courteous and receptive to courtesy

The council managed to collect my rubbish this week you will be delighted to hear.

We are on a two week cycle: rubbish, paper and card one week; plastics, glass, cans and cartons the next.

It was third time lucky for me with rubbish, so there were three black bags and more than a month's worth of refuse in my wheelie bin.

Both a fortnight ago and four weeks ago, when I realised my refuse hadn't been taken, I was caught by the woman next door peering into her wheelie bin. I wanted to check if it was just me who had been missed or if the whole street had been overlooked and it is difficult to see if there is a black bag in a black plastic bin after dusk without sticking your head deep inside.

Being caught in this position can be, as you might imagine, difficult to explain to a neighbour especially at the second time of asking.

Perhaps I should have asked her in for a coffee so I could put her at ease. “I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.” in my best Hannibal Lecter would probably have done the trick.