Very Small Concerns

If I hadn’t already been up with the Very Small Boy since the crack of dawn, I might have been quite annoyed on Thursday morning to have been woken at 6.20am by a noisy rubbish truck making its way slowly down the road. I looked out of the window and noted that in any case, it wasn’t our rubbish truck; our recycle bin was still parked neatly by the side of the road, its contents freshly washed and ready for collection.

I have to admit that rubbish collection (and in particular, recycling) is one of my current favourite Things To Complain About. The whole system is privatised here and on our road alone, there are at least three different companies catering for the refuse-related needs of its inhabitants. Each house has at least two bins, one for recycling and one for everything else; we also have one for compostable food waste and one for glass. So that’s at least eight different trucks which have to do the rounds. Now I’m no expert on green issues, but surely all those enormous heavy-duty vehicles hauling up and down the roads every week or two can’t be good for the environment.

Later on, we pulled out of our road on the way to take the Small Girl to playschool, narrowly avoiding yet another scrape on the car, thanks to our own lumbering recycling truck, trying clumsily to jam itself between us and a parked car. I glanced sympathetically at the poor, choked trees lining the road - not even 9.00am, and we were already on our third HGV of the morning.

“Mum?” A Small Voice piped up from the back seat.
“Yes Sausage?” I asked
“What are we going to do this afternoon?”
“I’m not sure Darling; I thought maybe we could pop over to Anne and Jimmy’s”
“Oh yaay! Anne and Jimmy – yaay!... are we going today?”
“Yes, today – after playschool”
“Will we drive there in the car?”
“Well, I suppose we could…”
“In our car?”
“Yes, in our car”
“Mum?”
“Yes, Sausage?”
“Will you be driving?”
“Yes, I suppose I will, if we go in the car”
“Will you be sitting in the front seat?”
“Yes…”
“And Baby Pie and I will be sitting in the back seat?”
“Yes…”
“And can I listen to my music on the way there?”
“If you want…”
“And can I bring a thnack?”
“Yes, Darling” I said, beginning to lose my patience. “But perhaps we ought to just walk – after all, they do only live next door”.

Listening to our conversation from his seat next to the Small Girl, the Very Small Boy raised his earnest little eyebrows and gave his big sister a proud grin, revealing a single, gently gleaming, Very Small Tooth.