I decided to cut the grass.

It sort of needed a cut as I think it’s around four months since the last one.  Aren’t droughts wonderful things?

The first job was to walk the perimeter wearing gauntlets and hacking down all the brambles that would try to catch around my neck.  Lopped off a few tree branches while I was at it.  Ended up as usual with blood all over the place.

I realised that my two jerry-cans were both empty, so I hopped into the car.  After a round trip of five miles or so I arrived home with two full jerry-cans and a car reeking of petrol.

I filled the tractor’s tank and then did my usual thing of kicking various parts to see if they fall off.  Fuck!  One of the tyres was flat.

I don’t know who the bright spark was that invented tubeless tyres but they have one fatal flaw – they are only airtight when they are fully inflated.  Try pumping air in when they are flat and it just comes out again around the rim.  Brilliant!  Genius!

I removed the wheel and spent an irritating half hour trying to get an airtight seal so I could inflate the fucking thing.  And I only had a foot pump as I was damned if I was going to do another five mile round trip.

I finally got the tyre fixed and mounted the wheel.  I went to start the motor and discovered the battery was nearly flat.  Swore for a few minutes.  I finally got the engine started but it must have been on the last couple of volts.

Started on the front lawn.  The blades screeched to a halt as the grass was too long.  Managed to unjam the blades without switching off the motor.  Risky, but I was in a foul mood at that stage and wasn’t going to give in.  I was going to get that fucking grass cut even if it did mean loosing a hand or an arm.

Finally got the front lawn cut but had to do it three times – starting with the highest blades and then lowering the blades between each cut.

The back lawn wasn’t too bad until I got about half way around the circuit when suddenly the blades jammed and both I and the mower vanished in a thick cloud of blue smoke reeking of rubber.   I could have hidden an entire convoy under that cloud.  Fuck! And it’s a new belt too.

Crawled under the tractor [switching off the engine this time as loosing a head is a little more serious than loosing an arm].  Hacked out a load of solidly packed grass stems until the blades were free again.  The belt seemed to be in one piece anyway which was something.

I eventually got the job finished.  It only took about four hours in total.  At this stage I was bleeding from several places, had a fierce sweat on me and I stank of petrol and burned rubber.

I wonder how Herself would feel about turning the lawns into a wild meadow?