Spring arrived a week or two ago.  I know this for a fact because my neighbours fired up their lawn mowers on Sunday morning.  It was with a heavy heart that I approach my garage for I know one fact about lawnmowers: my lawnmower hates me.

Last year, around this time, I was training for the Simmer Dim half marathon.  The Simmer Dim, for those not as well-versed in Shetland Dialect as I (anyone who knows me can stop laughing now, alright?  I know about 3 Dialect terms and I sound a right royal prat trying to slip them into conversation) is the term for the light that you get during the evenings and night around the end of June when we’ve got near-24-hour daylight.  It’s rather strange, kinda beautiful and I look forward to posting some photos once it’s here this year.  Anyway, I digress.  In training, just done a superb 8-mile run, round about the 9-minute-mile which is just where I wanted to be.  It was a Sunday, I warmed down then went to mow the lawn.

After the traditional arm and shoulder exercise involved in starting the mower (a petrol-driven beast that seemed to start so easily when my dad demonstrated it) things went fairly smoothly until I turned a corner and something in my left knee went “ping”.  And that was it.  No running for several months.  Rowing, cycling, low-impact stuff, not a problem.  The second I started pounding pavement on came the pain.  Didn’t get to run the half-marathon, didn’t get to run the 10k at Spiggie later in the year either.  And I put the blame fair and square on the mower.

So this year I’m trying to avoid the bloody lawnmower.  But unless we get a few sheep I’m going to have to get the damn thing out of the garage again.  My wife doesn’t mind mowing, as long as I start the thing first.  And she’s promised to get a rechargeable electric mower this year – with a push-button start!  So who knows, maybe the next mower won’t hate me so much.