Colonies Clean-Up 2011

 

Now we can justifiably say that the paths around the Stockbridge Colonies are clean!

On the sunny Sunday of 17th April, thanks to a group of about 16 residents plus a few other helpers who appreciate our special neighbourhood, we amassed no less than 20 bin-bags full of rubbish, 4 of them containing ‘recyclables’.  This was part of Keep Scotland Beautiful’s national spring-clean programme which provided us with all the tools needed to rid our neighbourhood of unsightly – and sometimes hazardous – litter.  Much as we all thought we’d find very little rubbish, we couldn’t believe how much our hour and a half of labour yielded.  To cap it all, a pair of gloves and woolly hat were spotted, making the far bank of the river look rather untidy and, amazingly, when investigated further by a very zealous member of our company wading across the deceptively deep river with its extremely slippery bed, they were found to be attached to extremities of a sculptured body… which proved to be the corpse of one of the very cleverly crafted ‘leaf family’ who appeared overnight in autumn 2010 on the grassy patch at the end of Saunders Street.  He (or she!) made a very unusual photographic subject so we’re hoping we may have a chance of winning one of the competitions organised by Keep Scotland Beautiful. 

The paths which we scoured between us are:

Rocheid Path: the path between Arboretum Avenue and Portgower Place; the ‘snakey’; the grassy river bank opposite Reid Terrace; the walkway from Falshaw Bridge to Pizza Express.

We sincerely hope that these areas will remain litter-free after all our efforts! 

At the end of our stint, we were rewarded with snacks kindly donated by Greggs and a warming cuppa while we admired our haul and then all returned home to clean ourselves up and enjoy the sunshine!