A big thank you to my in-laws this morning. They came down on Friday and helped us (actually, a more accurate description would be that I helped them) to replace the rear fence with new panels and scrub our rear roof free of lichen and moss, plus other odd jobs. It's now Monday morning and there's a green bin full of green waste for next week's recycling collection and the local recycling centre was the unwilling beneficiary of all the wood we cleared from the old panels plus the substantial remnants of my old fence-replacement programme.

I was also able to fit in a visit from mum and dad; the former to set up a stall in the local craft market, which was successful enough to persuade her to start doing them again with her cards and toppers business (see here). Dad came along for - in his own words - much-needed exercise and to sit ranting through Blues dour 0-0 draw with Southampton. He left for the last 10 minutes - at this point I'd felt he'd been over the top and unnecessarily critical, however it soon transpired that without his presence to distract me, I degenerated into a Rantaholic myself. Dad was unimpressed with the effort levels more than anything, I - tired of the 'in their face' approach am just sick of the lack of quality on display. We had only one chance of note, and had it gone in it would have been a travesty. A long, hard winter beckons - if I can be bothered to get that wound up about it. And at least my American football team (Philadelphia Eagles) won again to have a perfect 6-0 record seven weeks into the new season.

It's bin day today, and sadly it's now obvious that our neighbours have not learned from my little chat with them. Both bins are again out, plus the black box for recycling is stuffed with another bin, and a box for good measure has been thrown up behind it. Note to self: when you email West Wiltshire District Council later today after (a) rubbish is left behind, and (b) rubbish mysteriously disappears overnight, put a read receipt in, so at least you'll know they actually read and received your mail, even if their new approach appears to be 'bury our heads in the sand and ignore him'...