Grass-Cutting and Hot Chocolate

I had put off cutting the grass for as long as possible. It was necessary to attack it at some point or other as it was beginning to get very long and if not done soon the mower wasn't going to manage. It's a right performance as you have to dig the mower out of the shed, un-tangle the cable and then run out the power cable from the house through the patio doors and plug it in near the fridge. I did around half of the grass-cutting yesterday morning and managed to complete the job this morning. I am hoping considering the weather and the fact that we will very soon be in November, that this will be the final cutting the grass will require until the Spring.

We went out for a short while. Carol's getting really fed up with being in the house all day, so we went to somewhere we haven't visited before. It's not far, within Milton Keynes and just up Chaffron Way and opposite Westcroft, where Morrison's has a branch. It's called Howe Wood and there's a café there. We've often mentioned it when we've seen the sign from the road but never visited. A real surprise awaited us as we drove into the carpark. The café is in the visitor centre and is called 'The Grumpy Cook.' I can't think why as the staff there are anything but grumpy. In fact I'd go as far as saying they're very pleasant. We ordered hot chocolate with marshmallows and had a large slice of coffee and walnut cake which we shared and then decided we wanted sausage rolls which we took home. They had a problem getting the card reader to work, so we couldn't pay using my debit card. Something about it not connecting but I don't know what is was exactly but we went back and had a second go and this time it worked.

Our neighbour on the other side has been cutting their hedge. It had got somewhat over-grown. She's an elderly lady and couldn't possibly do this work herself. The hedge is high and I imagine, because it's a laurel hedge (well, from looking at it I imagine it is as it has large shiny leaves which look like laurel.) It was certainly out of control and was in definite need of trimming. Her son had got someone in to do a lot of the trimming and there was a great pile of cuttings all over their drive-way (or, at least, their half of the parking space which we share.) Over the past few days our half of the driveway had been taken over by a large metal skip. I imagined it was there to take all the remaining hedge trimmings (the first batch had been removed by the man who did the first 'trim' of the hedge, but I don't know how he disposed of the bits of hedge, probably took it to the tidy-tip in his car.

Marion's son (our neighbour) came round to ask it we'd like our frontage trimmed up, as there a few rather nasty bits of tree that grow up near our front door which need the ocassional trim. I said I'd be pleased for him do it as the bits could go in his skip. The same in the rear garden, but I can cut them down and put them over the fence at the back. If we had a working side-gate at the rear of our house it would be easy enough to bring in a wheely bin and put the stuff in that, but our mean landlord won't pay to have it replaced, so I've no alternative method of removing garden waste other than shove it over the back fence.

The clocks changed this weekend. I can never remember if it's forward or backward. I know someone said that they 'spring forward' in April, which is spring- as a season, so it must be backwards in autumn. I have real problems adjusting my digital watch. It's difficult to get the thing set to an hour backward. I don't like it particularly when the clocks change as we have longer, darker days and I'm not a fan of winter. 

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.

Wet Weather

After the warm, almost springlike weather yesterday, it's a really miserable sort of day. I'm really glad I cut the grass yesterday because today it's pouring with rain. Infact it's a good deal colder and we have the central heating on. I refuse to call that patch of grass a 'lawn' because it's nothing of the sort. A lawn is reasonably good quality grass, cut with a mower which makes the traditional stripes. Think Wimbledon tennis (I don't as I'm not a fan, but you know what I mean.) I suppose I mean what we see when we visit a National Trust property and go into the various gardens attached to these properties. Indeed, as a young man living at home, particularly Malting Farm, I was usually in charge of mowing the lawn.  I wasn't over-keen about having the job, but you had no choice. You did what your were told and just got on with it. I can actually think of nothing more boring than mowing a lawn, walking up and down, pushing the benighted thing, which wasn't always eager to start. My father was particular about the thing, making sure you checked it for oil, and then having to fill the engine with two-stroke petrol. To this very day I don't understand what is meant by 'two-stroke' petrol. How does it differ from any other petrol? We had to go to a local petrol station with the can and get it filled before I could put the petrol in the lawn mower before I could even think of mowing the lawn. Then check the oil level with the dip-stick. I suppose it was good that I was instructed on how to properly care for a petrol engine, but it was a bit of a chore, all this fuss and bother. There was a large garden at Malting Farm, Cardington, and my father was somewhat particular about how the lawn was mown. It was done with a traditional lawn mower, you know, petrol-driven, you had to empty the bucket think on the front which caught the grass as it went along. Not many up-and-down lengths before you had to stop and empty the thing into a wheelbarrow and when that was full, push the thing the length of the garden to the pile that grew exponentially at the other end of the garden. Compost heap was the word I was looking for. It gave off a very distinctive odour. I don't know what happened to it. It steamed gently. Mysterious. I expect this compost was used to bed in plants, act as a sort of fertiliser. Anyway, I'm drifting from my main subject. What I'm attempting to say is that the grass patch at the rear of this house is more like a quagmire, particularly when it rains. It's excessively uneven, which makes cutting it much more difficult. It's tusky and difficult to cut, even more so if it's slightly wet. I don't think our electric, rotary mower was made to cut such poor quality grass. More likely intended for even, flat lawns, at those houses with pocket-handkerchief sized gardens and even smaller pieces of lawn, made of nicely rolled, tended turf, purchased for some garden centre such as Frost's at Woburn Sands, or Dobbie's or even Wyevale. The mower at Malting Farm was one of those green Atco models. It had a detachable bucket on the front and you had to pull a cord to get it started, making sure you didn't flood the engine otherwise it wouldn't start. It was something of an effort to pull that cord-thing, which had a sort of wooden cross piece handle and the cord sort of re-coiled itself after you'd pulled it. It began to really hurt every muscle in your pulling arm after the sixth or so attempt.

Cutting The Grass

This saga drags on. We have given up the search for someone to come and cut the lawn for a reasonable amount of money. We have borrowed our neighbour's Strimmer and began the task of hacking down the grass when we got back from church yesterday morning. For those who don't know what a Strummer is, it's a gadget with a handle and has a reel of fishing line in the base which spins at speed and cuts grass and weeds. Strimmer will be a trademark for Black and Decker but I expect there are variations on the same gadget made by other companies. As it cuts the line itself gets shorter as bits get worn down, so you have to keep stopping and pulling out more and more line. Some come with an automatic feed which allows the line to fed out of it's own accord. I don't think it's actually that successful because the grass is now so long an extremely tough so it has real problems cutting it. We have been using a pair of garden shears intended for hedge-cutting but they are better at cutting through this tough grass. Once all the grass has been cut down sufficiently we will then have to rake off the loose grass and then use the lawn mower to keep the grass to a reasonable length.

Sunny and Warm

Well, the weather has made a change for the better. It's now bright sunshine and I can hear the merry sound of someone using a Strimmer somewhere near at hand. Possibly in a near-by garden or a Council workman along the Redway behind the house. Our garden is in desperate need of having the grass cut. This is basically because it has been so wet recently, the lawn mower wouldn't work on the grass, apart from it being somewhat dangerous owing to the fact that it is electric. I think the machine would have real problems cutting it as it is so dense and long. The dogs go out in the garden and they get lost, it's so long. We may need to resort to alternative methods of keeping the grass down, for example, hiring some sheep or even geese to trim it!