Occasional Scribbles

I’m feeling a bit fed up today.  I’ve been away visiting family for the birthdays, staying with my sister and each time I go, The Other promises to get the mower out and cut the grass while I’m gone.  Each time I return, he hasn’t done it.  Now I know he isn’t well, we all know that!  But the grass is now looking like a field.  I hate going outside and when I go to open up the chickens, I come back with soaking wet feet as I catch all the morning dew in my shoes because the grass is too damn long.

I’ve considered my options.  I can make pointed remarks, though they usually fall on deaf ears as I stand staring out of the kitchen window, talking to myself as usual and grumbling about the state of the garden.  I talk to myself in a louder and louder tone, (knowing The Other can hear me upstairs), getting angrier and angrier when he doesn’t respond.  I am the sort of person that can get explosively cross and then.. it’s all over!  The Other doesn’t get over these outbursts as quickly as I would like him to and holds a grudge for a while which makes me feel guilty for my childish behaviour.

My outburst go like this: “Do I have to do everything around here.  Is no one going to help me at all.  How much can a person be expected to do on her own?  No answer.  “So I suppose I’m talking to myself again. In that case I may as well say exactly what I like, since no one is listening.  I hate the garden, I hate mowing, I hate cleaning,  I HATE EVERYONE IN THIS HOUSE“!

And then I feel better, get the hoover out, pull out a few weeds and go and see if The Other would like anything!  Completely bizare and rediculous I know.  But you have to let off steam every so often.  The thing about the mower, is this.  The Other, throughout his illness, has had to let go a lot of things he used to do around the place.  But the one thing he has held onto, the one thing we are not allowed to take away from him, is the mowing.  He feels he can manage it as it is a sit on thing and not too taxing but we do have to wait until he feels well enough to even do that.  Meanwhile the grass gets longer and longer.  Occasionally, he lets the Teen take over, but The Teen broke the mower not so long ago and we have only just paid the enormous bill to fix it, so I daren’t suggest that he does it, though he has offered to do so.

My other option, is to get the mower out myself but somehow I feel this is a betrayal.  It would be effectively saying, you are utterly useles, you can’t even do the mowing anymore and I fear this will have an adverse mental effect on him.  And of course, I am reluctant to take on this part of the chores, since I do everything else, I really don’t want this added nuisance and the ensuing resentment I will feel.  It takes a long time to mow.  There is a good half an acre to be mowed and it has to be done slowly because the grass is always too long for the cutter blades to cope with if you wizz round like The Teen does.

I am taking The Teen and his Teen friend, out to the golf range today.  Will the grass be long or short when I return?  Will it be half long and half short?  Will there be a patch of mown grass in the middle?  Or a mown pathway to the chicken shed, so I don’t get wet feet?

Answers on this blog please.