Thursday, February 18, 2010

An Introduction to Freecycle...

Things are calm here, blackberry and courgette muffins in the oven Stargate Atlantis on the TV but today had pockets of extreme excitement...
I have just joined Freecycle and very excited about redistributing goods to those who would appreciate them. I listed a grey vinyl armchair that has been lurking on the verandah since we moved here. We inherited it with the house and I have cleaned up enough rental properties to know that this was the sort of armchair you don't mess with. It is so solid and dour that I think it must have come from a maternity ward and been used for nursing, I found it good for breastfeeding anyway. But it had done it's time here so I popped it on Freecycle. A very happy man called to say he was collecting it for his wife and we took care to let him know how big and heavy it was...
Some hours later a man in visibility vest and Council hat was examining the gutter out the front very closely... Hurrah! he has come to check the festering stagnant puddle full of mosquito larvae (and adults!) that I reported on Monday (not too bad a delay I thought). I was chatting about how the whole suburb is slowly sinking and the puddle has formed in a low spot when a man appeared and told us it wasn't as bad as in Malaysia.
Council Man: "I have just exchanged a whole lot of Malaysian money"
Suddenly appeared man: "Are you going to Malaysia?"
Council Man: "No I just came back from there."
Suddenly Appeared Man:"You would have gone to Butter Hills (sic?) Caves, I have the cave on the left"
Council Man, "Oh the cave on the left, I didn't go there, too many stairs"
(Suddenly appeared man is hereafter called "Cave Man"); "Yes, there are 208.."
This cave based conversation went on for some time with many interesting facts about cave ecology (this cave has over 300 species and is about 2.5km long apparently), I just hung about as such odd conversations don't normally happen at my gate post.. then it took a turn!
Cave Man ; "perhaps you will be coming to where I live I put in a concern for Johnson Grove (insert long protracted description of driveway entrance problems)"
Council Man: "Are you number 27? I will come over tomorrow- what are you doing here?"
Cave man: "Collecting a chair"
Council man: "I meant Australia"
....I left them to it and the Cave man (now Chair Man?)went to get his Mitsubishi sedan which was clearly inadequate for the mighty armchair...
Then a loud opinionated tow truck driver delivering a car to us pulled up beside the Mitsubishi and decided to get involved.. I watched from afar...
"No bloody way,the hole just isn't big enough, I know holes and that isn't goin' in the hole, no bloody way!" so sayeth the Tow truck driver- a rare occasion of him actually being right.
Eventually the chair was put back on the nature strip whilst Chair Man went to get a more suitable vehicle and reinforcements( I did tell him it was heavy!).
After we finished running errands the chair has gone and there is so much more room on the verandah- not to mention the entertainment factor from the whole happening! Freecycle is great!

2 comments:

  1. Manythings in our house have come and gone via freecycle - all my knitting needles and plenty of wool have come from there - I asked for firewood and got an old shed to take away - I used it as a shed and stored some firewood in there! I gave the kids bikes away and a family came and their kids were excited to get them - it's a great idea - spread the love!

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  2. OOh free shed! I love the idea of redistributing things to people who are going to use them and love them. Unfortunately Op shops and charities here in Australia are not really doing that these days, they send a lot of gear that I think is good to landfill, or just refuse to collect perfectly good things. Hurrah for freecycle I say!

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