Robert in lockdown!
I have recently developed a conspiracy theory. We have all had more time to think during this lockdown period and the thinking I have been doing has led me to one inevitable conclusion. Lockdown was instigated by my Dad to get me home to Fort William to cut his grass.
In my first Robert in lockdown column a few weeks ago, in place, temporarily, of the Glasgow Letter, I said I had self-isolated in Glasgow for the appropriate period (before lockdown was brought in) so I could go home to the Highlands when it was enforced.
After completing a fortnight of isolation in my flat, I managed to get up the road and will spend the duration of this lockdown with my mum and dad. I decided I would use this time, as many others are doing, to try to keep fit and get myself into shape. To this end, I downloaded an app called Home
Workout and began following its instructions of doing pressups, sit-ups, and various similar things on our living room floor.
My dad walked into the room and found me doing something apparently called Abdominal Crunches while an American voice from my phone shouted out motivational instructions and encouragement. When I explained to him what the voice was, he immediately said: “Home work out?! I’ll give you home work out. The belt drive in my lawnmower has snapped which means there’s no drive and you have to push it manually. Away and help with that!”
Moments later, I’m pushing this mower, shedding layers by the minute as the sweat dripped from my nose. I would advise you not to do 30 press ups before cutting the grass with a broken mower!
The story of how the rubber belt drive snapped is an interesting one in itself. Apparently, dad has had the company of a mouse in his shed all winter. Quite a nice mouse, he tells me. When he took the lawn mower out for the first cut of the year recently, he quickly realised that all was not as it seemed. On removing the cover, he found a full nest of mice – who had chewed through the rubber of the drive!
Robert Burns, on destroying a similar nest with his plough wrote: I’m truly sorry man’s dominion, has broken nature’s social union.
Well, let me tell you, I didn’t feel much of a social union with the mice as I laboured up and down the grass with a broken lawn mower. At the end of the day, though, the grass was cut, my work out was complete without the use of an app, and my dad had a huge sense of satisfaction that, after 26 years, he’s finally managed to get me doing something useful in the garden. It has taken a global pandemic but we got there!