No doubt for a peasant hardened by working fifty years man and boy on the land, raking up 2000 square metres of grass cuttings counts as light duties. For a pen-pusher like me it’s tedious, back-breaking toil relieved by long moments of leaning on the rake thinking “*!!??*@#”.

Having mown the jungle down and got the cuttings cleared the grass was still too long, wet and tangled to operate the lawnmower normally so I found myself pushing it along with its front wheels in the air and the blade whirling wildly to snip off the tops, gradually lowering the angle of attack on repeated traverses of the same section until it was possible for the machine to chug along under its own steam with all four wheels on the ground. That mind you at the highest possible cut setting.

The only plus point of yesterday’s labour was that it gave me 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. On balance though I think I’d rather be interrupted.

Not that this job is finished. I’ve only got beyond the jungle clearance stage for half the garden and I’ve delayed my golf outing departure till tomorrow so that I can make headway on that half and re-cut the “almost lawn” a couple of notches lower. All that for fear of what four days untrammelled growth might bring.

Jungle with a hidden metre rule

Twixt jungle and field

Overgrown field – you can now see the metre rule

Finally by 8pm almost lawn.