Although last Thursday, we had had. day of glorious spring sunshine, this was not quite to be repeated on Friday, but the weather was still mild but cloudy. In the late afternoon on Friday, I decided to do the preliminary work to see if my trust petrol mower would function as it should after the long winter break, but I was a little fearful as it has not been properly 'winterised' i.e. old fuel and oil taken out in the Autumn as some short-term crisis had intervened. But there were a few things that to be done as the mowing season approaches. The first is to stamp down on the mole hills which have unfortunately appeared in out front grassy area which I did but with an amusing event on the side. Miggles, our adopted cat who loves to be near me when I am out in the garden observed my stamping down on the molehills and as I moved from one to another, the cat followed me from one to another to add his/her own stamping activity. Needless to say, the differences in our weights made the cat's efforts completely ineffectual but the whole thing was so amusing I wished it had been captured on a video clip. I then knew that I needed to start the mower to let is run for a minute or so before I could drain off last season's oil which would now be warm and flow more easily. I must have pulled the starter cord some 15-20 times with only the occasional little 'cough' after which the mower, thankfully, sprang into life. Fortunately, I had a big tinfoil pie dish to hand into which the oil could be emptied quite easily. Getting the new oil in was not easy as the oil container did not, as some oil cans do, have its own little plastic spout and I spilled quite a lot guessing the quantity, approximately 0.5 litre which I knew was needed. Then as I knew the mower would start, I decided to do the difficult lawn edges before I started on the mowing proper. I had done about a quarter of the first mow when the two carers tuned up for Meg, but they are so good with Meg I let them get on with it before I completed half the lawn. I did not want to push it and wreck myself as the first cut of the season is always a lot of effort, and the mower has to be set to its highest setting. But I did complete one half of the mowing, knowing that on the following day it would be easier as the edges had been done, and the mower was 'prepped' and functioning. Normally, I start the mowing season on my son's birthday which is March 25th so I am in advance of myself this spring. But once the mowing season starts, it has to be one on a weekly basis as the act of mowing the grass releases a hormone which stimulates the grass to grow apart from the warmer weather and the longer days, of course.
Today, after breakfast, it was time for us to go 'down the hill' and we met up with our regular friend in Wetherspoons, the other regular friend, the 91-year-old chorister, being taken out to a birthday party. Meg seemed to be asleep, or in a really deep doze all the way there and back and she has carried on like this for the remainder of the morning. I think this is Meg's body just slowly shutting down by degrees and although it makes life easier in some ways, it presents dilemmas in others. In particular, were I to wake up and she is still semi asleep they trying to give her food and drink is counterproductive and could, in extreme circumstances, lead to choking if she were to take food into her mouth and then choke. So I have left Meg's portion of her lunch on one side, and I shall try to get some of it inside her when she comes round a little. When we were in Wetherspoons, we bumped into some quite aged Irish friends of friends who we used to see in the park regularly in our Covid days. They told me that our mutual Irish friend who lives down the road was anticipating having a prostate cancer operation fairly soon but was feeling somewhat tired. After an MRI scan, it was revealed that he needs a heart pacemaker fitted almost immediately and this was going to happen on Monday. This was quite a shock as our friend is much younger than I am and is pretty fit with his cycling, golf and gardening activities and I was tempted to call on him to wish him the best as we passed his house. But I suspected that he and wife might be wanting some quiet time together so I made my way slowly back up the hill.
Sky News has a feature which documents the price rises that are going to hit the population in April which is, of course, just over a week away. The Teachers' Pension which Meg and I both receive is due to rise by 1.7% which was the CPI figure last September. Bus some of the price increases in April are truly shocking with water bills due to rise an average of 26% whilst energy and utilities bills all have hefty increases. There is a limited amount that the average household can do to limit the impact of these increases, but I fear that it will come to a very rude shock to many of us in about ten days' time. Council Tax bills are due to increase by the maximum which is generally 5.99% whilst the energy price cap is due to be raised 6%. I expect that the media will be dominated by several yelps of pain and, of course, we have the Chancellor's financial statement due to be made next week and it looks as though some £10bn of savings will be presented to us.
© Mike Hart [2025]