Ride em cowboy

Before I took over running Ivy House, I mentioned to friends and colleagues back in England the fact that we will have a ride on lawn mower. To my amazement, almost all of my male friends and colleagues said that it was their dream to have one. Strange really, as I had not given it any thought.

I decided to leave the kids in school all day today. I followed the strange system of buying canteen tickets at the Mayors office and consequently put them in a box at the school. Don't ask me why it is like that; all I can assume is that it is yet another form of bureaucracy. As we had a lot of things to do today, the extra time without the kids is a blessing.

I had planned to try the ride on lawm mower to try and spruce the place up a bit before our first guests arrive on Saturday. There seem to be a window of decent weather so I took this opportunity to fire up Tom. My kids had christened the mower Tom after a French TV programme they watch: Tracteur Tom. In French, a ride on lawn mower is called a moteur tracteur; hence tractor Tom.

There is not much call for a ride on lawn mower when you live in a city with a garden of about 30m2. I am being brainwashed little by little as I talk in meters now. I am not sure how big that is in old money, but I dare say that there would not be a big enough turning circle for Tom back in England. Compare that with the acre we have now and as you can imagine, it's game on!

After reading the basic instruction stickers, I was an immediate expert. Like most men, I didn't really take enough time to read them properly and nearly killed myself by starting it in the shed. As I was too busy trying to work out the controls, I didn't realise that I was choking on petrol fumes.

When I had recovered from my near death experience, I drove Tom as if I was lord of the manner. Lord of the manner who was churning up the driveway as he had not realised that the cutting blades were engaged.

After about 30 minutes, I had just about mastered it and was racing around like a German in a panzer during the invasion of France. Just like in the blitzkrieg, I was terrorising this french soil and I was not about to take any prisoners. Until of course I see Alice the au pair looking at me; the look of longing to have a go on Tom. Panzer Tom was not a forgiving beast and I made this point to Alice as if I knew what I was talking about. She knew that I didn't know what I was talking about but didn't want me to know it. Being a typical man, I did not know that she knew it and felt all alpha male for a few minutes. In french, I told her to go easy with her and to not let the revs die down. She looked at me and acknowledged my new found expertise of ride on lawn mowers with an OK, whatever sort of expression.

What I hadn't realised was that Alice only has short legs. To slow Tom down, it is necessary to press a pedal but as she could not fully depress it, Tom shot off like a horse bolting. She screamed as Tom raced across the terrain to recommence the blitzkrieg. As there seemed to be no apparent danger, in French I shouted "ride em cowboy". When we finally got Tom under control, she looked at me very strangely. Apparently, my French version of "ride em cowboy", was more like "ride me you cow". Probably not the best thing to say to your au pair; especially when your wife is working four hours away!