Sisyphean battles with leaves and myself
‘When you choose life in the leafy suburbs, leaves are part of the deal’
ITHINK I’ve reached some kind of tipping point. I think there may be no going back from here. Last weekend I went to one of those industrial estate-style shopping centres on the outskirts of town. I mean one of those shopping centres that aren’t really fun. All the shops were big and many of them were furniture-based. There were a few fast food places. But you know what I mean. You wouldn’t be going there for a promenade.
I took the family, because we needed to check out a table or something while we were out there, and apparently you can’t leave a seven and nine-year old home alone. My main mission was a leaf hoover. In fact it was a leaf blower, but one that also did hoovering. Though I don’t see why you would be blowing them around when you could just hoover them up. The younger child was asleep by the time we got there so we let her and her mother have some quality time in the car while me and the young one went off on the mission. It was a big day for Daddy. My first piece of garden equipment. My first and last ideally. I thought I had avoided the need for any machinery by choosing to carpet the back garden with the fake grass. But when you choose life in the leafy suburbs, leaves are part of the deal. The mother says the trees are the next big thing. She thinks they are taking over. She says mark her words it’ll become a thing. In fairness she’s usually right. So in we went. I was obviously going to go for the Black & Decker. Not being in the loop on garden equipment, I seem to remember that Black & Decker were the big reliable name in the sector. We trusted them because they had ads.
“Blackanddeckerblackanddeckerblackanddecker.” So I was prepared to pay the slight premium for the brand I knew. But the Flymo was on sale and the nice young lad told me it was a good one. And they all seem to have the same power — 3,000. That could be watts or volts or some measurement of suction. You’re asking the wrong man.
I won’t deny that something stirred in me inside in Woodie’s. There was a massive beast of a barbecue sharply reduced and a manliness seemed to take me over. I wanted this big shiny beast. It would be twice the price next summer I reasoned, when people actually wanted barbecues. Now was the time to buy, I figured, when there is blood, and leaves, on the streets. But I tore myself away.
The younger one was awake when we got back and I had to blow the money I saved in Woodie’s on colouring stuff in Smyths to give this grim expedition some semblance of a family outing. My wife dreads me getting involved with any form of machinery or technology. She reserves a particular hatred, in general, for people who don’t read instruction manuals. I am that person. And I am also the person who, when something doesn’t instantly work and turn itself on for me, starts railing about technology and how none of it works. So she was, to say the least, apprehensive when she saw me go straight for the leaf hoover at home. But the leaves were driving me potty and I knew if I didn’t do it now, someone would slip on leaves. I had also met a guy I knew out at the shop and he had been gently ribbing me, saying he just got a lad to come around and hoover the leaves. I was determined to prove him wrong. I was right to invest in the machine. Give a man a fish and he gets his leaves cleared once. Give him a fishing rod and teach him to fish and then he is totally on top of the leaves for the whole season.
It actually worked, which was a good start, as in, it turned on. I have to say it was very loud. I wondered if I should have got earmuffs. Maybe even goggles. But the truth is I looked insane enough as it was. Out around the front and road with this jet engine noise, hoovering leaves as more fell around me. Though it was extremely satisfying, in that way that hoovering somewhere very dirty is. It even chomps them up small. I’ve got the bug now. I’m thinking of buying a rake for the gravel next. But in the meantime, the leaves are going to be a full-time job. As soon as you have them hoovered up, there’s more. Autumn is gradual but unrelenting, much like the process of turning into your Dad. Brendan O’Connor’s Cutting Edge, Wednesday, RTE 1, 9.35pm