Tag: lawnmower blues

An update with some meat on the bone

Posted on By admin 1 Comment on An update with some meat on the bone

Haven't written anything of substance in a while, so I'll make this one count.

We're slowly reclaiming our back yard from its natural wilderness state. I cut the grass for the second time last weekend under the watchful eye of a suicidal sparrow who kept landing in front of the lawnmower to get at the fresh bugs, with Katy going “watch out for the biiiird!”. It's still looking rough so we bought a rake to try and pick up the grass clippings that are left behind. Katy was off on holiday this wednesday and had a go at it. The lawn won in the end, but she still managed to get half of it raked clean. It's slowly getting better. Our goal for this year is to get it in a clean slate state that we can use to make something pretty next year.

She also had a whack at pruning the shrubbery in front of the house. We can now get in and out of the house without being attacked by the bushes now (even though it looks like a WMD went off in the front yard)

We're in Leicester this weekend. Since I was supposed to be in Canada at the moment, I had the week booked off as holiday time but I'm only taking Thursday and Friday off. Since we finally got the paperwork from the Home Office, wedding plans are officially underway. We bought the paper and envelopes for the invitations we're going to make. We bought the wedding rings (well, they're ordered, at least. We're paying them over 3 months to lessen the pain) and Katy knows which dress she wants. We stopped in a bridal shop today to have a look at suit styles. I'm going for the top-hat-and-tails look, with grey pinstriped trousers with a charcoal tail suit, cream vest and burgundy cravat. I need to buy some cufflinks, but I've seen some nice mother-of-pearl ones at the jewelers where we bought the rings.

And now for something completely different, we bought a BBQ! It's a pre-emptive wedding present :) It was on sale for 20% off, so that's ok. We just need to assemble it and get a bottle of propane and suburbia, here I come :)

uncategorized

weekend update

Posted on By admin 3 Comments on weekend update

This weekend, I mowed the grass.

Simple sentence, 6 little words, but I'm damned proud of them. For a few reasons, really. The major one is that I have a rather huge phobia of flying/stinging insects, so spending 2 hours behind a lawnmower is a big achievement for me. Second reason is that the “grass” we needed to mow could better be classified as “hay” at the very least and “a fucking wild mess” with little effort.

When clover is a foot tall, it doesn't really qualify as grass anymore.

It's a damned good thing we bought a petrol lawnmower because no electric one could have been able to deal with that lot. Even then, we abused the shit out of the poor thing. The engine kept cutting off because the grass was too dense, we had to empty the grass catcher every 20 feet (at the end, I just left it off and left the clippings where they fell) and at one point, the drive belt fell off because the axle was too clogged with tangled weeds. Even then, we didn't even attempt to clear out the last 30 feet of the garden because we didn't feel like fighting 2-foot tall stinging nettles. We'll need to hire a petrol strimmer (i.e. a gas-powered weed-wacker for you North Americans) to clear out that jungle, but that can wait for another weekend.

uncategorized

Not the way I'd planned to spend a long weekend

Posted on By admin 2 Comments on Not the way I'd planned to spend a long weekend

Feeling meh at the moment. Don't really know why. I think I need sleep. I've not been sleeping well these past few days: weird dreams† and I'm waking up at like 5am. Not cool. I blame the change in the weather I've also been having annoying low-grade headaches, which I've come to associate with sudden changes in air pressure. I used to laugh about the whole concept until it started happening to me. Gotta love Karma…

We were supposed to spend a quiet weekend this weekend, but those plans, in our usual idiom, went flying out the window when we decided to invite Katy's parents over at the last minute. Katy was in a redecorating mood. In the last two days, the living room has been touched up, all the woodwork and trim done, and that bloody alcove painted (which meant that I had to unplug and replug everything electrical – again. blergh). I wasn't in the mood at all to do it, but it's done and I have to say that it looks nice and also means that I don't have to bother with it for the next little while.

We spent way too much money at B&Q to get the stuff we needed for this weekend. A large chunk of that went into a lawnmower, which is not a frivolous expense and we need to start tackling the wild kingdom in our backyard. We spent just as much though for supplies to re-grout our bathroom and get a shower curtain and rod. Again, looks nice, but I think it could have waited until we were a bit more flush.

Still in the spending-money category, I bought a new phone. Not because I wanted to, but because my motorola V3 RAZR, the one I bought just a little more than a year ago, died. After I renewed my contract and passed up the phone upgrade. After the warranty expired. Orange were totally useless about it and I spent waaay too much time on the phone with peons until I asked to speak to a supervisor that answered my question in 5 minutes. There's a lesson in there somewhere. Anyway, I could either spend £90 in “insurance” (which is a more polite way to mean “protection racket”) and get a replacement handset or spend £60 and get a new pay-as-you-go phone, ditch the SIM card and voila, instant handset.

All in all, it hasn't been the bestest weekend ever. On the plus side though, I did make a really nice stuffed chicken yesterday and there has been booze and chocolate.

Still, I think I'd have preferred to visit the Fitzwilliam and just chill with a book…

uncategorized