Cutting the grass in my garden is one L of a job
THE only regrettable part about the arrival of spring is that the grass starts growing again.
It’s not that I am against the rebirth of nature heralded by the spring equinox. I am delighted we have entered that period of promise supplied by an extra hour of daylight that suggests warm days are round the corner.
It’s just a shame they are slow in arriving.
My problem is our back garden. To be fair, the back garden wherever I have lived has always been a problem.
I like grass to walk on and look at but hate cutting it.
Our previous back garden was a challenge because the lawns were on three levels.
I did my best: I bought my wife Maria the best electric lawn mower for the job.
Now we have a smaller area that is L shaped round the side of the house but even that is becoming beyond either of us at our age.
One minute you are hippies wearing flowers in your hair and running barefoot through a meadow and the next you are too knackered to push a mower. I exaggerate, of course, but you get the idea.
I started thinking of alternatives. A goat was out of the question because of lack of stabling and we couldn’t convert the shed because it contains two spare doors and a mower. So I looked on Amazon for imitation grass.
A roll six foot six inches wide by 31ft long is available for £105 but has the unfortunate name of Preston.
Not that I have anything against the place but it seems an odd choice when other artificial turfs have exotic names such as Lisbon, Galileo and Supernova that promise so much more than a town in Lancashire that you drive past on the way to Blackpool.
But would this grass work? Perhaps I could try and carpet the part of the L shape that goes round the side of the house and is out of sight behind a high fence so no one can snigger if it goes disastrously wrong? At least it would reduce the actual mowing area.
Covering the rest with pebbles or an ornamental garden is out of the question when you have a six-yearold grandson with ambitions to either join the SAS or be Marcus Rashford who likes to climb, kick and throw things and would use it as an obstacle course.
Mind you, I have overcome cutting issues before during lockdown.
When I couldn’t get to the hairdresser for six months I cut my own hair. Badly.
Instead of an Old English Sheepdog I looked like an Old English punk.
But perhaps that could be the answer. I’ll start at one end with a pair of scissors and see how long it takes.