It's been a busy week.

It looks like it might be good news on the postal front with RM & CWU having reached a provisional agreement and this week's strikes being called off – let's hope that's an end to it. Well CJS Weekly is now printing, this week it's 12 sides with 113 new paid posts of which 27 came direct to CJS including a small splurge from the Environment Agency. It's been a busy week and AN has been on holiday; just after sending out a tranche of Special Edition letters resulting in lots of enquiries!

Our latest round of recruitment was not successful – how hard can it be to find one slightly mad, computer literate, doggie person? Apparently in this corner of the country extremely! So here we go again, new ad, new approach and everything crossed.

The local peregrines have been across a couple of times this week scattering all the garden birds but the falcon was just passing though not actively hunting. Hebe (the new puppy who's almost 5 months old now!) is claiming slave labour, that it's not right for a such a young personage to have to work such long hours – I couldn't agree more but how else is she to earn her bonios? She got rather upset last Saturday at around 9.30pm when her people (or Beans as she refers to us) got rather excited at events in Paris. We already on tenterhooks today so heaven help her tomorrow…..

Owls, post and CJS Weekly.

The young owl has been on the wires next door today, it was here when we started work and stayed for most of the morning it had gone by lunch time but returned by the end of the day (which is round about nowish!)

By now you should all have received last week's edition of CJS. This week's is now printing and we will post it out as normal – however there is to be a series of strikes by CWU members which will severely affect deliveries. If your copy doesn’t turn up do please contact us for the temporary access details to download the missing editions from the website. Monday 15 October edition is nine pages containing 55 new paid posts of which 27 were sent direct to CJS. We're working on the results from your surveys and hope to have some answers for you soon.

CJS Monthly

October edition published as usual. It's a little one this month, just four pages plus three of events and training all freely available online. The paper copies have just been collected by Royal Mail and will join the several million items in the post strike backlog so will be with you soon we hope.

Recycling

Like so much of the country Scarborough Borough Council has gone onto kerbside collections of recyclables – everyone has been given lovely big bright blue bins – they look so pretty and in keeping scattered across our little moorland village! The list of what you can and cannot put in the bin is very long and complicated, for example you can put Christmas and birthday cards in the bin but not if they have glitter on them, all plastic bottles regardless of type but not yoghurt pots. Never mind, we thought, we've always separated our recyclables and taken them to the big bins at the supermarket. So yesterday with a car load of stuff off we went to stock up only to discover that the big paper and can bins had gone leaving only an empty space and a couple of glass bins. Upon enquiring as to the whereabouts of the bins we are told that the council are expecting more glass to be recycled as more people get into the habit and that paper and tin cans can go in your blue bin. But one big problem with that – you cannot put in envelopes with windows or if they are manila (no mention of other colours though or envelopes stuck together with selotape…) – so where do these go? In your normal bin to go to landfill!! I'm not sure SBC have got the hang of this yet. So does anyone have any sensible suggestions as to what we can do with our weekly small heap of windowed &/or brown envelopes?

Big news

We can see out again! The scaffolding came down this week and the builders have just finished checking the patched section which was obscured by some of the scaffolding. Our roof is now watertight and storm proof (well as much as it can be) for the next few years.

CJS Weekly is now rolling off the printers, this week it's 12 sides with 93 new paid pots, 37 of which came direct to CJS. Electronic copies will be available as usual from today but postal copies may not arrive until Friday, Wednesday is the earliest we can hope for but Thursday is probably more realistic. Our post will be collected on Sunday as usual but then it will stall as the CWU goes on strike again. Then from Monday 15 October there will be a series of shorter more localised strikes which make it much harder to predict how this will affect deliveries.

Next week we're a hand short as TB takes off for sunnier climes (Majorca actually - a pilgrimage to childhood holidays) for the week so we might not be quite as speedy as usual.

Big news

We can see out again! The scaffolding came down this week and the builders have just finished checking the patched section which was obscured by some of the scaffolding. Our roof is now watertight and storm proof (well as much as it can be) for the next few years.

CJS Weekly is now rolling off the printers, this week it's 12 sides with 93 new paid pots, 37 of which came direct to CJS. Electronic copies will be available as usual from today but postal copies may not arrive until Friday, Wednesday is the earliest we can hope for but Thursday is probably more realistic. Our post will be collected on Sunday as usual but then it will stall as the CWU goes on strike again. Then from Monday 15 October there will be a series of shorter more localised strikes which make it much harder to predict how this will affect deliveries.

Next week we're a hand short as TB takes off for sunnier climes (Majorca actually - a pilgrimage to childhood holidays) for the week so we might not be quite as speedy as usual.

More stone heads....

The mystery of the stone heads deepens! More stones have been spotted across the county and the story is now national news in the Telegraph today and on the BBC yesterday. To read more and see the BBC news report click here.