That's that done then.

I have mowed the South Lawn.

That may not sound much, but you can take it from me that it's not just a task of pushing a wee mower around the kip.  It's not the kind of acreage than can be done by hand.  And the first cut of the year is always the worst.

The problem starts with the mower.  It has a slow puncture.  And when I say slow, I mean it can last for weeks without a but of pumping.  Naturally I forget to top up the air during the winter so it's always flat in the spring.

I really fucking hate tubeless tyres.  In principle they're OK.  But when they're flat it's a nightmare to inflate them again, because the air just shoots out the rim.  Whoever thought of the principle of an air-tight seal caused by air-pressure is a twat. 

On Monday I removed the wheel and carted it down to Spanner's.  A foot pump is fuck all use and I need an industrial one.  Then there is the fun and games, wrapping a tourniquet of nylon rope around the circumference to distort the tyre and to get the tyre to press against the rim.  It took half a fucking hour of wrestling with the damned thing before the pressure started rising.  My pressure had already risen and I was dangerously in the red.

I was too knackered to mow after I got back so I left it today as the forecast was excellent – the warmest day yet, and nice and sunny.

Problem number two then reared its little head.  The grass was so long the gears kept squealing even though I was only cutting half a swathe at a time and in the lowest gear [and snail could run faster].  On the upside, a lot of the grass never recovered from last summer and is now just dust and mud.  Less lawn to cut.

It took over an hour, but as I said at the start – it's done.

It's funny how a well mown lawn can make the scruffiest garden look well.  If the grass is short and even, then I don't seem to notice the other scruffy bits.

And the smell of cut grass makes the whole effort worthwhile.

Nearly.