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| Tessa in her pomp |
I didn't recognise the place up by the school. I could have been in a different town. If I;d just been plonked there or caught the wrong bus and fallen asleep and been awoken at the end of the line at Westacott Road I wouldn't have a clue where I was and it would take some figuring out as to how I was to get back home. I found all this ribbon development bleddy alarming and I was telling Tess how I remember when this was all fields only broken up by the tracks of the marshalling yard and how we would muck about on the railway line squashing old pennies on the rails as trains shuttled back and forth from the Junction station to Victoria Road goods yard and maybe back then on to South Molton and all points East to Taunton. As older boys we'd go out around and about Westacott picking magic mushroom to sell to the bikers down the The Tuns or Mugfords. Amazing it is to see it now, row after row of little houses, it's all quite pleasant and very, very, neat and tidy but there's hundreds and hundreds of them, and more to come no doubt, stretching all the way up the valley.
It was a glorious day and so when us got back I thought I'd sit out in the garden and enjoy the last of the sun and quietly read the Journal and then it started..... a few gardens down someone had started cutting the grass obviously, with a spot or two of rain forecast, taking advantage of the fine weather to get a cut in. Initially I was oblivious to this hum and then moments later another lawnmower started up behind me followed seconds later by another one a few gardens along and then another before long a riotous cacophony of all manner of lawnmowers, was crescendoing up the valley. I hadn't had such a experience since the eclipse, when up on Haytor the birds all went to sleep and the shadow of the eclipse came across the land like an old blackout curtain being unfurled and the lights of Plymouth were all turned on before us. Obviously this wasn't quite such a sublime, once in a lifetime experience as I have noticed this phenomena up at Sticklepath from time to time. However, due to being in a valley the effect was more pronounced and naturally amplified. Within a matter of minutes there were all sorts of mowers whirring and buzzing away; the national grid must have been on standby ready to throw some switches in order to cope with the surge in demand. Then, beggar me to cap it all, just beyond next door's fence the coughing and spluttering of a petrol engine fired another mower into life and at that moment all hell seemed to break loose the peace and quiet of a summers afternoon was shattered and it just kept going on. Out in the road a chainsaw was started and as I walked out to get the dog in I noticed a neighbour virtually prone across a bit of shrubbery wielding and slicing into the foliage with a bloody Husquvarna not a little electric trimmer but a fully blown branch lopper. He hadn't got a bleddy clue the thing was virtually pulling him up and over the bush and then before he knew it he had it dangling upside down to get at the lower twigs. No protective gear on or anything. Tell you what if the saw had hit a stone it could have kicked back and tore it's way right down between his eyes. It would have made an awful mess and kind of defeated the object of tidying the garden. I've took a chainsaw course and one of the things they do before letting you loose with one is to show you the kind of injuries you can sustain if you do not use them responsibility and with due caution. They weren't a pretty sight. They still give me nightmares to this day! Anyway, unsurprisingly, given he was using it upside down, the engine cut out and so for the next 20 minutes you had the sound of him trying to get it restarted. "It's bleddy flooded bey", I said by way of help as I went back out the back. I didn't offer any further assistance as by now the next door neighbour had moved on to his front lawn and was having trouble getting the thing, a Mountfield by the look of it (As a former agricultural engineer I do know my mowers) through his front gate, his sward is about the size of a shovehappeny table and you could have got a lovely cut with a pair of clippers but no he was determined to get it in there and get mowing on.
Eventually, the sound of mowers died out and a momentary calm ensued however this was soon stirred by the sequential sound of the strimmers starting up. This went on for a while longer but soon around about 7.30pm as the sun was getting lower in the western sky out over the town peace was restored. Thos lasted about 2 minutes as next door as no sooner was the strimmer stashed in the garage then the leaf blower was brought out and sparked up. A bleddy leaf blower! So off he goes blowing away the grass cuttings which had strayed on to his garage forecourt. Once satisfied he'd blown the cuttings off his drive no joke he goes and gets out the Karcher Pressure Hose, the ultimate in environmentally unfriendly household tools, and starts mournfully hosing down his drive by this stage he didn't look too bright or happy shifting about looking down at this jet of water possibly remembering the days long since passed when he could use his own nozzle to power blast one fag end from the urinal to another, or perhaps that's just me.
Why do people feel the need to buy this expensive and energy draining kit, all the electric, the power and the water consumed all to keep a garden tidy and maintain a lawn. Don't get me started on weed killers that would start another diatribe. A tidy weed free perfectly manicured lawn has to be a true symbol, after aeons of strife of Man's glorious triumph over nature and the resources required to maintain it will surely see to the terminal vanquishing of his old foe. To my mind all these suburban lawn can be cut adequately using a hand powered mower like the lovely piece of precision engineering that is the Qualcast Panther 30. (see right)I remember that bloke Percy and his mate the whiskery, rheumy eyed bey with milk bottle lenses and who was as thin as one of his rakes, they cut the verges and trimmed the pavements around town for years and years. They didn't have a van they had a cart and used a hook and a rake and a scythe for bigger jobs. Leaf blower, they had a bleddy old broom and a shovel. They always did a marvellous job and Percy ensured he did it with time to spare so he could hand out religious tracts to passers-by.
