Lending a Strimmer

She was a friend of a friend of a friend. She was a sole parent, living in a tidy looking suburban house in a rural town. I'd been introduced to her at a gathering of friends a week before and we discovered we lived only a mile from each other, and for some reason the conversation turned to gardening. Her front lawn was manageable I remember her saying, but the back was overgrown and the tool she'd bought just wasn't up to the job. So I offered to lend her mine.

My strimmer was a year old and very versatile with regard to what it could quite thoroughly cut away from the thickest grass to nettles and brambles. Her's was, by her account, a bit weak and just about able to cut a little grass round the edges of the lawn, which as I found was barely visible thanks to the vegetation that had sprung up where nicely cut grass should have been.

So I set out on a Sunday morning carrying the strimmer a mile up a quiet road to her house. The day felt fresh, and the sunrays lent a great, steady green to the foliage swaying in the late spring breeze.

Her house, from the outside, looked immaculate. I knocked on the door, to be greeted by an array of children, and what looked like a fairly chaotic household. She made me a cup of tea first, before going on to list a load of issues she had with the waste management system of the town, giving examples of extortionate prices for collecting garden waste.

I nodded, not necessarily in agreement, but to indicate agreement and a need to get on with the job for I had a whole load of other things to do that day and I had hoped this would be a five minute job.

As it happened it was more of an hour job. But the href=http://www.blackanddecker.co.uk/gardentools/productoverview/hierarchy/2210/>strimmer was up to it. It cut away everything that she didn't want to be there. I offered afterwards to get my lawnmower for the grass, but this was an offer I didn't whole-heartedly want to her to take up - more an act of courtesy. Thankfully she said she had her own, with a trace of defensiveness as if I was implying she had no idea about garden tools.

I felt a bit embarrassed because I hadn't considered she might just have wanted to save a bit of cash by getting a second hand, and rather inadequate strimmer. She showed it to me in the garden shed. It was evidence enough that she really did need to think about getting a quality tool.

A cup of tea later and I was on my way. It's odd sometimes how for little reason at all apart from human kindness that you offer to help a half-known stranger to do some garden work. Maybe I just like drinking tea.

Sarah Maple is writing about power tools and garden tools.