Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Went in B&Q at lunchtime to look in the garden centre; wasn't worth going as it's 90% Christmas trees at the moment. There was this awful Christmas song playing too: "Everyone's a kid at Christmas. A holly jolly kid at Christmas". It made want to stamp my feet and throw myself to the floor in a tantrum.

 

Thanks for your inputs folks. I should have said I felt slightly dubious about causing the houseowner extra expense just before Xmas if they have to hire somebody to cut the hedge/pull the vegetation off the wall . It's a beech hedge on top of the wall which does get trimmed occasionally. It was obviously planted too near the wall in the first place which didn't allow for the width. The underlying vegetation is curious, it's Bergenia whose corms are cascading right down from the wall top to pavement level - I'm tempted to yank a few off when I next walk past and leave them lying there.

Our Council is usually pretty good at responding to FixMyStreet reports which I do post on sometimes but really don't want to get a reputation as a serial complainer!

 

I know what you're saying @lizzie27, but I'm sure you're not on there every 5 minutes .
In my experience (working for street lighting contractors for many years), everyone expects faults etc to have been reported by someone else. They used to ring up complaining about a non working light that had been out for weeks, and when asked when they reported it, replied "I didn't". Crystal ball would have been very handy.

 

I’d consider you a concerned citizen rather than a serial complainer, @lizzie27! At least someone might get round to rectify it, but it can take so long that the sooner someone points it out, the better. I think also, once something has been logged, if an accident happened, the affected person would be better placed for compensation if needed. Otherwise the council could plead that they didn’t know anything about it.
Another good reason for promptly reporting potholes - I think there is some legislation that enables you to claim for a puncture or damaged wheel, if the council had been made aware of the pothole and had failed to repair it or put up some sort of warning for motorists.
For one big pothole nearby, someone had put a traffic cone in the hole! Bit alarming to come across unexpectedly.
On a lighter note, we passed a roadside bank where a badger tunnel had broken through, depositing a pile of earth onto the roadway. Despite regular sweeping up, the pile kept growing until it was properly blocked off. One day, someone had positioned a small sign on top of the mud, it read ‘Escape Committee, meet here at 10pm tonight’.

 

I think now is a good time to act; they're very unlikely to leap right into action and do anything before Christmas. And a householder won't be required to act immediately either.

 

I have problems with brambles on part of my walk to work, and sometimes I carry a pair of secateurs with me and cut back the worst bits. I then have to try and kick them out of the way to the side so the cyclists don't ride over them and get a puncture (it's a shared footpath/cycleway, I wouldn't bother on an ordinary pavement!).
It's often a problem at times of the year when they're not supposed to be cutting the hedges anyway due to nesting birds, so I don't mind doing it then.

 

OK, you've convinced me, I'll report it.

We quite often take secateurs or bigger pruners with us @Escarpment and do the same as you but baulked a couple of months ago when a long section of overgrown brambles hung over the pathway and kept catching on our clothes. I did manage to wait until all the blackberries had been picked then posted on FixmyStreet. The Council did eventually cut them all back.