My ride-on mower is kaput, and I can get nobody to repair it. Meanwhile, the grass had grown waist-high, far too tall for a mower anyway, and my dogs were covered in ticks. So, when I noticed the other day that my nearest neighbour, who'd had the same problem, had somehow managed to get his own jungle cut, I asked him who had worked the miracle. He directed me to a local farmer with a mower attachment on his tractor.
Now, there was a time, not so long ago, when if I happened to pass this neighbour's house while walking my four hounds and his dog, Toby by name, decided to tag along, he considered it his solemn duty to leap into his car, screech up behind me, bellow in a manner most unbecoming a gentleman, grab poor Toby, bundle him into the back seat, and speed back from whence he came.
These days he smiles, waves, and tells me it's nice to see me.
Why the change in attitude? Well, my dear reader, I put it down to my considerable charm, which nobody can resist forever. I'm so sweet I'm like Pollyanna, and Heidi rolled into one (‘Too sweet to be wholesome," my mother used to say.)
I refused to let his eccentricity affect the cheerful way I greeted him whenever we crossed paths, so that after a mere two years he saw the error of his ways and abandoned his ridiculous ritual. Nowadays he not only gives me a cheery wave but positively encourages Toby to join me by kicking his arse out the door.
Anyway, back to my long grass and the cutting thereof.
The farmer agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to tame my three-acre wilderness, explaining that he wasn't really in the grass-cutting business but sympathised with my dogs' tick problem. After three solid hours on the tractor in blistering heat, he asked for the princely sum of sixty euros. Since I happen to believe that a labourer is worthy of his hire and to make myself feel good, I insisted on giving him one hundred and twenty instead.
I'm very glad I did.
The following day he sent a friend with a baler to collect every last blade of cut grass and turn it into silage, saving me what would otherwise have been another monumental job.
Win-win.
And the moral of the story? I have no idea, but what I do know is that if I’d responded to my neighbour’s madness with some madness of my own, I’d still be picking ticks off my dogs. So there!
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