THE SUMMER OF NEGLECTED GRASS

I keep on meaning to write about this but, for some bizarre reason, every time I do, something else comes along and distracts me from it. I suppose I should see that as being an appropriate kind of metaphor for what I was actually going to mull over, but that is probably just a slight coincidence and nothing of any consequence to write home about. No interconnectedness of all things stuff happening here. Move along, move along…

Moving along, and I really must try to avoid all the distractions and get onto the topic I really want to discuss because it’s been nagging away at me for quite some considerable time now and really it’s time to shine, time for the subject to have its moment in the sun (if that isn’t too tragically inappropriate) and be unveiled to both of you, my loyal discerning readers, for another excursion into the eclectic mix of subjects cluttering my mind.

Now, of course, after a build up like that you’ll be perhaps expecting (or desperately hoping for) an amazing flight of fancy or some finely honed piece of whimsy, both of which I’m sadly unable to deliver because I want to consider the knotty little problem of the mowing of the lawn here in the vast wide-open tracts of the plains that make up the postage stamp sized estates of Lesser Blogfordshire.

Yes, I really am that dull.

Cutting the grass is one of those things that essentially “means” summer to me. When I look out of the window at the weekend and think to myself “That grass needs cutting” I can be pretty sure that the season is upon us and that I’ll be regularly setting myself the task every fortnight or so right until the gloom and sogginess of autumn slams itself into our lives. The smell of it, the taste of it and the sheer sense of joy at the half-remembered youthful days it can conjure up in the mind makes it one of the most worthwhile of the so-called “household chores” that there is.

Obviously, I can’t really refer to it as “mowing the lawn” when it comes to our tiny postage stamp of grassy area at the front of the house, however, as it’s not so much a “lawn” at all, but rather it’s a flat patch of grass where, if the weather is set fair, I can perch a table, a chair, a sun umbrella, and a portable radio on a summer’s afternoon and watch the insects buzz around and the occasional bird flutter about whilst I listen to T.M.S. and read whatever paperback has come to hand.

However limited in scale it might be though, it still needs tending to which means rummaging about in the shed and digging out the old petrol strimmer to have a good old hack at the grass as it springs skywards in a vain leap for record-book glory. There is a long neglected, bright orange Flymo lurking in there somewhere, of course, but somehow the whole fiasco of feeding extension leads through windows and trying to find lost long-lost and compatible blades means that it’s never the weapon of choice these days in the battle for respectable crew-cut lawnage.

Anyway, the grass is usually far too long for a mere mower to handle, and the slope in our back garden, sitting as it does above a fifteen foot potential plummet does rather make it a less than effective option. No, nowadays it is always to the strimmer that I will default. My Excalibur to hack at the benignly vile foe that is the hordes of weedage, hoping that the slings and arrows of flung rocks and garbage won’t catch me in the eye and make me take a chance at becoming a Moike or a Largo or a pirate. My spectacles, I always hope, would prevent this, and other harm is hopefully prevented by thick gloves, stout shoes and the kind of long-sleeved and long-trousered clothing options that still get me frowned at as if I’m peculiar by everyone else in the supermarket as they brazenly strut about in their shorts and vests buying their barbecue beers.

My Excalibur is a noisy brute too, so I have to have the usual summer debate with myself as to what can be considered a “reasonable” time on a weekend morning to pulse that fuel injection bulb, grab that pullcord and (hopefully – sometimes it takes a few goes) restore the beast to roaring, raging life after its dormant months before spending an hour in blissful and noisy defoliation. Sometimes I will wait, poised and ready to strim, eyes watching both the clock click around to a respectable time and the clouds as they gather to once more place a damp obstacle in the way of my quest.

Once the time is fine, the weather set fair, all the pre-checks have been run through, and the ancient engine coaxed into life, then Excalibur and I will set about our task of hacking those blades down to a more manageable level and, for a brief moment, a respectable little patch of garden reveals itself from the undergrowth and is there to be enjoyed, however fleetingly, because, almost as quickly as you can imagine, the verdant vibrancy of spring and summer will bring all of nature’s chaos bursting back into rampant growth just as soon as you’ve gone back inside and closed the door to return Excalibur to its wooden scabbard, leaving me with trembling hands and arms for much of the rest of the day from all the unusual exertion of my underused and unbuilt-up muscles.

Sadly, this year the lawn has had to remain far too neglected for far too often, and so the grass is currently going through a phase when other lawns might laugh and point and shout “hippy” as it brazenly flaunts its flowing locks. Every single weekend lately has been too wet to make an attempt upon it, or else the calendar has not managed to string together a reasonable sequence of the kind of days that could be considered dry enough to let those lengthy tresses become straw-like enough to cut cleanly, instead of merely being battered to a soggy pulpy mush that manages somehow to remain still connected to the earth that I’m struggling to detach it from having been battered into tiny submission by all of Excalibur’s best efforts.

So, the grass still needs cutting. Quite astonishingly badly. Which, I suppose, is the only way I can do it anyway. For me the graceful stripes of a perfect bowling green are unlikely to grace the surroundings of my ancestral home. But now the first fingers of Jack Frost’s wintery appearances are starting to creep in and once they do, we’ll be stuck with its dampness and full-blown wetness for long enough to consign Excalibur back to the shed for the duration and those other long, wet blades will be making my feet soggy as I fill the bird-feeders all winter if I don’t do something about it fairly soon.


On matters also lawn-related I just remembered a slightly risque joke, which, I suppose, is as good a thing to finish on as any. It’s about the girl who dyed her pubic hair green and had tattooed over it “Keep off the grass” waking up in hospital to find the surgeon had written in biro underneath it “I’m sorry, I had to mow your lawn…”