Of The Great River Tidy-Up

I was out volunteering over the weekend picking up rubbish in and around our local river, the Six Mile Water. The Six Mile Water incidentally is 24 miles long (only in Ireland I hear you cry) but on Saturday we cleaned (or cleared) less than half a mile of it.
It's amazing what you can find in a river nowadays. We fished out three tyres, half a washing machine, a bike and countless plastic shopping bags.
One plastic sack eluded our best joint efforts however. It was stuck on a fallen tree right in the middle of the river. Despite the attempts of four of us it remains there today. But we've not given up. Soon we plan to return in a boat to remove it and its smug little smile.

The woodland around the river on Saturday was looking spectacular glistening in gold and yellow in the early morning sun.
We're lucky to live in such beautiful surroundings. It just a pity that we don't take more care of it and seem happy to tolerate a level of litter that people in many other countries would consider totally unacceptable.