Trimmer trouble tips me over the hedge

Rab starts out as a confident man of action but his battle with a fast-growing leylandii soon turns him into a not so green-fingered gardener who blames it on his tools

It has been hell up at the high hedge. Well, “hell” is perhaps overegging the p, but you know how I like to go for a dramatic opening.

The hedge is up at the main road and consists mainly of fastgrowing leylandii. I needed to drag various electronic extensions through the sloping undergrowth, before clambering precariously over some railings and on to the pavement, where at last I pressed the button on the trimmer. And nothing happened.

So, I have to clamber back over the railings and check all four electronic extensions before discovering that, as usual, the plug has come away from the socket.

Then, we get started and it is all going swimmingly. Lots of people say hello or even stop to chat, in one case for 40 minutes, but I don’t really mind.

Everyone says, “That’s a big job”, but I have a big trimmer and I know how to use it. Until, that is, quite suddenly it gives off sparks and opts for early retirement. I tinkered for ages but nothing would get it started again.

So I climbed back over the railings and down to the shed for shears and a complicated pole with string on it that is meant to trim high branches.

This time, when I emerge over the railings (from which I have to jump down), I am aware that I am presenting a peculier mien. My face is a bit grumpier and there are clumps of foliage in my hair.

My overalls are covered in paint from previous botch-it-yourself jobs, and my blacker mood is enhanced by the realisation that, once again, a piece of practical work is not going to go smoothly.

The blade on the pole won’t cut through anything, so I have to go back over the railings to the shed to get some ladders. The pavement isn’t very flat, having been warped out of shape by the roots of nearby trees, so the ladders wobble, and passersby are now treated to the sight of a scowling, bearded man with foliage in his hair reaching up in vain for the higher branches and shouting “oh-oh-oh” as the ladders take another turn for the worst.

I half-expected constables to arrive and start diverting the traffic while telling the growing crowd there was “nothing to see here”.

The woman who’d stopped by for 40 minutes earlier came back again and said: “Still here?”

“Me, no,” I replied. “I’m down at the Palais dancing with a performing bear.”

Oh dear. I decided to leave the job half-finished, until I could get the electronic trimmer repaired (again; by now I must have spent more on repairs than I did on the original machine).

I had started the day as the confident man of action, beloved and respected by all, and – as usual – had been reduced to a comically incompetent wreck blaming – justifiably – his tools.

When I win the lottery (a bit difficult since I never buy a ticket) or am left money by an unknown aunt in Africa (half my family went there and stayed out of touch), I’m going to get proper men in to do this sort of work...