The way to the tip

This photograph is of one of my favourite roads in Anglesey. It is a road I have travelled many times. When we arrived in Anglesey in September 2004 and unloaded all our goods and chattels we found a great many cardboard boxes to discard.

Back home in Milnrow, Rochdale, we would have taken them in the car over a period of time each time we went to the supermarket or visited the town centre in Rochdale. The facility we used in Rochdale was very well planned and consisted of a series of cliff edges in herringbone fashion. Over each one of these we could throw our rubbish. Some were specially marked for green refuse, metal, wood, etc. The entrance to the site had a bar to prevent lorries arriving and filling the skips with trade waste. One day I took Pauline's Ford Focus with a load of long items which protruded from the boot. This meant I had to leave the tailgate open. Not having tied it down, the tailgate was in an elevated position. As I passed through the tip gateway there was an almighty crash as the rear window smashed!

This waste facility in Rochdale was about 2.5 miles from our house in Milnrow. When we arrived in Anglesey we found that going to the tip with our excess rubbish was a journey of 30 miles there and back. So, whenever we had rubbish we loaded it into whichever car we were using to go to Bangor, Llanfairpwll or Menai Bridge. During the first few months we were engaged on many jobs as we made improvements to our bungalow and so it meant we were forever travelling the journey to the tip.

This was the down side. The up side was that we drove along this road on the final mile to the refuse tip. You can really get a move on down this tree lined lane because you can see so far ahead. If you see a vehicle travelling towards you there are numerous lay by passing places to stop in. Not only this but the road has a lovely smooth surface unblemished by reinstatements such as you encounter on the road from Milnrow to Rochdale. Once in leaf, the many different trees form a beautiful avenue throughout the late Spring, Summer and Autumn.

Since we came an old farmhouse has been transformed into a very attractive house with double garage and pretty gardens just before you arrive at the gate to the site. I remember the day when we had to stop and wait until some men had unloaded and then driven a huge excavator through a gap in the hedge to get onto a farm. Living in the country means you are required to have a great deal of patience as slower vehicles share the roads with you. Most tractor drivers pull into the occasional layby to allow the traffic to flow again. But I think that this photo shows that we have the most pretty route of anywhere for a road to the refuse tip.