Lawn mower down

Our lawnmower is broken. Or at least, it's stopped working.

We were bought this mower as a moving in gift from Emma's parents, which was very nice of them - and as mowers go it's always been fine. Electric powered, rotary blade, roller on the back, no worries. The only real issue, and it's not a huge deal, is that it's fairly bulky - meaning when it comes to do the small patch of grass fondly referred to as the front garden it gets a bit tricky to manavoure and isn't really practical. None the less, it does a sterling job out back and the roller allows me to create Wembley style stripes up and down the pitch. I mean garden.

Now, storage of said mower was an issue. Money is often tight and some things fall by the wayside - and some form of shed or storage unit for the garden is one of them. Therefore, the mower is stored in a nice cosy corner of the garden and wrapped in plastic. This is far from ideal, I realise that, but plastic is in fact water proof and you can't tell me it's going to be warmer and happier in the shed. Well you could say that, but I'd mostly ignore you. It had concerned me throughout the winter, as I gazed at it longingly from the warmth and dry of our kitchen with a nice hot cup of tea in my hand and regretted it's weather induring misfortune - although feeling powerless to commit money to it. I'd like to think that it breaking in a smells all smokey, oh God the power is draining, what's that noise, ah shit, kind of way - was in no way related to it being stored outside for..... 2 years? I'd also like to think that no-one would hold me accountable for it's immediate failure to operate, although a giant foam finger is likely soon to be pointed at me for not caring enough about someone's gift to protect it appropraitely. And to be honest, that's valid.

There are two issues as I see it. (1) The grass is not mowed, and being spring it's going batshit crazy out there. Weather permitting I hope to get some garden work in this weekend because, damn, it's looking like it's going to go amazon any second. (2) I'd like a flymo, I really would. A small one. It's nippy, floats on a blanket of air, and it's highly mavauverable. But effectively replacing a gift... that's dangerous teritory.

So, tempoary solution is in place. Borrow the sister-in-laws flymo. Get the grass down this evening. Attempt to fix the old failing mower this weekend by gleefully tearing it to pieces to "see" if I can find anything wrong with it (perhaps it needs greasing up or something). If all else fails I'll be forced to buy a new one, simple as that. And I think I'm willing to commit some money towards some kind of garden storage unit to save this happening again. I don't want to spend the money but lesson learnt it needs doing!

Honestly, if it's not one thing it's another!