THE SOUND of SPRINGTIME..

A couple of nice, warm sunny days and you sit down and relax after months of seemingly endless cold and gloom.   You begin to breathe in the fresher air, the birds are squawking in the trees, green shoots are appearing and you think life is OK after all.

And then it starts.   Some bloke over the road always starts it off, gets his mower out and shatters the calm.   And as he has now mown his grass, next door thinks they should do the same, so off they go.   And then next door to them.   And it spreads over the road and before long you yourself get caught up in what rapidly descends into choreographed formation mowing.   The only difference being the varying intensity of the decibels produced by the assortment of mowers brought coughing and wheezing from overwintering  in their sheds.

Well, I`ve done mine this morning and joined in the ritual dance and the older I get the more my mind wanders almost wistfully towards green coloured concrete or even Astroturf.