If You Get Up Early Mother Nature Will Blow You A Kiss

Having just got over the Christmas Bank Holidays, our bin collection dates are all out of sequence. We are collecting Monday's on a Wednesday etc.When this happens we do something called 'catch up.' This means we come in on Saturdays to catch up for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. This involves three following Saturdays on Overtime to make the days go back in order of rotation.

This Saturday 9th January 2016, the alarm went off and I thought, "Errrrrrr - Saturday and getting up for work." Our job always gives us Saturday and Sunday off and we do a rotating rest day between Monday to Friday. A four day week. We do long days when in work, but it is all out door in the countryside most of the time or in pleasant country hamlets. Its a very agreeable job and with great work mates. It's just these odd Saturdays when one is a little spoilt to not working weekends. When that alarm call comes in the winter, one doesn't always get up with great aplomb if you get my meaning.

Still - get up - I did. The shower soon washed the cobwebs away and into to work I went. We were scheduled to do a small village called 'Friday Bridge.' in the Fenland. The approach has open fields. Our driver Alex commented on one shinning star up in the morning darkness. We reasoned it was probably a planet. Using his phone app he was able to point the screen towards the one shinning tiny orb and his screen lit up with stars that would be there if all was clearer. What an amazing app. We were able to learn instantly that it was Saturn.

Feeling pleased with ourselves we got out and began to load the bins of Friday Bridge. We had a helper from another department called Lloyd (Loading bins in picture) and all three of us were marvelling at how great the sky looked in the dawn. The clouds seemed to be of many colours and to the north we could see the sky looked tempest as though rain might come. However, where we were, the climate was agreeable. Especially for January in winter.

I commented on how I did not fancy getting up on a Saturday morning but seeing the sky was all worth it as Alex and I were clicking our mobile phone cameras. Lloyd was laughing at us and our uplifting view on the wonderful morning. In the Fens you can see for miles across the flat drained marshlands that are rich in agriculture. Everywhere are farms and neat lines of distant trees running along the dike networks. All bare and bleak looking. We know that spring is not far off and in a few weeks this will all change.

Alex laughed and said. "See! If you get up early enough - Mother Nature Will Blow You a Kiss."

We all laughed and set about our task of clearing the inhabitants of Friday Bridge's bin garbage.

Just another day in the Fenland, but when one looks up into the sky and out across all the surrounding fields; I realise my lot in the world is a rather fortunate one.