So what is it with bottle banks?

Today was my first weekday of freedom, the first Monday when there was no boss but myself, for three years. And - yes - it feels good. Very good. I worked all morning - I hadn't planned to, because I've worked all weekend, but I got sat down at my desk and working, and was on a bit of a roll... so I didn't stop. The new toy is beginning to take very pleasing shape.

And then, well, I had to go shopping, and there was a whole pile of glass jars and bottles (mainly coffee jars) to go to the bottle bank. So I loaded about 15Kg of glass into my trailer, and rolled off down to the bottom of the village... to find that the bottle bank which has stood there for the past five years is there no longer. Muttering imprecations, I cycled off towards Castle Douglas, the trailer clinking merrily behind me. There's a bottle bank, I thought, at the Co-op, which is where I'm going anyway...

And, indeed, theoretically speaking, there is a bottle bank at the co-op. It's clearly a savings bank - everyone has been depositing madly and no-one has been withdrawing anything, with the result that the bank was, how can one put this delicately, suffering from an embarrassment of riches.

OK, I thought. Well, I thought, there's a bottle bank at the Market Hill car park... so I turned my trusty steed thither, and there the bottle bank was not. Gone away, no forwarding address. Ultimately, I found a bottle bank at Tesco's. Normally I wouldn't go to Tesco's, they offend my left wing sensibilities. But a bank in need is a bank indeed...

I am, as you may have gathered, mildly pissed off about this. There is a certain sense of green virtue one can get from recycling one's bottles (although it is pretty damned energy inefficient to melt down perfectly good jars and bottles to make new ones, when you could just wash them and reuse them immediately). There's a greater sense of green virtue which one gets from conveying the said receptacles to the place of collection by bicycle. But to have to cycle ten miles with the bloody things rattling and jingling behind one stretches the glow of virtue thin.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the afternoon dropping in on friends and cheerfully blethering over cups of tea, reloaded my trailer with shopping from the co-op and cycled merrily home.

Since when I've dummied up two new experimental user interface options, fixed a couple of minor bugs, and had a long and refreshing bath.

Freedom is good.