Garbage / Bed

Today is VG day: Victory over garbage. Since moving in, I’ve had this problem that every time I leave trash outside for the trash collectors, they somehow ignore it. I asked around and people told me that I have to be careful what kind of trash I leave out on what days. Recycling is big here, so there is the blue bin, the green bin, the big green bin, and the large dark green trash can. “So how do I know which day to leave which trash?” The response was “oh, just google it”. Well, this is not as easy as it sounds. It took me several days to figure out that I had to google “Waste” not “Trash” or “Garbage”. Finally, I got the list of what goes in which bin, and which days they collect which type of “waste”. Unfortunately, the schedule I looked at was apparently outdated, so my attempts to get rid of my waste continued to fail. Finally, I just started peeking in my neighbor’s trash – and today, with great fanfare and angels blowing trumpets, they took some of it away. So I think I now know the scheme. About time – it was really starting to pile up in here.

The Bed: One of the first things I did when moving to the UK was to go and buy a decent bed. Even though I had scarlet fever at the time, the first weekend I was here, I still schlepped out to a local bed store (called “Dreams”) and bought one. Much to my dismay, it took three weeks to have the thing delivered. In the meantime I’ve been sleeping on little more than an army cot. Finally today the bed was delivered – in a bunch of pieces. I admit that I was a bit out of it when I bought the thing (my excuse also for buying a truly ugly bed) but I’m pretty sure no one ever told me that it was an assemble yourself kind of thing. Nonetheless, I’m usually pretty brave with this self-assembly stuff, so I started putting it together. After about three hours, I finally called their customer service line and yelled at them. They concluded that this particular bed is defective (there is no slot B to screw into tab A) and they will have to replace it. I’ll keep you updated. Fortunately, the mattress appears to work. I’ll report back after sleeping on it for a night – I can’t imagine it will be worse than the army cot.

Added: After one night sleep on the mattress, I'm debating whether it is too soft. (Although I actually tried to buy the firmest mattress available).