Zen and the Art of Lawn Mower Maintenance

Today didn’t really go as I expected. I have to say up front that I didn’t have a very clear plan to start with, but it still surprised me. I had a very important business call that I knew I would make and that went just as well as I had hoped. By around 10 am, I had done this and for once the delivery man turned up nice and early, so no waiting in. Next job was trying to start my rather reluctant motor mower to attack the mini Jungle I appeared to rapidly be growing.

On Saturday when we tried to start it, it coughed a bit and seemed positively asthmatic. The thing that really worried me was the battery had got hot enough to melt the insulation on the cables!! Now I don’t know much about engines but even I recognise that as a bad sign. I took the battery into a specialist store who delighted me by telling me it was fine, and charged me a princely 78p for making up a new cable.

So I travelled home with a mixture of optimism and trepidation, after all, if it wasn’t the battery then what else was wrong? I had been terrifying myself about horrendous bills from workshops whose normal clientele had 5 acres and a Bentley and wondered if I would have to buy another one… after all who wants to chuck good money after bad?

I got home and started fiddling; it sounded better but still wouldn’t ‘catch’. I went round to my very practical neighbour to ask who he used to service his tractor. He offered lots of helpful comments but apparently his never needed any servicing, so I resorted to the Yellow Pages.

I should mention that as early as 16 I realised that mucking about with engines wasn’t for me, after I stripped down my Lambretta. Even then I realised that I had no male role models in this area and was unlikely to ever be a star mechanic. Despite this, I got out my spanners and removed plugs and checked air filters. All I got for my troubles was a lot of white smoke and coughing.

My neighbour turned up and said “That sounds like it is choking.” I pretended to understand, well I kinda did actually. We fiddled some more and meanwhile the little man from Yellow Pages had called back and offered lots of useful ideas. So there I am stripping down a carburettor, up to my elbows in oil and petrol.

We had discovered that it did run without the air filter, and the Little Man said it was worth replacing it. Fast forward to me changing plug, filter and oil, and b*gger me, it starts!!! I even had a teenage son willing to cut the grass. So by 5pm I had serviced my mower, had the lawn cut, strimmed the edges and a variety of other useful tasks.

Now the more observant of my readers will have noticed this is not the diary of a business tycoon. However, the sun is shining, my anxiety is way lower and I feel that I have earned my cold beer.

Sometimes Life just takes you a different road and if you go with it there can be all sorts of surprises in store and these days I just try to say “Yes” to it all. Sometimes just letting Life take you there is a good thing…

“Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.” Wayne Dyer

Tags: no plans, zen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 17:09 and is filed under General, Values & Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.