It’s my happiest time of the year

It’s just coming up to my happiest time of the year, although because of my advanced years, it tends perhaps, not to be as important now as it was just a few years ago. You may wonder what there is about this time of the year that makes it better than a lot of the other periods and it’s actually very simple really, revolving as it does around two basic personality traits of mine, neither of them traits of which I am necessarily very proud!

You see, for one thing, I am lazy, (what bloke isn’t!), and secondly, I dislike gardening. But to keep Jacqui happy, (she loves gardening), I have been roped in, for many years, to perform a couple of the heavier jobs around our ‘estate’, while she gets on with the more delicate operations, like planting seedlings, pruning shrubs and raking the soil. At least, I think that’s what she does; with my lack of interest in the occupation, I’ve never looked too closely at what she’s doing to be able to give an accurate description.

Anyway, I’m wandering off the subject a little here, and I’d better stop doing that or I shall be in trouble with her who must be obeyed. Based on the information I have supplied you may have been able to figure out why I am so happy at this time of the year – what is it, around the place, that is a little heavy physical-wise, that needs to be done with a soul destroying regularity, and thank goodness gives me a bit of a break at around this time of the year?

It’s the season which, to many other blokes like me, will provide a clue as to what I’m talking about. I can almost hear them, chuckling in agreement with me as we all gaze out onto the acres of lawn spread out before each of us, no longer bright green and growing so fast you almost have to start again as soon as you finish cutting it, but now taking on a subtle faunish-yellow hue, which indicates that the sun has at last done its job, and the stuff has pretty well stopped growing! Oh bliss, oh joy, no more, (for a short time at least), lugging a heavy grass catcher from one end of the lawn, to put the cuttings in the compost bin; have you noticed that – the catcher always gets filled when you’re the farthest away from the compost bin? It’s one of God’s unholy little tricks, to punish we people who just don’t enjoy gardening.

At least, though, at this time we can do one of the more enjoyable little jobs associated with cutting the grass. We can hide away in the shed, (the one little piece of territory we are allowed to call our own), get a beer out of the small fridge we keep stocked up out there, and we can potter with the mower itself, stripping it down, oiling all the parts which don’t need oiling, fitting a new spark plug and air filter; even fit new rings if we feel engineeringly capable of such work, and the great thing is, the wife actually looks on this sort of thing as part the grass cutting operation, so with any luck you might even gain a few brownie points, if you’re lucky!

Then, of course, this wonderful period comes to an end. The late autumn rain arrives, the weather stays unhelpfully warm, and the grass starts growing again, well before its time, after all, it should remain fairly dormant right through to next spring, (in a perfect world!). Out comes the bright, clean, freshly serviced mower and within half an hour it’s just as dirty and grass caked as it was a month ago. In some things, you just cannot win!

Do you have the same feelings as Brian?  What are your happiest household chores?

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