Is it just me or are motorised gardening tools evil and annoying?

It’s that time of the year again – spring.  It’s great to see the sunshine after so long in the wilderness.  It did seem as if maybe the sun had gone on a very long holiday to Antarctica.  But never mind at least its back.  However this means inevitably that the most dreaded thing on earth will happen in all the gardens of England.  No, not weeds – although they are annoying.  It is the sound of the Strimmer machine as it noisily hacks its way through my neighbour’s almost perfect garden beds.  Every vrrmm sends an annoying shiver down my back. 

 

The other afternoon it was so lovely, a gentle breeze kissed my sun drenched back deck and I took a plate of nibbles, a cup of tea and my laptop out to finish my work – an hour or so before the return of the children.  But just as I sat down, almost as if he’d been watching, a half naked gardener jumps out across the fence and begins to rev his machine.  It’s like it’s some kind of extension of his male parts and he is doing this ridiculous dance of “look at me with my big evil weed strimming machine”.

 

Now I know I’ve blogged before about leaf blowers in the Autumn. But to be honest they are nothing compared to the most soul destroying sound of the strimmer.  Absent Husband does own one and will be known to get it out over the weekend after he has mowed.  That I don’t mind.  It’s the weekend, the only time for him to do it and it lasts usually around ten minutes during which time you can carefully avoid it by going out or at least going upstairs for a bit.

 

But of course my neighbours don’t do their own garden so the strimming takes place mid-week for hours on end as their gardener clearly tries to hit them for as many hours as possible.  And what I want to know is why did he suddenly start doing it the minute I went outside?  And let's not even talk about the horrible fumes of petrol coming from the machine as he revs it all around their garden.  The previous owners would be horrified.  A lovely old couple who loved their garden with a passion and spent hours on their knees weeding the beds rather than running a noisy machine over them.

 

Better buy a better pair of ear defenders I think….