The Lawnmower Uprising

Being a Sunday morning it seemed like as good a time as any for me to take on the task of mowing our lawn, a seemingly straightforward task not worthy of a column, you’d imagine. 

There are two things that, on deciding to complete this task, make it rather more challenging than can be normally expected. Our lawn slopes upwards in a manner rather like an over-enthusiastic attempt to resemble a Lake District fell. And our mower is particularly opinionated about how much it wants to be pushed back and forth whilst reducing the length of the blades of grass our lawn consists of. 

The average electric lawnmower such as ours, draws twelve to eighteen hundred watts of power continuously. That’s roughly equivalent, should we ever have the need, to charging ten to twenty laptops at the same time. But here’s the far more concerning one. It is also equivalent to boiling the kettle. Something I’d much rather do on a Sunday morning. 

I read somewhere that the Tea Enthusiasts Alliance had campaigned about this before. Claiming that re-wilding a garden and allowing kettles to boil, is a far better use of power. And a considerably better use of our time on a Sunday. 

Meanwhile, as the reluctant mower and I made our way up lawn mountain, the mower coughed, spluttered and stopped. I attempted a restart and got another polite, but certain cough. The mower it seemed, had decided enough was enough. 

A lawnmower of a design and construction similar to ours generates two to four horsepower, if anyone could find horses willing to drag a rotating blade back and forth up a grassy hill. I turned my reluctant mower around to face downhill and it started up again. I was appreciative that the horses decided to cooperate. 

As I battled the gradient, I could feel my shoulders registering a complaint with the upper management. But my upper management simply stated that was an issue for the Someone Else’s Problem Committee to deal with. So, I battled onwards. 

I had half the lawn looking tidy and the mower still wheezed and coughed like an old man with a predilection for King Edward cigars. The sun popped out making my shirt develop a close relationship with my back. But onwards we went, taking the fight to the unruly grass on the hill. 

As I strived onwards, my mind wandered over the concept of lawns. It was in medieval times that grassed areas around castles provided a clear line of sight to spot invaders. On reflection, it seemed to me that our invaders are squirrels, magpies and pigeons. None of which I have any issue with so I could do without a lawn. 

I find myself glad that I don’t have a petrol lawnmower. Standard petrol mowers are notoriously loud not because they are powerful, but because they are terrible at being engines. Up to 85% of a petrol mower’s energy is completely wasted as heat and acoustic violence, leaving a mere 15% to actually terrify the grass. Electric mowers are far more efficient, meaning they can plot our lawn’s demise in comparative near-silence.

There is a little-known organisation called Sunday Rituals Protection Society who has included mowing the lawn, washing the car and going for a Sunday lunch at the pub as the kind of ritualistic behaviour worthy of note. As I turned down the final section of lawn, I had one suggestion for an item on their list that ought to be removed. 

I let the mower shudder to a stop and emptied the grass collection from its rear-end. As I refitted it, the mower sighed, I’m fairly certain it did. I understood its reaction. I really did. 

Once I’d carried the mower back to the garage for a well-earned rest, I moved to the next task.

The yard broom was watching me.