The water cooler in the office. By the bins if you happen to be a smoker. At the bus stop waiting for a delayed service. In the queue for something, way back around the corner.
All pretty good places to engage in a conversation but trumped in all aspects by the ambience created by a domestic rubbish skip.
I have taken delivery today of an 18 cubic ,something, skip and in the process of struggling down the driveway laden with the contents of the garage, greenhouse, roof space and Kelly Cottage (The grandly named shed in homage to one of my cycling heroes Sean Kelly) and dumping it in the rather jaded metal container I have had more meaningful dialogue with estranged neighbours, complete strangers and casual passers by than in all the eighteen years of residing in the same house.
It is a grossly underestimated ice breaker in social circles.
It is a hot topic to start a conversation such as todays examples " are you just moving in or moving out?", "is it falling down?", "has someone died?" and "what is the name of your reclamation company?".
These are comments from the dog walkers, those taking doctors orders for an afternoon perambulation in their local area or the plain nosey, inquisitive and envious.
On just about every return to the skip carrying bits of wood, ironwork, half empty paint tins (I am that type of bloke rather than half full), bits of children's broken toys, persistent returnees from car boot sale stock and pieces of bike I have encountered someone engaged in the practice of skip diving or from my own personal observations today skip dipping.
Some item has caught their eye in passing and furtive glances follow to determine if they can just lift it out and flit down the street but inevitably they are prepared to linger awhile and ask for permission. Of course the former gets the adrenalin going but conscience, good citizenship and decency prevail.
It is a bit like that fleeting moment when shoplifting has momentary appeal even though you have the full amount in cash in your wallet, or so I am told.
My first depositing of items in the skip was arbitrary, in effect just to make a start on the major project of clearing out nearly two decades of surplus items in house, garage, garden and loft.
Initial interest from members of the public in certain of the items led me to begin a strategic placement of goods in easily accessible positions in the skip and soon enough they had simply evaporated between my trips.
Pictures, hung and enjoyed for a few years of our occupation were very popular amongst the skip dippers as were bits of glassware from those standard issue vases that come with the expensively gifted Interflora flower arrangement, legs from broken up old pine furniture, housewares and anything metal, so pots and pans with no handles, an enamelled bread bin and storage vessels.
I started a sort of private sweepstake involving specific items.
First up was a wicker log basket. This I placed upright and centre in the fast filling skip making it very visible to all those on the street.
It was a dead cert to be taken on the basis that I have been regularly and rudely awoken in the early hours by the ungodly sound made by local residents dragging behind them scavenged and salvaged tree branches and boughs after a particularly violent storm.
These are the wood burning contingent amongst the resident population who have sought to reduce their heating and energy costs by installing and perpetually feeding a monster of an appliance. I fear that in the next twenty years the upsurge in the wood burning folk will contribute to the deforestation of much of our suburban areas.
Sure enough a lady whom I caught in the act respectfully asked for the basket and I was not inclined to impede or refuse this ultimate act of recycling.
Other skip dippers are more obvious and blatant in their intentions. I do not mean in any fanfare upon their sighting of a skip but more their arriving with an empty wheel barrow which is quite a big hint.
One chap, whose face I recognised, from farther down my street had already commandeered the remains of the rusty iron chimnea although I know not how he managed to lift the thing given that it took two of us to put it there in the first place.
He was, lets say in the interests of being polite and politically correct, three sequins short of a jump suit but I warmed to his enthusiasm and lets face it, his absolute amazement at the contents of my skip.
In his obviously highly intelligent but hyperactive mind he had already allocated each and every item to a current, prospective or long term project.
He was planning to build a garage to accommodate the Oxford Cambridge car which, minus headlights and a square inch of sound metal served as an unusual flower bed in his front garden. The well to do elements of the residents committee for the street regularly expressed their unhappiness at the unsightly example of the British Car industry in such a prominent position and he had become resigned to the fact that he was being compelled to do something about it. The contents of my skip had in his minds eye formed themselves into a more than adequate motor storage facility.
Timeframe is essential in the art, or is it the science of skip dippy diving, and I reassured him that I was not planning on ringing the waste company until after the weekend.
That seemed to invigorate him even more and mention was made of his mate John who had a car to go with his trailer. Apparently the tow bar previously attached to said Oxford Cambridge had succumbed to the dreaded corrosion. It was necessary to call in a favour. I expected John to be as challenged in sequin terms.
My other sweepstake was that John would roll up in a Land Rover bearing those stickers of menopausal intent "One life-Live It".
In real time it is now 20.16 and in the fading light of a very busy fetching and carrying day I can see faint shadows of visitors to the skip, a bit like zombies around a blood bank.
My new best mate alerted me to the possibility of a posse of travellers descending on the skip overnight and stripping it of anything of salvageable value before throwing it into an unmarked Transit van.
As far as I am concerned he is welcome to have the entire contents.
I am fairly relaxed and philosophical about the whole thing.
I have categorised the items in the hired skip as rubbish, surplus goods, tat, impulse buys, embarrassingly unstylish things and scrap.
I am just thrilled that, to my new found Womble-like acquaintances, it represents a veritable treasure trove.
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