It has become a bit of a standing joke in this house, I am not someone who should mow the lawn. I seem to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with lawn mowers, I love them and they hate me. I love mowing, the lawn mowers do not.
This all started a few years ago when I had my first mowing disaster. I was merrily mowing away when the mower died. It was a couple of years old and so I didn’t really give it any thought at the time. My husband laughed and said that maybe I had been doing it wrong.
Very funny. Well, at least it was until lawn mower number two came to an untimely demise in my hands. There I was quietly enjoying myself pacing up and down the garden with the sun shining down on my face and suddenly the mower stopped. I looked down to find smoke pouring out and the mower was well and truly dead. It wasn’t a new mower, so we replaced it again and my husband joked that I should leave the mowing to him. Which I tried to do. Honestly, I did. But then the grass grew and I got frustrated and then the next mower came to a smoky end. Apparently, electric mowers do not like long wet grass. Who knew? (not me obvs)
I don’t mow all of the time. It is a job that my husband usually does but every now and then, if the sun shines, I like to have a go. It’s quite therapeutic. But when mower number three mowed its last, he did suggest quite forcibly that maybe I should step away from the mower.
I did for many months, maybe even a year. Then I thought that I should give it another go. As I started up the mower I shouted to my husband jokingly that this mower wouldn’t last long. Within five minutes, I kid you not, it had died. I was joking when I said it wouldn’t last long!!
So my husband said he wasn’t going to buy another one. My latest victim was quite new and so luckily we were able to return it and it turned out that this particular make and model had been a bit problematic. Phew, maybe it wasn’t me that time.
A couple of weeks later, a mysterious box arrived from Amazon and inside was a lawnmower. Not your regular mower, but a manual one. I wasn’t overly impressed. In fact, as it was approaching autumn anyway, I stuffed it in the garage and made a mental note to invest in another electric one in the spring.
Of course, spring came all too quickly and as we hadn’t used a mower for some time, the garden resembled a small jungle. So one sunny Saturday afternoon, with a sigh, I reluctantly built the manual lawn mower. I looked at it disdainfully and gave it a push. It was amazing. AMAZING. I loved it. No pesky wires to avoid, no noise, it just chopped the grass and did a fantastic job. It just goes to show that appearances can be deceiving.
Over the last few weeks, I have been cutting the grass every weekend, running to the shed in excitement to give the lawn a quick trim with my new favourite gadget. Even the kids loved it.
Then it all changed.
Whilst fervently mowing on Saturday, there was a clank and suddenly the mower fell apart. Somehow in my joyous movement around the garden, one of the bolts had come undone and I cannot find it anywhere. It looks unlikely that we will be able to replace the bolt easily either and I am overwhelmed with sadness. No more manual mowing. Things will never be the same.
I will get over it I’m sure but I have decided that this is a sign (just in case I had missed all of the others) that I am not supposed to be mowing. So I will not be. I am hanging up my (broken) mower and declining the kind suggestion from my husband that I could cut the lawn using shears. Either he buys a new one and does it himself or you will find us somewhere amongst the jungle in our garden.
No more mowing for me.
This made me laugh. I wonder what you are doing wrong?! I love mowing too. It annoys me that my husband usually nabs the job for himself, leaving me to do all the boring indoor jobs.
We have a petrol mower – we’ve had our second one about a year. The first one got lent to my brother and didn’t come back quite the same. He borrowed the new one almost as soon as we’d got it and lost a screw off the handle, so you have to physically hold the handle up. I’ve been told I’m not to lend it to him again!
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My wife is also a ‘lawn mower wrecker’ – I think it is because she is only little, and the lawnmower requires a bit of a physical shove to get it round the corners. She over compensates for the physical effort & rips the handle off the cheapy mowers that we can afford! You’ve got me thinking now, maybe we will try a manual mower (if we can find a sturdy one), worth a shot.
We always thought it was just us with this problem!
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Hi Nikki, I love lawn mowing too, and I did for many months, but it’s a bit difficult to handle the machine. For a small yard, a simple push mower is perfect. well, your blog made me laugh. Keep sharing!
Your story truly fascinates me. I think I won’t be able to sleep tonight and I’ll be counting your lawnmowers instead of sheep. Joke aside, I’m really curious what went wrong with every one of them. Great post, though, you made us all laugh. 🙂