Heart attack

Friday, April 07, 2017

Cutting Grass and Neighbour's Noises

I have today been out and cut the grass. Not something I exactly relish, as the lawnmower is quite hard work to push and the grass is long, but it's no use just thinking about it. You just have to get on and do the job. It's surprising how the rotary mower manages the job so well, when all that actually cuts the grass is a tiny plastic blade. I was surprised when I had to replace the thing when the mower gave up cutting and had to venture out to find a replacement. Not an easy job, but I did manage to eventually buy a packet of these things in our local branch of Homebase. They fit in quite easily into the machine but I'm still surprised by how a piece of plastic manages to cut the grass. Probably not as efficiently as a conventional mower, but not bad, nonetheless. You have to reel our the electric cable and plug the thing into the socket which the fridge/freezer uses (not forgetting to re-plug it afterwards, otherwise we'll have a lot of de-frosted food, which wouldn't be such a good idea.) The reel the cable out into the garden and then retrieve the mower from the shed and then set-to and cut the grass. I still refuse to refer to it as a lawn, as I've mentioned in earlier posts. It's no more a lawn than any other stretch of grass around here. No striped finish, worthy of Wimbledon or a cricket pitch (not that I'm particularly interested in either activity.) Just a rough bit of grass, more ups-and-down than flat and perfect. When it rains, the water runs towards the patio doors into the house. It's best not to attempt to cut after wet. Water and electricity don't mix so it's best to attempt cutting when dry and the sun is out. Generally, if I start the job, I want it done in one go, but it can take no more than 10-15 minutes.

Yesterday I did some washing. It was quite a warm and sunny day, so it was a good excuse to get this job out of the way. Two loads, done fairly quickly and efficiently. Our relatively new machine has an economy cycle which means it does a load in approximately 45 minutes. Quite handy to have the timer on the machine which shows how far into the cycle the machine has got. I must say the machine is far more efficient compared to the old machine we had.

I notice that our neighbour has erected a shed in his garden. There seems to be a great deal of noise going on constantly. I look over the fence and see this construction set up in one corner of the garden. I can't really fail to notice as I'm pegging out washing yesterday morning. Where on earth did our neighbour, Gary, get the shed? It looks somewhat rickety and ancient, certainly not brand new. As they say, every man has to have a shed. Not me, particularly. But this ancient thing looks as if it's had better days. No doubt it was someone's who didn't want it, or replaced it with a new one. It makes me wonder how on earth he got it delivered, on the back of a lorry or something, which would have needed to be quite large as the flat pieces would have been quite large to fit a van or smaller vehicle. Perhaps strapped to a roof-rack or something? I don't know. but I wasn't aware of any building when it was constructed as they make quite a lot of noise next door, hammering and generally making D.I.Y. noises.

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