When the red plastic bit fell off my lawnmover a few years ago, I couldn’t find the long bolt/screw thing that attached to it anywhere, so I taped the long handle back on with all sorts of different sticky tapes and used it with despair and negativity.

I dragged it around the garden whist it was lovingly doing its job of mowing my lawn and cursed when it stopped working; giving it a kick and bash to get it going again. I even blogged about not liking my lawnmower last year; however, I never did anything about it. I never looked into buying another one, I never tried to fix it, I just mowed the lawn each time and dumped it back in the garage again. I never really took care of it. I suppose I needed an excuse to get a new one and all the time it worked I was never going to throw it away.

Then things started to look up….

I offered to mow my mum and dad’s lawn last month. I had used their one the previous month and it was quite heavy and not cordless. As I started mowing their lawn with my battery operated mower, they looked so impressed with how easy it was to use. They had a quick go themselves and realised how light it was compared to theirs. I was really surprised as well that it behaved itself the whole time I was there and didn’t stop working like it usually does, so I didn’t need to give it a kick or a bash. It was all very odd; almost like it was showing off, ha ha. I tried to explain to my mum and dad that I didn’t like it but they couldn’t understand why.

My dad watched with gratefulness as I pushed and pulled the lawnmower around their front and back gardens with ease. I started to feel bad about the neglectful way I had been treating the poor mower and it suddenly felt more valuable to me. I promised my mum and dad that I would bring it back to them next time and maybe try and fix the handle before then.

Fast forward to today…

As I’m going to see them again tomorrow, and would have my daughters in the car, I knew that I would have to take the tape off the side of the mower in order to get the handle to fold over. So, I went into the garage to look for an appropriate screw to fix the handle on properly.

Now, if you’ve been following me for a while you will know that my garage is still unorganised so it wouldn’t have been easy to find what I was looking for. I sighed at the mess… and I have no idea why I looked down on the floor at that point… and low and behold, there on the floor was this…

It looked like it could do the trick. I immediately brought it inside the house to see if I could find the red cap that I’d put in a safe place a very long time ago. Even though I’ve been doing a lot of decluttering since then I never threw it away and knew it would be in one of about five places. As if by magic, it fitted perfectly.

I then took the tape off the handle of the lawnmower that had been stuck tight all these years and screwed on the fitting. Perfect!

I loosened both lawnmower handles and folded it down and it fitted perfectly in the boot of my car ready to take it to my mum and dad’s house tomorrow.

Oops, as I’m writing this, I have just remembered that I forgot to put the battery charger in the car!

Feeling grateful

To think that I have been so frustrated by this lawnmower all these years – almost throwing it away a few times. Now, I am very grateful for it and will enjoy its company for many years to come. Even if I do decide to get rid of it, my mum and dad will gladly take it in 😀.

Until next time…

Sandra