Mowtown Junk

I sit here in my office (by ‘office’, I mean there’s a cheap table from Ikea and a dining-chair doubling up as a work-chair) overlooking the bins that have still yet to be collected by Southampton’s embittered bin-men. To be fair, you’d never know that they hadn’t been collected, as the lids on our bins are still closing, unlike the vast majority of those gleefully spilling over into paths, roads, patches of grass and other highlights of the urban landscape around the rest of the city. 1-0 Sam.

Clearly there’s something we’re getting wrong here. Why are we not making enough rubbish? What are we not buying that we should be buying? Or are we just really good at the whole squidging-it-down-to-get-it-as-flat-as-possible game? I’m not sure but there’s something slightly satisfying (only ‘slightly’ – I’m not that easily pleased) at knowing that the strike is having precious little impact on my life. It’s almost like I’m single-handedly (joint-handedly, if you include my wife) sabotaging the union’s months of hard work. In fact, given that I too face the choice of striking on Thursday along with thousands of other teachers, there’s a lot of scope here for me to scupper the grand plans for political revolution. Well, you’ve got to have aims in life.

Talking of aims…mowing. I have a new aim in life – to never mow a lawn again. Unfortunately, if I decide to update this blog around about this time next week I am pretty likely to be confessing that I have lacked the conviction needed to say no to short grass and will rather be recounting a glorious summer’s afternoon spent trimming the same green patch of delightfulness that so enraptured me this Sunday. We could have gone to the beach – my wife even suggested it, so it was a genuine possibility – or we could have drank cocktails in the back garden while watching the cat chase flies and narrowly avoid skidding into the pond. This world provides us with so many things we could do, so many things that appeal to us, that get our hearts racing and our minds active. I could have even written a blog entry or got back on with that novel I mention from time to time on here. But, no. Grass had to grow, didn’t it? It just had to keep growing – independent, spiteful little thing that it is – and I had to take out my frustration at another Vettel victory in the Formula One (represented here by the fricative alliteration, in case you hadn’t noticed…) by strimming, mowing, strimming, mowing, strimming, mowing (sometimes not even in that order) until the lawn finally resembled the flatness and levelness (real word?) of our bin lids.

Mowing reminds us that much of life is very repetitive, there are things that we simply cannot control and that we just have to accept, however irritating they are. (Note: this is where the blog is veering dangerously towards an insightful point. Feel free to leave now if you only popped by for the ‘humour’ and alliteration.)

It’s the same with cleaning, eating, tidying, drinking, filling bins, dusting, stroking cats, and many other life activities that just keep going round in unbreakable cycles. I mean, we can put a lot of effort into making a lasagne for lunch but we’re just going to have to eat again a few hours later. All that hard work and yet it hasn’t really solved anything. In fact, what it’s probably done is also add to the cleaning that needs to be done and contributed to the ever-growing pile filling up the bin.

So, what’s the plan? We tried to conquer rain (see a few blogs ago, if that means nothing to you) and that doesn’t seem to have worked, even if the weather has been a little better recently, so I’m not sure we’re going to have much luck tackling hunger, thirst and an in-built desire for cleanliness and order.

Anyway, I’m off to do the washing up, tidy the kitchen, sort the paperwork and make sure the cat gets fed…