Out with the old ...

... in with the new.

And so it came to pass that the lawn mower has expired. We have given it a fitting send off and yesterday evening saw us dressed in animal skins, dancing around a fire celebrating the demise of the evil bastard. As we whipped ourselves in to a frenzy of excitement we ripped the damned thing apart with our bare hands and trod its bones in to the dust as we celebrated its death. Once the blood lust was over I retired to the lap top to make a decision about its replacement.

30% and I had set our budget and we knew that we needed a mower with an 18" cut in view of the size of the garden. After a bit of research we had decided on a McCulloch and had found one at Homebase with a 15% discount provided we made the purchase today. I reserved one on line last night and this morning 30% and I climbed in to the Defender and popped in to collect it.

At this point I am almost ashamed to admit that I actually bought it in Evesham. This may seem a bit rich after my recent rant about what an arsehole of a place it has become but it was the only place that had the selected model in stock and this proves my point as it is the only place in the locality which cannot seem to maintain any effective retail operations. We are, after all, talking about the town where the high spots of the High Street are a Coral Bookmakers, a Newsagent you have never heard of and a range of shitty Insurance Brokers. Trust me take a look and you will see absolutely nothing to draw you in to part with your hard earned cash. In other words I went to Evesham as it can't actually sell anything and therefore had the selected mower.

30% and I did a quick trawl of the retail park and decided that neither B&Q nor Countrywide had anything to divert us from the McCulloch and so we wandered in to Homebase. A quick check of the high level signage and we were soon in the Garden Department checking out our selected model. And then it happened ...

... there was a break in the clouds, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed and our attention was drawn to the adjacent model. There it stood like a fine thoroughbred stallion; snorting and pawing the ground. It was green, it had all the features I desired, it was self propelled ...

... it was THE PORN MOWER.

My, aint she perdy

She is fantastic. She cuts, she mulches and has a 60l grass box. She has speed control and centrally adjusted deck height. Does she cut wet grass? She will cut grass under 15' of water she is that good. I noticed that she has a control that has a tortoise symbol at one end and a hare symbol at the other and that was the clincher. Anything powerful enough to mulch a rabbit let alone chop up a tortoise had to be the mower for me and so the deal was done and within minutes she was being loaded in to the truck.

We were soon home and without a moments hesitation or even the slightest feelings of remorse I chucked the piece of shit Sovereign out in to the cold where I hope it gets stolen or blown up or worse.

Die you bastard! You are nothing to me!

The Porn Mower was soon assembled and later given its initial outing on a damp and very long lawn. She is an absolute delight and cut 8" damp grass with no problem and didn't spill a single gobbet of clippings.

Away from the garden the pork loin I had been curing was removed from the fridge and was washed and soaked in water for an hour before being dried and massaged with black treacle. It was then returned to the fridge where it will sit for another week. The occasional massage with further treacle and we will have a nice piece of black, back bacon.

I have also put the Welsummer eggs that VI acquired in to the incubator this evening. It will now be a long 3 weeks of waiting before we hopefully hear the cheeping of chicks.