Why There is a Giant Orange Ladybird…

 

 

“Ha! I only cut my grass about three times a year,” I boasted. “Lawns are no trouble at all.”

The people sat around me looked at me in disbelief. They cut their grass at least once a week.

“How do you get away with that?” someone asked.

I explained that my garden was very narrow and that my constant walking up and down it probably stunted the growth.

They looked at me dubiously.

My boast was of course only partly true, though I do tend to go quite a long time before cuts.

I don’t enjoy cutting the grass mainly because this means retrieving the lawnmower and the extension lead from the depths of the cellar.

A couple of weeks ago my neighbour’s daughter was cutting her grass. Within minutes the cacophonous engine whirr stopped. I peeped outside and saw she was bent over the machine looking puzzled. There was a buzz of conversation between the two and guessing that their machine had broken I went down into my cellar to get mine for them.

As I emerged with it, I heard them discussing the possibility of borrowing mine, and they looked at me in surprise as if I had read their minds.

But before they did so, they tried different cables and suddenly their own lawnmower sprang back into life.

With my lawn-mower now outside I too began to cut my grass thinking that it was better for the other neighbours if we synchronised this noise pollution.

Just as I finished, my lawnmower stopped working. Unworried, I put it away thinking it might simply have over-heated; or even that there was some strange anomaly in that area that was somehow playing havoc with electrical appliances.

Today I planned to cut my grass again; it’s only a twenty-five minute job, easy.

Remembering that the lawn mower wasn’t working last time, I tried it gingerly. To my delight the engine started.

I began.

Suddenly the engine roared wildly. A plastic blade had gone flying.

I’d run out of spares blades, so I this meant a walk to the shops. Thirty-five minutes there and back.

Back home, I replace the blades and the lawn mower purred back into life.

Within seconds it roars wildly again.

One of the new blades has snapped.

I fetch another and cut the grass again.

Just as I nearly finished the lawn mower stops.

I check the trip switch in the cellar.

It’s okay.

I check the extension lead.

It’s okay

I leave the lawn mower to cool.

I try the lawnmower.

It doesn’t work.

I change a fuse.

Nothing.

And no one from next door dashes out with their lawnmower as mine lies upturned like a dead orange lady bird on the grass.

There’s simply silence.

I write my blog… another hour passes.

I try the lawnmower.

It doesn’t work.

Time it should take to cut the grass … twenty-five minutes.

Actual time needed … infinity.

Looks like I’ll only be cutting my grass three times this year after all!