A mower milestone, manna from heaven, and the mystery of the missing teaspoon solved

I had been working from home for months, cooped up indoors with spreadsheets, databases, PowerPoint presentations and zoom meetings. Outside the sun was shining, birds were singing and spring was generally springing. ‘Bother!’ I said, and ‘Oh blow!’ and also ‘Hang the work!’ I fired off a quick email to my boss requesting half a day off, slammed my laptop shut and bolted out of the house without even waiting for a reply.

I’m turning into Moley from The Wind in the Willows I thought as I loaded my trusty old mower into the car and headed for the allotment.

A mower milestone

The first mow of the year is always a bit of a milestone. You don’t want to let the grass grow too long if you can avoid it, but on the other hand you can’t get out to cut it if it’s too wet. I’ve heard a few mowers running in my area recently and we’ve had two or three dry days in a row so I felt inclined to chance it up at the allotment. It’s not only the right conditions for mowing you need. If you have a powered mower you need it to start too! After a long winter in the cold, damp garage there’s always a danger that it won’t. So it was with some trepidation that I primed the carburettor and pulled the starting cord.

Bingo! One pull and it started! I could hardly believe it. With a little leap and a click of the heels I was off.

I never cut the paths around the allotment very short, but as a rule of thumb it’s good to remember that you should never cut more than a third of the length of the grass. If you like your grass short don’t be tempted to take it all of at one go as this will damage it. When Cat Stephens wrote The First Cut is the Deepest he wasn't writing about lawn mowing obviously.

Manna from heaven

Did I say manna? I meant manure.

Every so often we arrive at the allotment and somebody has dumped a load of manure on the side of our plot. I don’t think the donor leaves it for us in particular, they’re probably just happy to have somewhere to get rid of it and our plot just happens to be right next to the site entrance so we tend to be the main beneficiaries. I’m not greedy though, so once I’ve topped up a compost bin or two I let my neighbours know it’s available on a first come first served basis. On one occasion the chap on the plot next to me asked about it. ‘It’s not actually mine.’ I said.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘It looks like horses.’

The mystery of the silver spoon solved

The manure from heaven contained a lot of straw and I felt it needed to be mixed with some green waste to get a good balance. As I was mowing the paths I was able to empty the grass into the compost bins with the manure and straw but there wasn’t enough to get the balance right. I knew that some of my bins had a lot of fresh kitchen waste in them so I decided to use some of this to help the mix. I was forking some into a wheelbarrow when I spotted something shiny amongst the decaying vegetables.

It was a teaspoon! A silver teaspoon! And not just any old silver teaspoon either. This is a particularly dainty little spoon and it’s the only one we have which is small enough to fit into our spice jars. I reckon it’s been missing for six months or more and I haven’t been able to make a decent curry since it went missing. I’m really looking forward to curry night again now. I must remember to give it a rinse though!