Oh, it's olive green

 In recent Journal entries I've mentioned that the weather has been grey and dreary for many days.  Grey it might have been, but it has also been very mild and the lawns are still growing.  They were last mowed at the beginning of the month and the bloody things need doing again!

It's always a challenge to keep them tidy at this time of the year as they never dry out properly, but if they are left to grow they will be a tangled, yellow mess when they get their first cut of 2025. I therefore planned to cut them this afternoon, once the worst of the dew had dissipated.*

This morning was taken up with chauffeuring 30% for an eye test. Normally she would drive herself, but the test involved dilation of her pupils and driving is never a good idea immediately after that. On our return I had some time to kill before lunch and my gaze fell upon my gardening hat.

It is a manky, sweaty item, but an absolute must in a garden with many overhanging branches. I'd love a pound for every time it has save me from a scraped or bumped pate. Anyway, back to this morning. My eyes fell upon my grotty gardening hat and I decided to try to do something about it. The care label said wipe clean only, but it was several years of use beyond a that treatment, so I dumped the damned thing in a bowl of hot water with a generous measure of detergent and gave it a vigorous drubbing. 

After a few minutes of washing the water looked more like the Avon in flood and I pulled out the hat to take a look. It looked much cleaner, but extremely dishevelled. It didn't look like a happy thing; almost like the clothing equivalent of a soaked sheep.  I gave it a damned good rinse and, as I type, it has been re-shaped and left to drip dry on a rack in the utility room. 

We had assumed that the hat was a dirty brown, but, as is says in today's entry title; it's actually olive green.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the garden. Leaves were raked and piled in the crates up in the orchard and the lawns at the rear of the cottage were mowed. The forecast for the next week suggests that it could be cooler, whilst still fine. 

Hopefully that'll slow the grass growth.

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* Fat chance of that!