Sublime [ob]scene

 When we first ever moved into the Blackstairs, I was bumbling along in a neighbour's car and we came round a corner to be presented with a most spectacular view of that range of hills dizzying up from the checkerboard of fields and hedges and tapering away to the southern horizon.
"That's a most spectacular view", I said.
"Where?", he said.
"Well, everywhere!".
I don't think he understood what The Blethering Incomer  - TBI - was going on about. Nevertheless, it still is spectacular in its own understated not-the-Andes way.

Surely it's worth preserving a view so affecting? And doing so at all scales in the fractal landscape. Not only thinking hard about the costs as well at the utility of wind-turbines and electricity pylons but also paying attention to the details of what is perched in the hedgerows:
Dunnocks Prunella modularis [✓]
Sandwich wrappers Slobbo vulgaris [χ]

The weekend of 22nd Feb 2025 was designated the ~20th memorial An Taisce Trash Pick. We've been doing this every Spring, with some of the neighbours, since our kids were tall enough to not fit in a trash bag. We established a territory along the 1km stretch of the [60km/h!] local road between "The Monument" and "The Wall" - both sides. Because both sides, it's nicer and more efficient to walk the walk with some else. Saturday was gorgeous: sun-shiny, crisp, fresh. t.b.h the road margins were quite clean and the secluded car-park at The Monument surprisingly clean. Maybe Broken Windows Theory is working? 

I find it's easier to do the work without getting judgemental, let alone going mental, about it. When we finished, I sent an ironic comment to our local participants
"Best in show?? One flimsy brimful bag of used nappies".
Someone else responded with a suggestion about what punishment shd be meted out on the nappy perps [parents, I guess, not the incontinent infant]. But I demur: Once upon a time, the local authority collected everyone's trash as a public good. Then some bright spark decided that the process would be more efficient if put out to tender and Private Enterprises could compete to get the best value for the community. Competition worked well for making paperclips so cheap you could throw them away. The effect has been to have 3 competing trash collections running on the same streets in Tramore where one did the job before. And left all kinds of marginalised folk deciding that they couldn't afford both nappies and €600/yr to dispose of them.

As well as paying for the dump fees, An Taisce provides a stipend for tea and cookies in the village hall. I guess so we can all get together and congratulate ourselves for not being the kind of person who would fire a Lucozade bottle out of a car-window. After tea and chat, we went round the back of the hall to photo-op The Heap:

In case you're concerned, I c a r e f u l l y transferred 'my' nappies into a fit-for-purpose robust black bin bag, whc I have ◎ed. I turned my back on the trash, and there was the view which Michael Way thought made it worth the 50km trip from Wexford to teach drama to kids in the lee of Mt Leinster:

You cannot meaningfully have the spectacular view without cleaning up the foreground.