Penthouse and Pavement

I gave up my garden willingly with the house move but there are a few moments when I think about it and miss it.

This is a mixed emotion as it was quite an effort to keep it looking, well, just tidy.

It seemed that every other weekend had to be devoted to hedge trimming, sweeping up leaf debris, weeding, tilling the borders and watering anything that survived my typically destructive and scorched earth approach.

In between and with the highly unpredictable and unreliable British weather there were few opportunities to actually sit out and enjoy the garden.

I was a regular up at the Civic Amenity Site so much so that I was never challenged as to what I was getting rid of. My privileged status meant that I was just fast tracked through to the Green Waste container.

The two day gardening project always started with cutting the front and rear lawns. I enjoyed this the  most but did get through quite a few mowers through misuse, such as ploughing through dense vegetation and the inevitable consequence of being distracted by dogs and small children and slicing through the mains power cable.

In the period of being between mowers I had to beg or borrow the use of one from neighbours, family or friends.

Modern electric machines are pretty docile and there is a good degree of contol with the "dead man" type throttle and so I was completely out of my depth on being lent an old style petrol powered mower.

For the duration of using it I was dragged up and down the lawn in an uncontrollable panic shrouded by a choking fog of fumey smoke not to mention the deafening accompaniment of rotating cutter blades and over-revving two stroke engine. My family had been terrified by the experience and had quickly retreated to the safety of the house, just peeking out at any further strange sounds to make sure that I was still hanging on in there.

Having a July birthday was the ideal time to be bought a new lawn mower and this did become a very regular gift.

Lawns were followed by the more technical and exhausting task of trimming the hedges.

The boundary demarcation with flanking neighbours was entirely in privet, therefore in excess of 40 metres run in total. The main length to the driveway was some 3 metres tall and a step ladder was necessary for this section. Precarious it was in the extreme to balance the rickety and loose footed ladder whilst operating the heavy electric timmer with both hands. Complicating factors included the wind fuunneling down the side of the house causing the ladder to wobble, more distractions from dogs and small children and the attentions of passing pedestrians who would invariably remark on my complete flounting of Health and Safety and basic common sense.

The trimmer slashed and dispersed the bits of hedge to all parts of the garden and the ever growing debris-field of cuttings had of course to be swept up, bagged and taken to the tip.

The satisfaction of standing back to admire a well shaped line of foliage was immediately diminished by the prospect of the major clean up that followed.

All of the above had to be accelerated with news of an impending family gathering at the house or if other visitors were expected.

Our back garden was very much in demand amongst friends with very small infants as it was safe and child friendly, ie no deep ponds, poisonous plants or access to a busy road.

The place looked its best not with clipped lawns, tidied borders or a splash of colour from vegetation but entirely concealed under a layer of playmats, toys, pedal cars, lego bricks, building blocks and scaled down bright red plastic furniture.

I live now in the inner city.

The house exceeds our needs and indeed our initial expectations upon purchase. It is close to everything that we could possibly need on a daily basis or to cater for our busy lifestyle. The floor area is actually larger than the previous residence and being some 80 years newer than our previous we get the benefits of significantly better insulation and lower running costs.

As for the footprint?

The forecourt style frontage is covered in Scottish pebbles around a stone roundel and needs no tending other than a periodic extraction of any weeds that have evaded the patented weed resistant matting . The back of the house is for vehicle parking and is entirely block paved.

Both areas are of minimal maintenance.

I now enjoy waking up on a saturday morning in the knowledge that I can attend to my outside chores in about 30 minutes armed with nothing more than a hosepipe, yard brush and the first cup of tea of the day.