Ottawa has a strict by law about stuff at the curb: garbage goes out not earlier than 1800 hr the night before, which limits pick-up potential. Another problem with that kind of ad hoc Freecyling is that a surprising number of people around here won't set foot on your porch without a personal invitation even if there's a "Free To Good Home" sign posted in plain sight on a pile of obvious stuff-to-go. Of course that doesn't mean your bicycle is safe -- it's the honest people who have inhibitions, not thieves.

Giok, you're right about waiting until Edmund is away. Not only have I been doing without his scintillating company, I've also been languishing at home with bronchitis (the inevitable follow-on from a sneezly cold, complicated by summer smog and heat), and being sick is just so bloody boring that it was kinda fun to sort out the stuff in the garage shelving and sweep the floor clean of the winter's filth. God, but I sound pathetic!

I also met two musicians when Freecycling a guitar gig-bag and a badly balanced mandolin case. Would you believe a guy playing the mandolin -- open G tuning -- in a Rolling Stones tribute band called Goat's Head Soup? And the guitar bag went to a nice lady who composes Christian pop songs and is starting out on the coffee house circuit. She sent me a darling e-mail thanking me for "sharing part of my life course." I was so bloody bored I would probably have made tea for Paul Martin if he'd dropped by -- and I haven't voted Liberal since 1982!