ONE MAN WENT TO MOW

There is something immensely satisfying about mowing a lawn with a hand-held motor mower. Since our house stands in roughly 2.5 acres of land and a large proportion of that is grass, my neighbours think I am mad. I should buy myself one of those little motorised buggy things that you sit on, they don't cost very much these days. My mother-in-law has one and I borrowed it once. But I broke one of the rotor blades on a tree root, and have not used it since I returned it to her (blade mended, of course).

However, that bad experience is not why I prefer pushing. The real reason is the combination of time to think while seeing those thin alternate strips of light and dark green grass appear in an orderly way before my eyes.

The English have a thing with lawns. Like changing the guard and underperforming at Wimbledon, it is one of the few activities where we are still genuinely world class. I get an aesthetic pleasure from watching a man dressed in impeccable white kit chase a bright red cricket ball across a billiard-table flat green outfield. And a corresponding slight depression whenever I see a French municipal park without grass, a sort of beefed-up petanque court.

So, here I was yesterday on my first mow of 2010. It was sunny and cool rather than hot, ideal weather. My trusty Klippo mower, which has stood in the barn all winter, started without problems, and off we went. Up and down, following the line of the terrace, the powerful blades clipping the tops off weeds and scrunching up small twigs that have fallen from the trees. Powering through old molehills (more on them another time), creating "allées" between the trees, accentuating the border between the lawn itself and the undergrowth in the borders or the wood. Slowly turning the winter rugby pitch into a summer cricket one. And all the while pondering and musing.

Capability Brown I am not. But hey, give me a chance, I have only lived here for 8 years. Even he needed time for his creations.

Walter Blotscher