Hallelujah, Mr Jinx has gone to his grave

WHY I'm rejoicing about the death of my unreliable mower.

FOLKS, "spring has sprung, the grass has riz...", and this year I'm ready to tear into it like a flock of starving sheep because I won't be trying to hack it down with my unreliable mower, Mr Jinx.

Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Mr Jinx was a cursed mower.

The thing is Mr Jinx wasn't some cheap piece of junk.

He was a top-of-the-line model that made my old lawnmower look like something Fred Flintstone would dump outside a museum.

But I've never spent so much time, energy and money trying to keep a mower running.

I'm no stranger to the mysteries of the internal combustion engine; I've dabbled.

In fact, I once pulled apart my car's automatic gearbox just to see how it worked, then put it all back together again.

Granted, that car never really ran properly again, but I'm just trying to point out that I'm not totally mechanically useless.

But after eight frustrating years of constantly repairing Mr Jinx, my confidence was shattered to the point where just glancing at a spark plug spanner was enough to make me shudder. So when we decided to downsize, a big part of the reason I agreed was because I realised I'd never have to touch Mr Jinx again.

And the last time I wheeled him out of the shed he really spat the dummy, so when he was finally consigned to the compost bin of history he was not missed by me, my family or any neighbours within earshot.

Mr Jinx was replaced with a battery-powered mower, and I'm not too proud to admit that the first time I simply pressed a button and it started, I began to weep.

In fact, when nobody's at home I'll wander into the garage, start the new mower then laugh like a loon!

So as God is my witness, I will never touch another mower engine again.

In fact, I can hardly wait for our car to be replaced with a battery-powered model. But until then, I'll be happily watching the grass grow.