Yesterday I decided to try out the newly mended lawn mower. The weather was warm, the grass dry, but I’ve had a ride-on mower long enough to know that things are never that simple.

The day started quite well. The hedge trimming gang turned up as promised, finished the job off, and cleared up pretty well given the size of the task.

I got the mower out after lunch, but it wouldn’t start as the ignition just twisted round in the ‘dashboard’ as I turned the key. No sign of life.

Fortunately this has happened before and Peter was soon able to fix it by meddling around in the engine and tightening the ignition switch from behind the bulkhead. I think it’s just a quirk of our machine, so that was soon sorted.

I started mowing and things were going well, until the cover on the cutting deck fell off. Once again this has happened before, but this time the little clip that is supposed to hold it in place was nowhere to be seen.

We searched the grass in the surrounding area, but talk about a needle in a haystack!

Peter to the rescue once again. He mended it with the metal bit of a spare keyring, in place of the missing clip.

The rest of the mowing was uneventful, but very slow due to the mole hills that are EVERYWHERE.