My inner womble

So after a few days of uncomfortable home bound containment, I today managed to leave the house and venture as far as the post office to collect a parcel.   Despite feeling a lot better today than yesterday and having managed a full night's sleep rather than waking up every two hours, I still was not taking any chances and so took Lil Sis's house keys along with me (her house is en route to the post office) in case I needed an emergency stop. Fortunately I did not, but always better to be safe than sorry.

I also took the opportunity to wrap up warm and benefit from the blustery weather and chilly temperatures which we are now enjoying. To be honest, I think just standing outside and letting the natural elements blow away the cobwebs was on its own enough to make me feel better after so long inside, but I very much enjoyed my brief walk as well.

Whilst I was out I did notice a rather disturbing amount of litter which appeared to be decorating the pavements, gutters and roads in our area today.  I also followed a woman along the road pushing her mandatory buggy complete with surf board thing on the back for the school age child she had in tow, and was extremely disappointed to observe that both she and her child just discarded their sweet wrappers on the pavement rather than find a bin (there are lots, it is a main shopping road) or put it in their pockets until they got home.  I was a bit too far back to say anything as by the time I caught up with them the bravery had left me, but I wish I had said something now, not least because the child's book back she was sporting on the buggy was one from one of the allegedly better school's in the area. She should have known better. Not only is this unsightly and potentially unhygienic I find it very sad that people in general think it is acceptable to litter.  There was an article in a magazine a couple of weeks ago about some towns in Britain which have taken a hard stance against litter bugs and quite rightly too.  It is now illegal to drop a cigarette butt on the pavement as this now counts as litter (about time too), and apparently it costs every citizen in the UK £5 a year to pay for the street rubbish tidy up services.  So next time, I see someone littering, I think I will make more of an effort to stop them seeing as it is my money they are wasting.  To compensate for my cowardice in the face of a litter bug however, I did pick up several pieces of rubbish which ironically seem to have been scattered across our road as a result of the bin men emptying the recycling today, and so I feel I have done my bit to make East Dulwich a cleaner place for today.

So, onto the positive thoughts for the day.  Well, firstly I am feeling a bit better than yesterday and have managed to leave the house, as I have already said, and secondly today I received a card from an old university friend of mine who although I do not see or speak to her very often, I think of very fondly and so was delighted that she got in touch as I had not heard from her throughout this whole ordeal and just a note to say she is thinking of me means a lot.  Thank you.  And finally, I have contributed to a cleaner society by picking up some rogue litter this morning.  It may not be a lot in the grand scheme of things but every little helps and so hopefully if we all do the same each day then those £5 can be spent on something more important than picking up litter.  It must be my inner Womble.