How Not to Garden – or Tools We Have Known

The lawnmower broke. This isn’t news. It happened two years ago. But don’t worry (well why would you? It isn’t your lawn) we have overcome this problem in a multitude of ingenious ways.

This is what happened:

The lawnmower broke. Did I mention that? Yes, I can hear you asking ‘But how did the lawnmower break? What exactly was wrong with it?’ God you lot can be quite geeky can’t you? Well I’ll tell you. It was the starting handle thingy. You know, that long piece of string you have to pull in order to start the engine that turns some thing that turns the blades that cut the grass. Explanation enough? But it wasn’t actually the string per se it was a big springy thing inside that pulls the string back in. Yes, I know. Why does the string have to be pulled back in? Anyone who has ever owned such an exciting machine as a petrol lawnmower will know that they NEVER start on the first pull. If they ever did start on the first pull it would be so very exciting that the lawnmoweree would be so happy they would rush to the shops, buy champagne, drink the whole bottle sitting on the stripy deckchair next to the mower and by this time of course the mower will have stopped. Therefore the string would have to be pulled again. So technically you still wouldn’t be actually mowing after the first pull.

So, the spring. The lawnmower part, not the season, although actually it was spring.
‘I can fix that!’ I say to the beloved in a confident manner engendered by years of experience in dismantling machinery. Remantling machinery I’m not so good at but this has no effect on my self-assurance.

I weald my handy screwdriver. The spring, which transpires to be a very long piece of metal strip wound in a tight coil (you wanted to know that didn’t you?), leaps out, uncoils itself with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. So lawnmower not quite totally incapable of grass cutting even it its disabled state.

‘Ah!’ I say. Having discovered the nub of the problem. ‘The spring appears to be unsprung.’ I then spend many amusing and dangerous hours trying to recoil the spring and insert it neatly back into its casing. However just as I press the last portion home it leaps out again with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. I have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to keep moving around the lawn such that each ziggle cuts a new section. I don’t however have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to actually fix the bloody thing. Eventually I admit defeat.

‘You will have to take it to the lawnmower repair man,’ I inform the beloved. But sadly the beloved is a busy man so he doesn’t. Nor do I.

Still, it’s near the end of the year and maybe the lawn won’t need mowing again. But it does. So the beloved, being a man of many resources, decides that since the lawnmower shop is a long way away (a whole half and hour drive) perhaps a cheap strimmer will do the trick. After all it was only £12.99 and surely a lawn doesn’t really need a mower.

And so I strimmed. It had its appeal. Mostly the appeal was that it sort of cut the grass. And sort of mangled the grass. Really what it did was make dreadlock grass. Which has its appeal.

That was last year. The dreadlock grass grew under our feet.

Then it was this year. The lawn grew. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer found itself incapable of any more strimming as dreadlocks were hard to cut and, as it transpired, the strimmer was a Rastafarian and actually refused to do any dreadlock cutting on moral and religious grounds. Fair enough. I have released the strimmer into the wild to go find its fortune and homeland.

A quick aside – I have emailed B&Q and commended them on their multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious garden tool policy. Go them.

So - dreadlock grass. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer gone to pastures new. But don’t worry. The beloved had a solution. The garden shears.

Hours and hours he spent on his hands and knees shearing the garden. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away.