Yes, we were only in the place for four months.
Yes, I kept it super clean, as I do with any house I live in.
But yes, we had to get in professional cleaners or risk being stung by the letting agent.
So today was Cleaning Day in Dorset Way, Wokingham.
The cleaners wondered why they’d even been employed. I overheard one say to another, while looking in the oven, “But it’s perfect. It’s perfect.”
Waste of money, the cleaning.
But we did need to do something with the garden. After a month, in a warm, wet summer, it’s turned from nicely mown to jungle. I knew that would be the case. We took the mower and the strimmer in the back of the car.
I was right. There was no way the mower would cope with grass that was literally ready to be turned into hay. It was wet, as well. So I fired up the strimmer and got into attack mode.
After two minutes I realised my brand new walking trainers were going to get ruined in the deluge of dark green shards of wet grass. They might start out light grey, blue and peach but they’d end up irreversibly chlorophyll.
There was no option but to take them off and work in bare feet.
Tomorrow my arms and shoulders will tell me I did at least a full hour of strimming. The little Bosch mower is about ten years old now and it was a valiant old soldier today. I spent another hour nursing it over the roughly strimmed, lumpy lawn, turning it upside down every minute or so to scrape thick, wet grass out of its underbelly. The hell with the grass box by the way - absolutely zero intention of hauling bagfuls of grass cuttings to the tip. Mulching is the order of the day, plus a sincere hope for hot, dry winds to blow them all away. So call me lazy.
Well done, little mower.
I discarded the trainers in time. They’ll clean up. But in spite of much scrubbing in the bath, I fear the soles of my feet may be green for ever.
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