JJJ - 13/1/25 - Rubbish

Today’s prompt is brought to us by Di. Thank you, Di! You can find her blog HERE.

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 13th, 2026 is “rubbish.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

And if you want to find out more about the challenge and see who'd taking part you can visit our host Linda's blog HERE.

Well this is good timing because today is our rubbish collection day.

We don't have quite as many bins as this but we do now have 4 bins.

A large green wheelie bin for all our recycling - paper, glass, cans, plastic it all goes in the same bin.

Then we have a large black one for general waste.

There is also a medium sized brown wheelie bin for garden waste and then there is a smaller brown caddy for food waste.

That's all quite straightforward.

But...since they introduced the food waste bins they have only been collecting general waste and garden waste fortnightly.  Not on the same week of course.  So you need to remember is it:

Green & black wheelie bins plus the food waste caddy OR

Green & brown wheelie bins plus the food waste caddy

Of course I could make my life easier and just leave all the bins at the front of the house but that makes it tricky to get 2 cars on the front so the bins live in the back garden and then we put them out the night before collection day.  God forbid you don't have them on the edge of your property by 6am in the morning.  It used to be fine doing it when we got up as the bins were never emptied until the afternoon but now the food waste does get emptied about 6.30 am most weeks.

I have a reminder system in place to make sure we get the right bins out but our neighbour opposite doesn't seem to have got the hang of the new system yet but their work around is to put ALL the bins out EVERY week.  (It's only been running for about 9 months now.)

Thankfully the threatened strike by refuse collectors before Christmas was called off otherwise the foxes would have been in heaven with all the rubbish piling up and the rats would also have been thriving.

Anyway I'll have to end this scintillating post about rubbish now as I need to go and put the bins away!

JJJ - 12/1/26 - Chewy

Our 12th prompt of the year is courtesy of the lovely Liz. Thank you, Liz! You can visit her blog Here to read her posts and say hello. And if you want to take part of find out more about the Just Jot it January challenge go HERE to our host Linda's site.

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 12th, 2026 is “chewy.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

Well I tend to avoid anything too chewy.  At the moment I still have all my own teeth and I'd like to keep it that way!

I must admit to having a bit of a phobia about going to the dentist.  I was filling in a survey earlier that was actually about our GP service but contained a couple of questions about dental care.  One of which was when did you last visit a dentist.  Hmm that was very embarrassing.  I'm not going to say just how long it is but wayyyyy toooo long.

It is on my to do list for this month to get sorted but as the saying goes - if it's not broke......

My one big fear though is of breaking a tooth.  One front tooth suffered that fate thanks to a piece of french bread and now consists of almost as much filling as there is tooth.  Hence the avoidance of chewy stuff!

Weekly Photos 5th - 10th January 2026

Anyone eagle eyed enough to spot that the date range is only 6 days?

I've decided that I will try to do this post on a Sunday so the photos will be from the previous Sunday through to Saturday.  Well that's the plan.

Last Sunday's photo was posted in the first of these posts so starting at Top left this was taken on Monday when I was tidying up and I came across these under the guest bed.  They belong to my DIL.  I often get left with a souvenir or two when they've stayed.

The other 3 photos on the left were taken on my walk around the lake on Tuesday - the poor birds were all congregating in two patches of the lake that hadn't frozen over.

The centre photo was also taken on Tuesday - I like this idea.

Top right was the puzzle I completed on Wednesday.

Next down was Thursday's Wordle puzzle which I managed to do in 2!  Lucky with my first guess of SLATE.

Celebrations anyone?  We're almost through all our Christmas treats but were still eating these on Friday.

One down, 51 to go.  This is my first book completed this year.  I've blogged a review here.  My opinion* on that book - don't bother.

There I've even slotted in the daily prompt* for the Just Jot it January prompt which today was provided by John who blogs here.  If you're a music lover you should pop over and say hello.

#SoCS & JJJ - 10/1/26 - Don't get me started....

Thanks as always to Linda for hosting this - find her blog, all the rules and other participants here.

Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 10th and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “don’t get me started.” Use the phrase in your post or just write about the first thing it conjures in your mind. Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

Well I was going to say actually you DO need to get me started because I feel like I've been quite lazy this week.  It's been quite a social week and so I've slipped behind with chores at home and I haven't felt particularly motivated on that front.

But actually I'm going to rant about our water company.  In the centre of our little area of London there is a train station which is very convenient for us.  But this means the trains run straight through our town and there is a level crossing right in the middle of town.  We live on one side of it, Tesco our big supermarket is on the other.

This doesn't usually cause major problems, unless the barriers get stuck which is actually only a problem for cars as there is a subway pedestrians can still use.  It can be annoying if you arrive in your car at the crossing just as the barriers are going down but they're not usually down for long and then you're on your way.

Or not as it was today because....just the other side of the barrier there is a burst water pipe and so the road that leads to the supermarket is closed.  We can drive across the crossing but then we have to go left and there is no way back to the supermarket.  (There is a much longer route there via the next crossing under the railway but it seems part of that road may be blocked - by another burst water pipe.)

These burst pipes are popping up all over the place.  The very cold snap of weather we had last week has not helped.

But the bigger problem is the underinvestment in the infrastructure. And that's because Thames Water (the provider of our water services) is a Private Limited Company!  It was privatised by a Conservative Government in 1989.  As such it needs to make profits for its owners.

It's hardly rocket science to see that this is not going to benefit the consumer.  When the company was privatised it was debt free and has since run up debts running into BILLIONS.

The infrastructure was in need of major upgrades and they are working on that, slowly but in the meantime leaks keep appearing everywhere and our bills keep going up.

I really cannot understand why utilities are not owned by the Government.  They are essential services and require investment.  They should not be lining the pockets of investors, many of which are overseas!

Unfortunately when I sent Hubby off in the car armed with a shopping list today I had forgotten about the road closure.  He was not happy when he got back.  He had to park in a nearby side street and take a long detour to get home again.  Fortunately he wasn't doing a huge shop so he was able to carry it back to the car ok.  He was not happy though!

Right rant over.  It's time for bed here in London.

Don't get me started on anything else.