In the woodland, Gnomepac had another meeting with the fairies.
He said that the problem with end of life flowers and the Petal Recovery Notes was still unresolved but getting the serious attention of the Department of Elves, Fairies and Really-small Animals or DEFRA as he called it.
He said, however, that he and some associates from the Department of Tiny Insects had been told about a new problem – the disposal of the fairies’ old food stores.
The fairies were very skilled at crafting food stores, particularly to store nuts, but these suffered hard usage and ultimately wore out.
The fairies then tended to leave the old storage units in the corner of fields with no attempt to recover them for further use.
He also told them they were lucky not to have any refrigerators or electrical equipment because the humans in a part of the Neverland called Fridge Mountain were fed up with this problem too.
Gnomepac suggested that the fairies’ behaviour was unlikely to be tolerated for much longer – particularly by those in a far away land called Brussels. So he urged them to make every effort to recycle or re-use old food stores.
Then, seeing the despair in their eyes, he smiled kindly and said: “Don’t panic, you’re not the only ones to be struggling with end-of-life nutcases.”