One Man Went To Mow

So the trouble with having a lawn is that eventually you’re going to have to actually cut the damn thing, otherwise it’s not a lawn, it’s a meadow.

Well, not a meadow exactly. That’s conjures up images of a bucolic idyll: sepia-tinted sunlit uplands, grasses gently undulating and susurrating in the alpine breeze, subtly but richly coloured wildflowers hosting softly floating populations of butterflies. Maybe a lonely shepherd lies back on a checked rug knitted for him by his beloved mother, a blade of grass tenderly gripped between his full and succulent lips. Eyes closed, he listens lazily yet attentively to the bees buzzing, the distant sounds of his flock grazing, and further off still the muted ringing of cowbells echoing up from the lower foothills.

He hears footsteps approaching and opens his eyes – deep dark eyes. Eyes the colour of burnished sapphire that all the village girls have drowned in a thousand times and would gladly do so a thousand times again, for all that he spurns their halting advances. All except one, for the figure approaching is the blacksmith’s daughter. Her step is nervous and hesitant, yet the flush colouring her freckled cheeks betrays an unspoken yearning. The pace of her tread increases as she nears him; the merest zephyr lifting her strawberry blond tresses to dance in the sunlight. She walks barefoot, the grass brushing her ankles and calves, hints of more as the lowering sun pours its rays through the folds of her faded gingham skirt.

He props himself up on his elbow to better observe her advance. She stops. She’d hoped to approach him unawares with the parcel she carries in hands trembling almost imperceptibly, though in the confused mists of her heart they sway as wildly as the tops of the tallest pines in the most terrible of the storms that howl up the valley every winter. She looks down, at the package, past it to her naked feet, all the while feeling his gaze on her face. Wanting him to stop and turn away and spare her this, wanting him with every fibre of her being not to stop, not to turn. Not now nor ever.

She looks up, clear hazelnut eyes locking with the boy’s abyssal blue. Her lips part infinitesimally as his do the same, and they both know that all is lost, here, now, and forever, as an eagle circles high above giving voice to the urges from the very centre of its soul. Far below the grasses sway and part and close again and only the birds shall ken.

That’s not my lawn. As of late it’s looked more like a 1960’s porn star’s pubes. While I didn’t want to get rid of it all, of course, it could sure as hell have used a good trim and a bit of pruning. Tidying up a bit, like, and for that we needed a lawnmower.

Unless you live way out in the sticks, Japanese gardens tend towards the small and functional. And if you do live out in the sticks then people tend not to have gardens so much as paddy-fields, which would certainly add an unexpectedly Club 18-30 feel to any trysts between village girls and farmhands. I’d love to have a traditional Japanese garden, all bonsai trees and gravel paths and languidly dripping water features, but those things cost a fortune, are complete bastards to maintain, and are even rarer here than traditional English cottage gardens are back home. Also far less compatible with small children.

The gardens of most Japanese houses consist largely of grit. A few square metres of grit, with some stones and sand and, if you’re lucky, mud. Much like the school playing fields really, only far, far smaller. Easier and cheaper to maintain, sure, but just so grimly utilitarian. I know I’ve previously bemoaned the Japanese obsession with form over function, but counterexamples keep popping up in the most unexpected places. Almost as though they’re real people like back home, with all the inherent inconsistencies that entails, eh?

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about Zen rock gardens. I really do mean patches of dirt. Lawns just aren’t that popular. Fair enough, I guess. I’ve seen enough newbies complain that Japan is expensive based on the price of meat and bread. Obviously it is expensive, but if you’re going to insist on eating exactly the same stuff as at home then you’re going to get that double. If you want to eat economically you’re going to have to learn to like rice, and if you aspire to a garden containing more than the colour brown then it’s probably better to draw inspiration from the local environment instead of sticking rigidly to your cultural preconceptions of what a garden ‘should’ look like. Introducing alien organisms to indigenous environments rarely works out well.

Still, they do have grass and lawns here, there just nowhere near as big a deal as back home. Your options for lawn care are similarly limited. The range of lawnmowers it’s possible to purchase back home is just vast. Look here, 33 models available from one company alone. Hell, it’s even possible to get children’s toys modelled on lawnmowers, so Junior can get practice in and be ready as soon as possible to start actually earning his summer pocket-money –

The choice of mowers available in Japan is smaller, as are the mowers themselves. We finally bought one of the damn things the other week and this is what we ended up with –

Yep. I can’t help but feel that this rather undermines the whole ‘I am man, hear me roar’ thing. Still, could have been worse. I could have bought the Doraemon gardening gloves as well.

Credit where it’s due.