Hedging

I've got a small length of privet hedge here and ever since my brother stopped hedge cutting a few years ago it has been a pain to get it cut. It grows fast and needs several trims per summer.   There is a professional tree surgeon who lives in my road, a friendly chap, but busy with big jobs although he advertises that he will do small hedges and gardens.  I have engaged him to do it in previous years, paid the going rate, and been happy with that.  However, he never shows up unless I keep ringing him and leaving him messages to pester him to come.  It gets tiresome.  I spoke to his wife one day and explained I was giving another "gentle reminder" that my hedge needed trimming.  She said she quite understood and would tell him, adding that he never writes things down and is very forgetful.  Now that came as a shock because, having been involved in business all my life, how can you run a business if you never write things down?  My neighbour John came over this week and said he had ordered firewood but the delivery had not arrived. Funny that, John.   I had seen John walking up and down the road several times and it turned out he  was looking for the same man to "remind him" about his firewood.  John stays in when the  wood is to be delivered in order to assist with stacking it.  So I said to John I have given up with this man and knowing that he is unreliable I order my wood from a merchant up the road who delivers on the day he says, at the time he says, and puts it in my shed for me, for which I generously tip.   I rely on my woodburner for heat and I cannot be worrying about a wood delivery in winter.  John tells me he is now 90 and in fact offered to cut my grass for me when he found my brother had given up.  Now how's that for neighbourlyness!  At the time, a few weeks ago, I actually thought John was 86, as if that makes much difference but I thought I cannot have an 86 year old doing my grass for me, I would be ashamed to be  sitting indoors while he did the work.   Now I find he is in fact 90.   He told me that when his daughter reached 60 a few weeks ago he felt he must be getting old.  

So yesterday I decided that another step onward with me looking after my own back yard - garden - from now on, I ordered a hedge trimmer.  Like the lawn trimmer - strimmer - it is battery powered.  It is not a Karcher this time but a Flymo.  It had good reviews, is quite light, and will do an hours hedging on one battery charge.  That will be more than enough.  It should arrive tomorrow.   I am sorry that I am not buying these things from local suppliers but ordering through Amazon but I regret to say that these local people are not helpful enough in sales to get my custom.  It is a sad state of affairs but the staff just are not there to be  seen and the gardening equipment is just left to sell itself I suppose.  You can look around for someone to reach something off a shelf, make a recommendation, ask if you need assistance, and they just are not there.  So a quick browse on the internet and then on to Amazon and it is all done.  Videos, reviews and good offers and delivered to my door. 

I went outside yesterday in the cold, we had hail showers through the day, and did a bit of hedge trimming with some loppers to get the higher bits and will do a bit more today.  I will just have to see how I get on with it all when the new hedge trimmer arrives but I think I may still be lopping a few high bits with the loppers. 

Of course I still have the front beech hedge which I will need help with but that only requires one cut per year in August.  I will have to cross that bridge when it comes.