There's a lot to be said for astroturf

The new house has a sizeable garden (at least, I call it a sizeable garden; My amnerican friends probably call it a grass patch). One of the formulas I am beginning to learn is

Sunshine 4 hours a day + light sprinkling of rain = vegetation

In this case, lots of grass.

The owners left me with a hover mower to keep this grass under control. This machine was designed by a sadist. I need to explain why.

The cylinder mower I've been used to so far has been settable to coarse or fine. Coarse cut gave about an inch trim; Fine cut gave about quarter to a half. Fine cut would mean that I could leave the grass 2-3 weeks before you started to lose yourself in the jungle when you left the house. The cut was also precisely that. Provided the blades were in good shape the mower cut the grass like a pair of scissors

The Hover mower just does one cut, which I call 'flatten-grass-with-blast-of-air-and-then-shred-the-tops'. It flattens the grass because in order to hover the thing needs to ride on a cushion of air, which means that air get pushed down. It shreds the tops because the cutting mechanism is a bit like a sword; it just takes a swing at the grass and hopes it takes the head off. It's a bit like comparing execution with an axe in a force 10 gale with the operation of a guillotine (there are some things that the French have excelled in!).

Grass collection is also a bit of fun. If you don't have a grass collector then the thing just blasts grass out on all sides. If you have a grass collector then you effectively have to put a hole in the mower's 'skirt', which reduces the cushion of air. I'm sure that there has been long and careful design on this to achieve the optimal hover/collect ratio.

It's not perfect

What you get is a mower that takes a bit of a push because it's sort of floating, and which cuts grass by beating it to death, and which then gathers up 90% of the beaten grass into its collector, spits out 9% and carefully gathers the remaining 1% in a thin green layer on the inside of the machine.

So you're left with the occasional gobbet of grass on the lawn. I really mean this. Once the mower's got at it the grass looks like it's been through a cow's stomach

Twice

Which you have to pick up off the lawn because if you've run over it the blast of air has carefully plastered it to the ground. If you don't pick up it has the killer properties of high quality weed killer, and you're left with a brown patch where the gobbet has been.

I haven't yet mentioned the 1% yet. Those of you with weak dispositions look away now.

The 1% is the creme de la creme. It's been through the cow's digestive process 10 times. It's not a solid and it's not a liquid. It does have glue like properties, and its staining power has all the attributes of normal grass but magnified tenfold.

This has to be cleaned off the mower.

If you leave it then it gradually builds up until the only space left under the mower is the space for the blades to turn, which doesn't do its hovering properties any good.

So after every mow you get down and scrape off the gunk. Now, because I'm not a doctor or a surgeon and don't like exploring strange new places that squelch when you touch them I don't do a thorough job; Grass which isn't cleared out starts to go mouldy. So, what you're scraping out is several generations of grass and muold. In fact, it frightens me to think of the mould civilisations, empires and democracies that I'm destroying on a regular basis; We've probably had the unified theory of relativity and immortality sorted several times over and then 'Aaaargh, it's the big hand!'

Murderer

Anyway, enough about cleaning. You can look back now. The quality of cut is such that after a day the grass that was flattened stands up and does a raspberry at you. The grass that was beaten (I hesitate to use the word 'cut') has a somewhat shredded appearance (as you would be if someone took a blunt claymore to your neck). It's also sufficiently long to immeadiately look like it needs a cut. What is certain is that after a week all the neighbours (who own cylinder mowers) are passing by, looking at the grass and sniffing 'why can't he cut his grass occasionally'.

this is why I'm thinking of laying astroturf.

Or buying a sheep