After the gardener left in Mermaid Beach

We've been in Mermaid Beach for a while now, and this was the first time I'd paid someone to take rubbish away. We've got six big palms along the back fence, and every few months they drop fronds the size of a canoe. I'd been stacking them behind the shed for most of a year.

There were branches up to about the thickness of my arm, a mountain of hedge clippings, a tangle of lantana and a couple of old sleepers that had been edging a garden bed.

Mermaid Beach is beachfront cottages, duplexes and knock-down-rebuild sites, and getting things out isn't always simple. Narrow lanes off the Gold Coast Highway need careful truck placement.

When I rang, the person who answered asked a few simple questions about what it was, where it was and how to get to it, and said they could come and look that afternoon.

The crew pulled up, had a look, and told me the price straight away. No surprises, no 'we'll see how it goes'. I said yes and they got started within five minutes.

I was worried about the lawn, as we'd just had it returfed. The crew laid boards from the back gate to the truck and barrowed everything along them. The lawn didn't have a mark on it.

What I appreciated most was that nothing was rushed and nothing was a hassle. They explained where everything was going: charity, recycling or the tip. I felt good about it.

It's a small thing, but having someone else carry it all out made a much bigger difference than I expected.