Oh for the Perfect Lawn (and a note to Wizardess epi,)

I had a piece of advertising literature in the mail this morning. It asked me ‘Do you want a perfect lawn?’ But of course. We all do, don’t we? It’s one of the things that mark us out as paid up members of the tramline elite. Better still, the neighbours can see it, so it provides a badge of belonging just in case there should be any doubt. Knowing the majority of the populace to be pre-sold on the idea, the leaflet went on to offer the services of some company that specialises in the creation of perfect lawns. Sale made; fait accompli; everybody’s happy. Except me.

My first reaction was to wonder just who has the money for that kind of thing, and whether they might be persuaded to find something more meaningful to spend it on. I let that pass, because it isn’t my business to care how much money people have or how they should choose to spend it (as long as we’re not talking bankers’ bloody bonuses here.) Instead, I got down to thinking about the quality of my lawn.

I know it’s the sort of lawn that gives Serious Gardeners nightmares. For a start, it doesn’t do stripes or other geometric patterns.; and it has daisies and dandelions growing in profusion among the beleaguered leaves of grass. But then, being the weird sort of non-aligned creature that I am, I rather like the daisies and dandelions. I find an area of green spattered with white and yellow slightly more pleasing than a flat green space. I dislike mowing the lawn because I have to cut all those delightful white and yellow heads off. I tell them it’s only a hair cut in the hope that they won’t mind too much. That makes me feel better.

It has other things growing in it, too. The snowdrops from the embankment have had the audacity to encroach on the hallowed turf, so in January I get little white flowers growing down one side of the lawn. How terrible is that? And there’s more. Moss! I have moss growing around the edges. That has to be the final straw, doesn’t it? Well, not the birds it doesn’t. They scrape it off and use it for nesting material, which strikes me as being rather more useful and meaningful than most of the things rich people spend their money on.

I came to a conclusion. My lawn is flat, mostly green, and it grows. So do I want somebody to come and make me a perfect lawn? No, because I already have one.

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And now for something completely different. Wizardess epi: thank you for adding yourself to Followers. I’m flattered and you’re very welcome; but I have a problem. I clicked onto your blog last night. Everything was fine until I tried to navigate around it, and then my computer took it into its head to behave like a rabid dog. Explorer panels started to flash up at a rate of knots. As I raced to keep closing them down, more appeared - and more, and more... Eventually I got rid of them all, but discovered they had settled in the tray. There were eighty of them. What’s more, my computer crashed and I had to close down manually, before re-booting to see whether it was still working. Thankfully it was, but it was the reason why I didn’t get into bed until 2.45. So what was the problem? Your blog, Google, my Internet Explorer, my Windows software? Or was it just one of those little bits of odd behaviour computers are prone to now and then? I have no idea, but it does make me wary of trying again. If you or anybody else can shed any light on this, I would be most grateful.