Well, Spring has sprung – or sort of.
The lawn-mowing-man has been for the first time. We don’t converse. Rather, we communicate via a brown envelope left in the cat-kennel, which contains money before he arrives and does not contain money afterwards. He scribbles the date of next month’s appointment on it. This time he also scribbled a quote, which I had asked him for, to turf over a square-ish patch of former jungle behind the garage. The quote was approximately three-and-a-half times bigger than I, in my foolish winter-long fantasies, had imagined. Clutching the envelope, I retreated indoors for a cup of tea-bag tea, some Custard Creams and a think.
Of course it may be my fault. I had no idea what turf cost and maybe should have factored in more for that. Alternatively, and which I suspect is more likely, he doesn’t actually want the job. They do that when they don’t want a job, don’t they? But why don’t people just say no, sorry, too busy? He has just come back from a long holiday in Tenerife. Tenerife! No wonder he can afford sun-soaked beaches, stripey canvas hammocks and long, cold drinks with umbrellas in – if all his quotes are that big.
Another possibility is that he regards my garden as jinxed. He seems to have endless trouble with his high-end equipment whilst in it. When he came last year to clear then-patch of jungle behind the garage, he broke his favouriite (super-lightweight, long–arm as he explained more than once) strimmer. He rang home for his less-favourite strimmer to be driven over to him and promptly strimmed through the flex on it and spent ages sitting on my back step splicing electrical wiring together. For months afterwards I was finding little bits of blue and brown plastic tubing everywhere.
Which leaves me with a problem – a square of gradually returning jungle that I’m just not up to dealing with myself. Otherwise I would be mowing my own lawns rather than employing lawn-mowing-man.. I could just “Let It Go, Let It Go…” but I’m thinking maybe a compromise: invest in a decent-ish strimmer. That surely wouldn’t involve too much bending, wheezing and coughing – just plug it in and Make Like Rambo (ish). Lay waste to that jungle every couple of weeks or half the jungle one week, the other half the next. How hard could it be? I calculate I could buy nine mid-range heavy-duty strimmers in succession for the amount of his quote.
Sorry, I know lawns are dull. It’s all happening on TV – here, as usual, nothing.
La Tour Abolie 
I looked up “strimmer” and nowhere did I find it is what we here (some) call a “weed whacker” — and then it dawned on me strimmer is a combination of “string” and “trimmer” which describes, of course, a weed whacker, lol! I have no idea how powerful they are or aren’t, but there are no fueling or recharging worries if it’s electric; you might want some ear protection, too, though — over here, those things are VERY loud!
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Weed whacker – a much more interesting name. With a Canadian sister, who since 1980 has picked up a whole alternative Canadian vocabulary but not the accent, it should have occurred to me that ‘strimmer’ might not be a universal term. I like learning new words. : )
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LOL, me, too!
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Yes! You are back! I will come back and catch up on reading soon. Just dropped in to say hi!
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I hate mowing the lawn too! The best thing we ever did was hire a lawn service to do it for us. We use a young (and cheap) man to do it, and he occasionally nicks our garage or topples over a potted plant, but it’s still worth it!
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Absolutely worth it : )
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