Fido's companion

Fido had become unwell;  he had been working too hard.

Fido

Over several years he had done so well that his patch had been enlarged incrementally and he had found himself working all available hours.

"Available hours" is limited;  Husqvarna require that he rest for 7 or 8 hours every day,  so they built it into his firm-ware.   They suggest that he rest for at least one day every week,  but he wasn't able to patrol his entire turf in the available hours.   So,  no rest days.

So he broke down.

The saga of his workshopisation is a sad one,  told elsewhere.   He was lucky to survive,  and he will never go back to that workshop.

Another was found,  and Martin proved to be an able and intelligent technician:  Fido survived and thrived.   But Martin did point out that Fido was not built for the amount of work he was expected to do.

Rover

A replacement?

With Fido working again it seemed harsh to sell him and buy a bigger machine.
A better solution was for Fido to enter semi-retirement and another machine be found to patrol the larger area.
The new machine is a Husqvarna 430X:  Rover.

This was also an opportunity for the LG to ease his workload,  especially as his Sea Cadet duties needed more and more time.
So the vegetable beds were levelled and seeded with grass.   Some of the overgrown shrubs were trimmed back and the slope to the river was smoothed and grassed.
He couldn't bring himself to grass over the asparagus bed,  despite its short season and the beetle.
New cable was laid,  and Rover was activated and released.
Rover's programming turned out to be far more complex than Fido's,  and the LG still isn't sure,  months later,  that he's mastered it.

Decapitated snowdrops

But Rover works,  and he works well.   He copes well with roughish ground and very well with narrow passageways.   He worked,  with reduced hours,  through the winter rain and cold,  but not,  of course,  with the snow.   He coped not so well with the bottom of the slope to the landing stage:  something will need to be rearranged there before the growing season begins again.
The expanded area included some wild flowers under bushes which were removed:  February showed that Rover had no respect for snowdrops.

And Fido?

He was asked to look after the front lawn:  the one that visitors,  students and candidates see first.
He cuts it short,  down to 2cm,  for about 10 minutes every day.
The grass has become thicker and stronger,  and some of the perennial weeds have died down.   But the better grass shows up the patches of moss.

The LG has a new quandary.

He spends no time mowing the lawns,  but the time saved is not spent in a deck chair,  admiring the grass.   He's spending it on lawn maintenance.

Boats and Mowers

Fido had become stuck on The Bank.

Again.

The Bank is steep(ish) and there is a small irregularity with which he it can't cope.   As he it continues to try he it eventually crosses the boundary wire and switches himself itself off.   He It then needs to be moved and rebooted*.

This is a minor nuisance which could be removed either by moving the boundary wire or by smoothing the small irregularity.

At about the same moment a heron chose to alight on one of the boats,  presumably to lunch on small fish.

What is the LG to do?   Rebooting Fido will disturb the heron:  not disturbing the heron won't get the grass cut.   For a real LG the answer is obvious:  do nothing.

*In the Old Days,  when the LG was a young man and learning Fortran (you won't remember Fortran:  it was a computer language when life was simple and computers had valves (you won't remember valves:  don't ask.)) computers often crashed.   They were then 'bootstrapped';  lifted by their bootstraps (a theoretically impossible task) and persuaded to calculate again.   Obviously computers don't have bootlaces;  it was a metaphor from a Bygone Age.

Computers are now 'booted up' (a startling and destructive mental image);  if they crash (another startling mental image) they are 'rebooted'.

Fido is a computer which is firm-programmed to move its structure around the garden and to trim the grass.   A robot.  With wheels.

Some robots walk.   They still don't have bootlaces.