“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
So writes the very great Jane Austin at the start of the opening passage of Pride and Prejudice. What is possibly somewhat less universally known is that this wife is going to need to be a first rate mother, cleaner, shrink, friend and gardener. How do I know this? My cousin Barbara was married last year to a single man (thank goodness) possessing a reasonable salary, a dashing smile and a good head of hair, and, love him though she does, she says she has never worked so hard in her life around the house and she is holding down a fairly decent job in publishing to boot.
“I never expected this kind of workload” she said during one of our heart to hearts the other evening, as I poured her a large second glass of something classic and white, “I don’t mind the cooking…” she grumbled “…and we do share most of the chores, but I just can’t cope with the gardening. he seems to want to leave it to me. I didn’t have to bother before as I had no garden to speak of and now we’ve got this lawn, and all that other green stuff – “She’s bit vague when it comes to nature my cousin – “And it’s all heavy petrol lawn mowers and heavy grass trimmers and unbelievably heavy noisy hedgetrimmers and everything is just too much. What do I do? ”
It is to the credit of my good friends and colleagues, Mr Drew Hardy and Mr Dick Roberts, who have educated me in the way of such things, that I was able to smile helpfully, pour her yet another glass of Picpoul de Pinet and say, with an air of adopted authority and a reasonable helping of pride… “Go cordless my dear”.
She took my advice, after a quick glance over MowDirect’s full cordless range, and now she spends happy hours in her garden, whipping round the shrubs with a smile and a song like a suburban Snow White in hunters.
So. In honour of cousin Barbara, here are my top five reasons to go cordless.
- Cable Free Gardening. We have all been there, you are about to trim that far corner of the lawn but you find your self suddenly dragged back by a snagged
cable. When you find the snag you realise that cables are actually sentient as it has managed to tie itself into a granny know around your Bladdernut tree. If it’s not that it’s the fact that your strimmer cable is;’t quite long enough to reach the really overgrown bit next to the greenhouse or, like my friend Derek the lawyer, you can’t trim a hedge without cutting through the cable at least once and risking a very nasty shock worse. Cordless tools like the Greenworks range eliminate all this grief and allow you to go where you will and blow, trim or snip anything, anywhere with nothing to hold you back.
- Noise Free Gardening. Let’s face it, petrol gardening can be blooming noisy. As I write I can hear a neighbour’s two-stroke grass trimmer making a high-pitched whining noise even more annoying than Alan Carr’s voice. It has the uncomfortable sound of afternoons spent at the dentist, hoping beyond hope that a giant eagle
would fly in and take me away before the nasty man with the drill got to me. Cordless tools are much quieter and, when you’re in an urban garden or you have neighbours near by, that means major brownie points for next time you want to borrow their pressure washer or having a loud 21st birthday party until 3 AM.
- Fume Free Gardening. I have never been a petrol-head but I have very good friends who do actually think that the smell of gasoline and the plumes of noxious smoke that emanate from the back-ends of their machines are like nectar. I swear my old friend Motorbike Jan actually dabs petrol behind her ears before she roars off to watch some other bikes whining round a track at 200 miles per hour. The fumes from garden machines can be very annoying to the user and the gardener, and the cat for that matter, and one of the many joys of cordless tools is… no fumes at all. Charge and go, wave it around, open your nostrils and breathe nothing in but good clean air, and possibly fox poo. Ahhhh. Lovely
- Low Weight Gardening. A lot of garden hand tools are heavier than
Scandinavian crime shows or a particularly miserable episode of Eastenders with Rage Against The Machine guest starring as the house band in the Queen Vic. Modern cordless garden hand tools are generally much lighter and this makes them easier and more comfortable to us and possible to use for longer. They also frequently feature up to the minute ergonomic design , even more reason to have them in your shed.
- Powerful, Modern Gardening. Traditionally, gardeners and householders have avoided battery tools because they just were not powerful enough, took forever to charge and lost their charge when left so they had to be charged all over agin every time they were used. Not any more. Welcome to the 21st century. Contemporary lithium-Ion powered tools like the superb Redback range for example, charge quickly, run for longer and DO NOT lose their power when stored. So you can pick them up again next week and they will still have whatever power you didn’t use, ready to go.
So that’s that chaps and chappesses. Cordless power is undoubtedly here to stay and, like a take-away curry left in the fridge, just keeps getting better. If you need more help do give our lovely product team a call on 0345 4588 905. They are ever so knowledgable and friendly and happy to give impartial advice.
“Have bought strimmers and a lawnmower from Mowdirect. Great for advice and reviews. Brilliant service and prompt delivery. Wouldn’t go anywhere else” C. PROVAN
See ya! Holly.
