Well, they've gone. Soon they will be winging their way to their last resting place. They have been my loyal companions for 2 years now, have kept my feet warm in winter, slept next to my bed at night, were always waiting for me in the morning when I rolled out of bed, or when I came in out of the cold world outside. I feel lonely without them, and cold. Then I had to dispose of them - my wonderful sheepskin slippers. The problem was - where, and how?? In Düsseldorf, garbage is collected by the Awista. They give us bins for everything. Black bins for household garbage, brown ones for *bio* things which can be composted. Blue bins for paper. Yellow bins for plastic and metal. Containers spoiling the view on every corner where you can throw in brown glass, clear glass and green glass. Containers for old clothes (packed and bundled) or shoes (tied together in pairs, please!). Once a month they collect old furniture. We have a recycling yard round the corner where there are giant containers, not only for all these things, but also for garden rubbish like leaves and branches, for scrap metal, for small electric appliances (like toasters, coffee machines etc) but NOT for computers, TVs or LARGE things. These have to be taken to other specialised recycling yards. And once a month they have a special collection at the yard where you can take DANGEROUS things like old paint tins, batteries, acids, chemicals and old oil cans, to name just a few. Our garbage gets treated very well here, then they earn money with it. And the monthly, compulsory fees for their services are also considerable. Once a year we even get a free calendar which tells what you can put where and when. This was the problem. Where to put my sheepskin slippers? Normally, I could have bundled them and taken them across the road to the old clothes container. I mean, they are not worn out. It's just that I had to dispose of them because every time I took them off, the smell of decaying sheep was sooooooo strong that I nearly fainted. I had thought of trying to extract the gas they were giving off and marketing it as an anaesthetic for minor ops. Or would it have been more suitable as something for biological warfare? This was the problem. Did I have to take my slippers to the monthly collection of dangerous goods? Or could I dispose of them in the black bins? This morning I made a decision.
The offending articles were packed in a small bin bag, tied well, and I sneaked outside in PJs (the grey-pink striped ones) and my leather biker jacket and put them in the black bin. There they came to rest, not on a bed of roses, but on a heap of veggies, mostly peas, which were in the bin. As I said at the beginning - Rest in Peas!!
