Self Propelled Mean Machine

My new lawn mower has lived up to all my expectations. It's shiny, deep cherry red paintwork with black handles, a grass collection basket to die for, a go-faster handle (with a tortoise pace setting if you are tired), round black plastic wheels, one on each corner, oh and it cuts the grass.

There was one shock however. It is self propelled. Now when I saw this on the box I though self propelled meant that I had to propel it myself - 'self (me) propel.' When I assembled it, there were two safety grips on the handle. One is the engine brake (let go of it and the engine cuts out - safety - see?) I had no clue what the other was. 

So I filled it up with oil - bought separately, it doesn't come with any hence a trip back to the shop, grrrrr and filled it up with unleaded fuel, it started first time and it sounded quite smooth and a lot quieter than my old machine. 

'I wonder what this other handle does?' so I engaged it and off the lawn mower went, on its own hurtling off down the garden with me hanging on behind it for dear life. 'Self propelled' means it propels itself. Ahhhhh (light comes on.) However if you want to expend some energy and push it yourself, you can with relative ease.

Now of course it would have been so much clearer if I had read the instruction book, but as the first part was in Italian and as my Italian goes so far as 'Molto Bene pop' (Michael Caine in The Italian Job,) I got fed up and thought I could handle it without reading reams of instructions: how to cut grass, safety guidelines (I've never lost a foot yet) and technical specifications including decibel readings. Perhaps that's a man thing, but it does work like a dream and I didn't run over the cats. 

What more could a man want?

A weekend that's what and the domestic routine continues with shopping, gardening, going to the tip and chilling with a new book for the book club on my Kindle, The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.