What the Harringay housewife did on her holidays

It was all going too well.
Despite my misgivings about RyanAir, they managed to get us on the plane, sitting together although the Priority Booking queue caused the usual mutterings from a few of the 'orange ladies' sitting near me,
("I bet they're not all Priority Booking etc").
The rental car was ready, car seats installed and we were off to Sarlat, promising the kids food as soon as we arrived...and that was where it all went pear shaped.

Although I had explained for the umpteenth time to Mr E that the French do not serve food at all hours , he insisted on pulling over to a roadside cafe to eat. My look of triumph as she shook her head at my question about food was probably a bit annoying but my husband is one of those people who has to see the grumpy face of the serveuse for himself before he will believe me. We were now behind schedule and the kids were getting restless. Arriving at Sarlat, we decided to find the campsite despite the wails from the backseat about pizza promised and not delivered. An hour and half later, after driving up and down the same road, exchanging insults and trying to calm two hysterical children who were now 2 hours overdue for their tea, we admitted defeat and headed into town. Mr E screeched into 'un parking' just as the nipperette threw up all over the back seat.
The extremely posh restaurant that we bundled them into took it rather well I thought when their peace was disturbed by sobbing children, furious father and mutinous mother. I ordered the children's menu, 'steak hache', it was raw on the plate...Bienvenue en France, I sighed and
handed the bread basket over to them.

There are no pictures of this holiday because on day 2, the baby's water beaker leaked all over my beloved camera and it died in my hand like a little fluttery bird. Fly tippers,litterers and fouling dogs of Harringay should not however feel safe...you have one week at most before I aquire my new camera and then I'm on your case again.

My daughter's bloodcurdling screams every time a minute insect landed on her were nothing to
the noise she made on day 3 when she stuck her hand under the boiling water Mr E was using
for the washing up. With her fingers stuck in a saucepan of water, she was driven screaming and
hysterical to the local hospital, filled full of painkillers and sent home with a magnificent bandage on her hand which she happily all paraded around the camp site on her return.
Just another typical family holiday, chez les E.

Luckily, perhaps due to 'vin mousseaux' tinted spectacles, life in the tent settled down to a slow pace, still punctuated by the screeches of my 'not at all impressed by nature' daughter every time she saw a spider, and my baby boy became progressively more mucky (and naked) as the days wore on.

Under the approving eyes of our Dutch and German neighbours, we sorted our rubbish and took
it to the recycling facilities on the site. The Perigord is spotless, despite the enormous numbers of tourists that pour in there. Not a cigarette butt on the street, which given that the French still smoke like the proverbial chimneys is no mean feat, no fast food wrappers anywhere despite the French teenager's love of McDo. Only one place had litter and graffiti, 'le jardin public' in Sarlat where clearly the rebellious Perigord teenager spends his/her Saturday night. The Dordogne itself is breathtakingly clean. Yet in a way I expected this level of cleanliness and attention to recycling, packaging, etc. Most of Europe is way ahead on this stuff. It was in the supermarket where I had my greatest surprise.

It is a shame there are no photos of the consternation on the face of the English people (us) when having bought a huge amount of shopping, we looked around for bags to put it in. The cashier watched with faint Gallic amusement as we flapped about before taking pity on us and telling us that there were cardboard boxes 'la bas'. And then it dawned...no single use carrier bags in the hypermarket. Was it just here? No, in all the supermarkets and shops we used, no one used plastic bags. Of course, being ecohousewife I had a shopping bag with me and the boxes became a fixture for a week in the car. There was no panic, nobody was refusing to shop because they could not have a plastic bag with 'HyperChampion' written all over it.

And now back in England, I watch in the queue as dozens of bags are handed out to supermarket customers, sometimes with only one item in them. You can't all have come in here on a whim and then bought a week's shopping. Did you suddenly realise that you were out of milk, bread and tea bags while sauntering up the high street and that it why you have to put three items into an enormous bag? Can you really not carry that can of coke and a cheese sandwich in your hand until you get to where you're going? Oh yes, you like to use them for your rubbish. Will that be the small bags you leave next to the bins or in the gutter on Green Lanes. Sorry, but free rubbish bag with every purchase isn't really good enough. Shopping bags not cool? If Mr E, northern beer drinking man par excellence, can be persuaded to use a shopping bag, so can you...so for today at least, Vive la France!

oh and RyanAir passengers did not disappoint on the way back where families with small children and people with mobility problems were out sprinted by the able bodied even though we were given a head start and there were plenty of seats on the flight. Are these the same people who insist on a carrier bag for their one item in Tesco?

p.s. Any one who saw the forest that is my garden at the moment will, I hope, agree we have offset our flight!

The dog s**t picture gets a lot of views

I had vowed not to photograph the dog shit...litter, fly tipping, graffiti, etc, yes but not the poo. However the irritable email must have worked because that stretch of the Harringay passage is now a Grade A super clean bit of pavement and you can see the flagstones.



Only had to remove one small chocolate wrapper from the scene.

My posting of the link to the dog shit picture on www.harringayonline.com
resulted in a lot of people in the pub for the neighbourly drinks being very amused but anyone who missed it were able to appreciate the paper copy that M had brought to show A. Any one who finds the said photo in the gentleman's loo, it wasn't me it was the Goat who put it there!

Sadly my joy at a clean Harringay passage was short lived when in the next stretch I discovered this

in the next bit of the Passage
and then had to do some pretty nifty footwork avoiding a pile of dog mess deposited in the middle of the entrance to the part of the Harringay Passage where the entrance to the kids school is.
Nice, thoughtful...hope you step in something very nasty very soon whoever you are.

Another Monday Morning email

A beautiful sunny morning and the children and I are greeted by litter strewn streets and piles of dog poo, as we trip merrily to the nursery. Camera out, and I can't resist any longer, photographing the pile of dog shit which has sat for a week in the Harringay Passage, topped with a little pink ball and marked by a plastic waterbomb remnant. One good turn those naughty little boys have done for the neighbourhood. Home again, fully intending to spend half an hour or so preparing for the damn great exam that I have next week, but the comments that i have been muttering won't get out of my head, so another Monday morning email wings its way to the neighbourhood manager, stopping off en route at the local councillors...

Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 02:28:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Cleanliness of Harringay Passage and Ladder streets, including Green lanes 09/06/08


Dear Mr ******,
I'm afraid that I am still very concerned about the standards of cleanliness in the Passage, especially the clearing away of dog mess. I am not normally in the habit of photographing dog mess but there has been a small pile of it that has been there for a week. I know it is the same pile as there is a small plastic ball and some other plastic nearby on top. Since I cannot fail to notice it, I don't know how it has been missed in two sweeps now. Click for a view,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrs_eds/2564300258/
I would also like to mention the terrible amount of rubbish that accumulates as a result of the waste collection on Friday, that is then thoughtfully added to over the weekend by local residents. By Monday morning, the state of streets is terrible, This is the typical state of many roads,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrs_eds/2504346869/in/set-72157604949486591/
This morning, Mattison Road was particularly bad but on my Monday morning walk to nursery, many of the roads show similar levels of littering. I have requested extra litter picks for many of these roads but often although pavements are cleared, gutter, behind telephone cabinets, in spaces in walls etc are not.
Finally, the pavements in Green Lanes are covered in cigarette butts again. Areas around the bookies are particularly bad especially the Metrobet and the one by the bus stop near Warham Road, and the small bookies pens are also becoming a nuisance. I hope that you took account of my comments and suggestions concerning cigarette disposal facilities as the problem will only get worse as the summer goes on and more people are outside.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Eds

I don't want to see your butt

Smokers, I've nothing against you. Feel free to light up. After all, you volunteer to pay an enormous tax which more that adequately covers the hospital bed you will need later, look on it as a deposit. And you do look very sophisticated when you smoke, very Marlon Brando or Marlene Dietrich, you make me want to hang out with you, you cool dudes. With the added bonus that you will have significantly shortened your life so you won't need that hospital bed for long, and there will be one for me when it is my turn to shuffle off this mortal coil. Shame you won't be around, but then again you might end up at a tea dance paid for by the Making the Difference fund somewhere where the curtains are never opened, oh lord, the thought almost makes me feel like reaching for a Regal myself.

But, or should I say BUTT,

you have one filthy habit which I have to take issue with and one that is making Mrs Litter very irritated indeed.

Take a stroll down Green Lanes on a Saturday afternoon, linger a little at the open MetroBet door, so tempting, an 'each way' with the child benefit and we'll be drinking champagne on the Riviera this time next week, and then look down. Everywhere you look you see little orange bits of paper, everywhere. Stroll on and before long you realise that the entrance outside the bookies was much cleaner than the one outside the cafe, the hardware shop, the grocers. And then you see it, three or four people, gossiping, enjoying the afternoon sun, having a joke, smoking a fag and each and every one of them throws the butt on the ground before going inside. Not the pub, oh no, the Old Ale is a model of cigarette etiquette with butt bins and ashtrays on the tables filled with sand and a landlord that cares about the space in front of his establishment. Back into the cafe, the bakery, the shop. One has made a half hearted attempt to throw it towards the bin which is 2 steps from him but misses, oh well, it's not going to make much of a difference, it is such a small thing.

Look, I know you feel you are the new social pariahs, that you are making a stand for freedom against the nanny state. You are a rebel, I can't take my eyes off, you gorgeous thing you, which is a shame as my newly walking toddler is just picking up that orange paper and testing it, with his tongue. Aaaargh!

You know, we could do something about this. Maybe people could use the bins, we could ask traders to put up one of those wall ashtrays outside their shops and ensure their employees and customers use them, ask employees to take an ashtray with them, get cafes to sweep up round their tables.
It's not so hard, you'll still be the the cool rebel you always were, the ashtray won't change that.

Photos by permission of Alex Segre

Cleanliness of Harringay Passage 06/06/08

A typical email to the Council about the typical state of a typical bit of Harringay.
Sadly, a new cleaning schedule has just been put into place and already there are problems.
Meanwhile, the managers are sending out directives about cuddly toys in trucks.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/47163/Cuddly-toys-banned-from-dustbin-lorries

Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 02:09:12 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Subject: Cleanliness of Harringay Passage 06/06/08


Dear Mr ******
I am sorry to have to report that some stretches of the Harringay Passage were not swept yesterday. In the section between Warham and Seymour for example, a cans, some rubbish and a pile of very distinctive dog poo (someone has put a pink ball in the middle of it) is still there from Wednesday. I would appreciate if you could follow up with contractors as soon as possible to ensure the job is done properly on Saturday.
Yours sincerely

Drinking zone

cheap supermarket booze, originally uploaded by MrsEds.
As you approach the tills, you see the cheap booze. £1 a can.

Not in the picture because the security guard was not happy about me taking photos are rows of cheap vodka and on the other side, a bubblegum flavoured drink called Cactus Jack clearly marketed at teens. I am critical of the small grocers shops and off licences on Green Lanes for selling cheap Polish lager but the local Iceland whose target market tend to be the poorer residents are just as guilty of pushing cheap strong alcohol.

"We note that patterns of drinking behaviour in the UK are changing.
"The average consumption of alcohol outside the home reduced by 170ml per week, while the average consumption in the home increased by 200ml per week, between 1992 and 2006.

'It may be the case that people preload' with shop-bought alcohol before going out in the evening.

"This contributes to intoxication, accidents, fights and alcohol poisoning. The changing culture may have been brought about by the availability of cheap alcohol."

Eugenia Cronin, joint director of public health for Haringey Teaching PCT and Haringey Council
Haringey Independent

And a walk down the HarringayPassage, a few minutes later reveal these cans don't get far.

As well as feeling quite frustrated about the amount of litter that is generated, the type of litter is also very revealing.
There is a problem with street drinking in our neighbourhood although the Council did not agree enough to include us in their 'no drinking zones' .

The evidence is left everywhere, cans and bottles are stuffed everywhere or thrown over fences and bodily fluids are also a daily after effect . The Grolsch can was accompanied by the most revolting stench of urine.

Other favourite litter to accompany cans are cigarette ends and packets and fast food packaging.
A great night out then.