Spring is finally here! (Fortunately it doesn’t need a place to sleep.) Time to venture out to the yard and feel the sun on your face, the breeze on your back, and grass pollens in your nose. (Don’t you just love hay fever?)

Of course, you won’t be able to venture very far because the grass is now waist-high. At least it explains the rustling you’ve been hearing at night, and the poachers lining up at the front gate.

Everything else seems to have grown too—the garden, the trees, and the rubbish pile. Mind you, the rubbish pile isn’t much of a pile any more. In fact it’s grown wider rather than higher because it’s a long way from the back door and you don’t have a very good throwing arm.

Unfortunately, the yard is what separates the house from… well, everything else. So before you can even think of taking a relaxing bike ride (at least until the magpies start swooping), you need to get it all cut and cleared.

Cutting everything back is the first step of any backyard clear out and it shouldn’t be too hard, as long as you have the right tools. A whipper snipper  is probably a better option than a scythe because you’ll need one hand free to continually blow your nose. (Stupid hay fever.)

And when that’s done, you should call us. Just tell us where you live (“It’s the house with the poachers out the front”) and we’ll take everything away for you—the grass, the tree limbs, and the rubbish “pile” that seems to be growing wider by the minute. You don’t even need to be there, which means you can head to the chemist for some hay fever tablets.

Once the yard’s been cleared, the wildlife captured and relocated, and the poachers told to try next door, it’s time to enjoy the fabulous spring weather. So grab your bike, put on your helmet (with eyes painted on to keep the magpies at bay), and head off to wherever your fancy takes you.

Oh, and watch out for poachers.

You still can’t quite believe it.

You’re holding your official statement from the tax department (motto: “What’s yours is ours—eventually.”) But instead of telling you how much you owe and which kidney you’re better off selling, there’s actually a cheque at the bottom.

The tax department is actually giving you a refund.

And unlike the ones you’ve had before, this one has more numbers before the decimal point than after it.

So now you’re thinking about the best way to use the money. Do you put it towards the mortgage, pay off your credit card, or maybe invest it in…

Ha! Just kidding. What you really want to do is buy a new television. A big one you can actually watch from the couch instead of needing to sit a metre in front of it.

And speaking of couches, you want to get a new one of them as well. You’re sick of sinking so far down you need a grappling hook to get out again. You can even reclaim the blanket that’s currently hiding all the rips and tears.

The question is, what do you do with the old ones?

You could do what most people do—haul them out onto your nature strip and hope someone will take them off your hands. But while the TV may find a new home, there’s a good chance the couch may become a permanent fixture. (Even the council has to draw the line somewhere.)

Worse still, you may even find your neighbours sitting on it, complaining they can’t get anything on the TV. (You’re pretty sure they came from the shallow end of the gene pool.)

Or you can forget all the dramas and just call Brizzy Rubbish Removals. They’ll swing by your house, pick them up and take them away for you. You don’t even have to haul them outside. They’ll do all the heavy lifting for you.

And unlike your neighbours they won’t yell out “Geez, what’s that smell?” at the top of their lungs on the way out.

On second thoughts, maybe you should haul them out onto the nature strip first and then call Brizzy Rubbish Removals.

If you’re lucky, they’ll take your neighbours away too.