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.

Shallots

 

"Plant on the shortest day, 
to harvest on the longest day"  from here

Since the last of the beans,  the bed had been mulched with a thick layer of weeds and grass clippings.

This was in lieu of a compost heap which had always seemed like a waste of effort.

The grass clippings had sunk down into a compact sodden layer.   The gardening experts tell us that a too-thick layer of grass mulch becomes an anaerobic stinking mess,  but this mulch had not yet begun to smell.

 

The matted layer lifted easily from the soil underneath.   The soil looked crumbly and worm-worked:  there was evidence of moles.   Some of the mulch would have been turned into worm casts which would have been spread across the interface of soil and mulch and taken deep into the ground.

 

The surface needed no preparation;  digging would have ruined it.

Forty shallot cloves from last years crop had been kept in a cool loft,  but about 50% had rotted:  perhaps they had not been dried thoroughly.   Twenty of the biggest bulbs were taken from the kitchen to replace them.

They were spaced along a marking board at regular intervals,  and each one covered with a clay pot to keep off the birds.

Fen Ditton

Boule is a very gentle game.
Or it might be pétanque.
References are vague on the differences between the two.

At the Plough and Fleece, in Horningsea, they play pétanque in a gravel rectangle bordered by old railway sleepers. They (they all seem to be very serious men) take the game very seriously. Do their lives (or their pockets) depend on the outcome?
In Fen Ditton it’s all very different. For one thing they are all very much older. They also seem to be so much happier. They play on grass, where the roll of the boule is unpredictable.

Perhaps the fundamental difference is grass and gravel.
In the gravel pit, accuracy of throwing is everything. The boule do not roll, even an inch (Sorry. Centimetre). Where you throw it is where it lands, and where it scores (or not). The result is greeted with dead silence; whether approval or scorn is impossible to tell.
The silent, serious men drink beer, from pint glasses. Beer: that ghastly brew, the sole purpose of which was to disinfect tainted water.

On grass you may be dead accurate as the boule leaves your hand, but then the grass and the ground take control. Players squeal with delight, or howl with anguish as the boule meanders around the imperceptible bumps and hollows.
The excitable pensioners eat fish and chips (the A10 chip van stops nearby, by special appointment to MargaretW) and mostly drink wine, from plastic glasses. Wine: that heavenly nectar, the sole purpose of which was to disinfect tainted water.

Then there are the jokes.
Just how many variations of a risqué joke can twelve retired people make on the word ‘boule’? And every one is so very, very funny.