex-GPO bike, complete with the tray at the front for the sack of letters. What I immediately noticed was the brand label on the front stem - 'Hand made by Pashley' (or is it Pashly?). Anyway, these bikes are the Rolls Royce of hand-made bikes. A Pashley, today, would cost £600 plus. He had had the pick of a dozen of them FOR FREE down at his local tip - the Post Office had dumped them!! It had a decent three-speed hub gear that also incorporated a back-pedalling brake.
He says that most tips don't like 'the public' removing things from them (why-ever not???) but that most have a hole in the fence and no security cameras!! He doesn't use much gas in his van, so when he is about to run out he keeps his eyes open. Normally, he can find a 'not quite empty' cylinder abandoned, after closing time, at a place (such as a garage) that trades in full 'bottles for empty' ones (or nearly empty ones). So he takes it, replacing it with his properly empty one (though that will not necessarily be of the same brand as the one he is taking).
He weeps at our local rubbish bins, that are just outside one of the camping sites that are around Nottingham. People buy things for their holiday, and then dump them before leaving - deck chairs, beach chairs, beach mats, small bbq stove, a complete and non-pongy Porta Pottie, one of those intricate things that looks like a slim box, but opens out into a picnic table with four seats. etc. etc .That's all for this time, and, actually, TITS (That Is To Say)
it's time to go.
Toodle pip. regards Magic
Message Thread
« Back to index