Sweeping beauty

“But I always walk over your lawn. It’s shorter.”

I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing, but in Australia I’ve noticed that there seems to be slightly less sensitivity to personal space and property. So, it came as no surprise to find that the house seems to have turned into a kind of short cut for anyone who is everyone, and no man shall stop them.

Now, my lawn may be shorter than it has even been – thanks to the attention of both the consistent gardener, and also my chopping bi-weekly with a little Victorian hand mower – but I don’t think this is quite what the massed hoards that use this short cut mean. True, it is much easier for them to walk up the garden path, and out through the car port, but as they wander through. But as I’m sweeping the lovely expanse of tarmac that was once – fifty years back – a lovely vegetable patch, I can’t help going into bucolic mode “git orf my land” mode.

On a separate note, to introduce a Pandora's can of floodgates into the china shop, let me recap on that last sentence. I did just say sweeping – which seems to be a bit of a novelty in Sydney, for come Autumn, when the leaves start to descend, there is also the romantic sound of dozens of demented chainsaws to be heard around the Hills District. It is the sound of leaf blowers. No one actually uses such a thing as an old fashioned broom in these here parts.

Other quaint old things that the neighbours have laughed at me for, include what I believe the kids call analogue devices, such as include sanding down wood with a piece of sandpaper – rather than an electric sander – driving a screw in by hand – using that old fashioned device known as a screw driver – and, here’s a novelty. Using a lawn mover that has no motor. Just a good old fashioned Victorian push along mower. It producers a lovely razor cut, and best of all, it is noiseless.