Twice in the last fortnight I had the ignominy of opening the front door to someone offering to mow the lawn... for a cost, of course. What a cheek, I thought, as our Highland wilderness reached waist height.

As some of you know, I loathe the garden. Actually that's not entirely true. I do enjoy sitting in the garden reading, sipping a coffee as the kids bounce on the trampoline, or admiring someone else's efforts, even the amazing creativity of life that any garden exhibits... but "gardening" is another thing.

A month ago our old electric hover mower had two blows. First I ran over a large stick and chipped the blade so it was vibrating like an old washing machine, and then Carolyn, when moving said large stick, a week or two later ran over the cable.

I'd been wanting to get a new mower for awhile as the hover is hopeless for us. I can imagine if you mow the lawn every week it would be perfect but as it tends to be only every month that we get around to it the hover didn't hover in the middle of the meadow. Now I had the perfect excuse.

So today as Carolyn is at work and I am home with all four kids (never conducive to getting any work done) we took a journey to Homebase and came back with a petrol wheeled mower. What a revelation! It scythed through the now foot-long grass with no problems.

Now I won't feel so guilty in leaving the grass a month! Will that be the last cut of the year? I hope so...

Now the hedges to tackle... this is why gardening and me don't go together - there is never any end in sight!

UPDATE: Half the hedges cut, and major kudos to Andrew who stayed with me for five hours helping to sweep and bag all the rubbish: 18 sacks worth! The girls, meanwhile, learnt a couple more High School Musical songs... to each their own.