French Letter: Decision time as the garden comes back into its own

It’s January and I’m still killing flies. I had thought that a recent spate of cold nights would finally put paid to the holdouts from 2021. I mean, they’re only supposed to live for a month. But now the sun is out and they’re taunting me by settling on my desk and daring me to reach for my tapette.  

The seasons come round with frightening speed. Another year, another douleur. 

Next thing I know, the grass will be shooting up in the gardedwn and then the hedge will need clipping. Oh, all the instruments agree, Spring is not far off, and as if to rub it in, the new season lawnmowers have turned up in our local Point Vert. The choice is bewildering: I could select a traditional tondeuse gazon, rotary or cylinder, or I could opt instead to go all-electric (battery or cable). I could even, if I was prepared to throw caution to the winds, invest in a luxury sit-on, like the one on which my neighbour Bernard drifts around his estate each Sunday morning, looking as if he hasn’t a care in the world. 

I’d like to do my bit for the planet by choosing a battery mower. But the garden surrounding our house, to say nothing of the field we own next door, is mostly at an angle of 30 degrees, which means the battery would struggle in one direction and run riot in the other before cutting out halfway around. For the same reason, a sit-on, in addition to being ruinously expensive, would, I am advised, almost certainly end up toppling sideways, trapping me like Richard III beneath his horse at Bosworth. 

So what I’ll probably do is buy the strongest and most energy-efficient petrol mower I can find while vowing, for the umpteenth time, to follow a regular schedule instead of waiting until the grass is four inches high. The model in question, which I reckon will set me back at least €350, will replace the two useless hulks now lingering shamelessly in the basement, one, a British-made monster, at least ten-years-old, the other a featherweight impulse-buy that fell apart after less than eighteen months. 

The older model, a real brute of a machine, was bought, second-hand, in response to an ad in LeBonCoin, an online advertising site. I drove 30 miles to pick it up, only to find that the chosen hand-over point, which I had assumed would be the vendor’s house, was in fact a local churchyard. He started it up and ran it over an adjacent patch of grass. No bother. I had a go myself and less than a minute later handed over the agreed €150 in the belief that I had secured a bargain. 

Only the following day did it emerge that the wheels providing traction were worn out and only worked on the flat. As it happens, I was able to secure new wheels from Amazon, which a local expert fitted for me. But while the engine could probably power a small car, there was now so much vibration that I had to wear thick gardening gloves when operating it and still ended up with hands that felt as if they had spent several minutes wired up to the mains. 

Its replacement worked fine for a while but gradually shook itself to death, shedding different bits each time out until, finally, the handles came off. Both it and its predecessor don’t know it yet, but they are about to meet their fate, if not their maker, at the local municipal dump.  

Déchetteries – as dumps are known in France – are among the cleanest and best-run institutions in the country. The men in charge at our local depository wear smart blue overalls and run a tight ship. There is a place for everything and everything is expected to end up in its proper place. Mere members of the public are treated as suspects. As in the episode of Seinfeld featuring the Soup Nazi, we are expected to behave exactly as instructed and not to ask stupid questions. Otherwise, “No soup for you!”

The mowers should be left there, not there, and should have been emptied of petrol so that they do not pose a fire risk. Cardboard boxes go there; wooden crates should be tipped into the container at the far end, next to the cut grass. Any electronic equipment should be brought to the shed next to the office, where it is stored on shelves pending inspection. 

I wouldn’t be in the least surprised to discover that dump managers run a lucrative sideline in spare parts. They certainly have a keen eye for worn-out machinery and electrical gear. But I wouldn’t dream of suggesting as much lest I be banned for life. Instead, I shall load up my errant mowers (always assuming I can get them to fit into our car boot), and wait patiently at the déchetterie until instructed as to where exactly the obsequies will be conducted. 

Back home, in the house side of House & Garden, it has been all go these last few days. Our near-neighbour, bringing up two small children on her own after she and her partner split up a year or two back, turned up at our front door, obviously distressed, following an altercation with her ex that she claims involved him trying to strangle her and kidnap the children. It’s a complicated tale that ended with two young gendarmes, armed to the teeth, arriving and handcuffing the father, who spent the next few days in the cells pending a first appearance before the magistrates. 

My wife and I were asked to turn up at the local gendarmerie next day to provide a statement, which we duly did, doing our best I have to say, to give a truthful account of what we had witnessed without embellishing the facts or seeming to come down on one side or the other. Now we are left to wonder if we will have to show up at a later hearing that could, I suppose, result in the accused – who a couple of summers ago enjoyed lunch with us on our terrasse – being sent down for the duration. And to think the French won’t even give us the vote!