Two enormous wheelie bins arrived at the house yesterday from two massive men in a council van, dropping them off shiftily with the engine running and speeding off.  Now, you might be old hands at these monstrosities but out in the sticks, we’re not. I’ve been putting out my black bin-bags on the roadside every Friday for years, and they contain all my un-edited household rubbish.

These huge bins are cluttering up the place. With them came a booklet with long lists of what the council would take, wouldn’t take, how and when. Completely ridiculous. A separate box claimed it was for food waste. The bins were enormous, higher than my chest, and the first thing I did was put my garden tools in them.  

The thing is, it’s not going to happen. I’m all for recycling as long as someone else does it. I don’t have children and their ghastly disposable nappies; I used to boil my children’s nappies and hang them on the line. I still line-dry everything without exception. I have a dryer I've never used. I read the papers online and buy what I need to eat, daily. I eat fresh, and therefore have no hideous plastic packaging. I even make my own yoghurt, for heaven’s sake.

So thanks very much, but I won’t be using my wheelie bin. I shall continue to bin my few loo roll wrappers and empty tins of sweetcorn. I pay my council tax after all. They can take me away, prosecute me and lock me up and I still won’t.

p.s. ...The wheelie bins aren’t the only things to unleash my Prima Donna. I refuse to obey the signs in restaurants that tell you to ‘Please wait here to be seated’. Especially when the place is an empty Little Chef.  If it’s a full Pizza Express I definitely won’t because you’re likely to get a table next to a birthday party for 24 three year olds with balloons. So I march in and plant myself at the table of my choice.

Good game!

How frustrating does it get? Just bought two new fitted double sheets for my Bristol bed and forgot it was King size. And isn’t it strange how you go round madly trying to stretch the thing, just in case it might fit? And it never does !

I’m not sure how I should feel at this one. I was at a ‘Naming day’ for a little boy last week and asked if they needed anything. I was asked to take some food. I know the family are very vegetarian and the Naming day would be a bit flowers and OK I thought, I would make a nice coronation chicken. All evening I cooked endless chicken breasts, carved them up and made a sumptuous sauce of mango chutney home-made mayo and the rest. I took enough to feed an army, it was enthusiastically received and I was stunned to see, after a mere half hour on a table laden with goodies, that it had all gone!

Later I cornered James and confessed.   

“Real chicken?” he cried, clapping his hand to his mouth, eyes wide. Part of him was stifling a smile. He hasn’t always been a vegetarian and I have a feeling he sneaks a fillet steak when he’s away.

“They’re all vegetarians.” He whispered. “They know this is a vegetarian household. They would have thought it was Quorn. My God. Some of them have been vegetarian all their lives and that’s fifty years!!”

“Well, they waffled that chicken down in double-quick time” I said. “Maybe they knew and it was their break for freedom”

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The new diet is coming along for my six volunteers for Woman’s Own, and the next part of my autumn plans will be a series of downloadable diets, cheap and cheerful.

The designers are working hotly on it at the moment, and the first two will be online in about a month. Then it’s full-on with four more. You will get a very fast tummy –flattening diet (with extension plan) a 20-something’s diet (this group have been ill-served with diets for too long) a Dairy-Free Diet and my ultra-popular Pick-‘n Mix diet which is food combining.  If there’s a diet you’d like to see, please write and tell me!