THE bank holiday’s here, the weather’s lovely, so what better way to spend your free time than by practising your swearing with a bit of DIY or gardening.

But more than the usual perils await those tackling their homes and gardens this long weekend … taking your stuff to the tip/recycling centres could mean sitting in a queue of traffic and even a charge for dumping certain items.

As reported, changes to the opening hours at the recycling centres in Taunton, Wellington and West Somerset have resulted reports of fly-tipping and queues of up to 45 minutes at the Priorswood site in Taunton.

In last week’s County Gazette we reported how Somerset Waste Partnership, which runs the sites, said problems were subsiding.

But on Friday, readers were calling us with tales of long queues at Priorswood while others had spotted rogue fly-tipping.

The partnership has reminded people this week that fly-tipping can land you with a huge fine or even prison. It’s also a ghastly blight on our beautiful countryside and has to be cleared up by the council or the landowner – the message is clear: DON’T DO IT.

Meanwhile, in West Somerset - where you even have to pay £2 just to get into the Dulverton site - there have not been reported problems so far.

At Poole, near Wellington, recyclers are still adapting to the Sunday afternoon closing with scores turning up to find the gates locked.

Somerset Waste Partnership says the recycling centres are open as normal this weekend, but there are changes to kerbside collections - click on the Related Link below for more details.

So this weekend, whichever tip you're visiting, from Minehead to Taunton, let’s see what happens – tell us what you see and experience, whether good, bad or indifferent, by filling in the Your Say box below this story.

You can also email pix to newsquestsomerset@gmail.com or text them to 80360 starting your message with the keywords COUNTY GAZETTE (your standard message rate applies) and we'll upload them over the weekend.

It's like spring watch but without the cute, fluffy animals...