I might have made a little mess

The moment I saw a photograph of the house that was to be our home in Sussex, I wanted to trim the hedges.

It was a neat, well proportioned little semi in a beautiful location but the unkempt, overgrown hedge running along the front boundary made it look totally unloved. I was determined to change that.

Today, the sun was shining in a glorious blue autumn sky and the hedge was calling to me.

Before we moved in, the house was cleaned, redecorated, new carpets were laid and the front hedge was trimmed in a fashion.  It was certainly tidier than it had been but this hedge needed more than tidying. It had been allowed to grow so wide that the front garden was engulfed by it. It was a solid, impenetrable wall of green but I had my trusty hedge trimmer and I was not going to be beaten by it.

I plugged in my Black and Decker and I attacked.

I have been doing a lot of cutting back and chopping down in the rear garden over the past weeks. There is much still to be done but I am definitely reclaiming a garden from the jungle. The previous occupant had a dog who was clearly fond of playing with (and hiding) balls. I have found and disposed of over fifty balls - mostly tennis balls, a few cricket balls, the odd golf ball. As my battle against the front hedge continued, I found two more tennis balls and a third more difficult to identify ball to add to my total count.

Dealing with the front hedge was no like ordinary hedge trimming. I felt more like a brave prince hacking through the dense forest shielding his Sleeping Beauty. Incidentally, I have been watching a lot of the wonderful series Once Upon a Time on Netflix. I thoroughly recommend it, if only for the gorgeous Colin O'Donoghue as Captain Hook.

In the contest between hedge and me, I was without doubt the victor but I like to think that the hedge has benefitted enormously. I've taken a lot of the weight away and it now has light and air to work its magic. I hope to see new (manageable) growth before too long. The front garden looks so much bigger and most importantly, cared for.

The only downside to my morning's activity is that I have created a small mountain of hedge trimmings to dispose of. I have piled them all onto a tarpaulin.

My husband is used to me getting carried away in the garden. This won't be the first time that he has come home from work and the first thing I say to him is, "Darling, I might have made a little mess".

Hedgetrimming for Salvation

Any #Momentum mums reading this will surely understand how easy it is to fall off the diet wagon.

I have been sticking to my menu plan for the week, preparing home cooked, nutritious healthy meals and thoroughly enjoying doing so. However, this did not stop me having a monumental wobble involving a certain chocolate bar famously made in Slough and named after the fourth planet from the Sun. I can't even bring myself to type it I am so ashamed. Curse Morrisons for having them on special offer and curse the children for not finding them in the larder before I did.

To alleviate my feelings of guilt and hopefully undo any potential weight loss sabotage I had decided to put myself through some gruelling gym activity today but as the sun was shining and the garden was desperately in need of some attention , I decided to pay my chocolate, caramel and nougat penance in the form of hedge trimming instead.

My garden has a LOT of hedges.

Sadly none of them lend themselves to anything creative and quirky in the best topiary fashion. The most exciting one is a rough sphere, the rest are... well, hedge shaped. One stretch is waist height - easy. The majority I can just reach by extending my arms as far as I can (which always makes me feel nervous when I am wielding a power tool that would rip through flesh as easy as  it annihilates  thin branches). I have a beech hedge that I can only reach the top of by standing on a step ladder and over extending (even more terrifying) and a monstrous Lleylandi that reaches virtually as high as Jack's beanstalk. I would need to have over indulged on the entire Mars factory output to feel moved to tackle that particular beast.

There is a part of me that hates destroying all the vibrant fresh new growth that is striving to restore natural chaos to my order but then it is oddly satisfying to be the master of your own little world and beating that unruly privet back into neatness and symmetry.

My hedge trimmer is not exactly girlie in design. It has a big old blade and it is HEAVY. I have to take regular breaks to stop my fingers seizing up with the exertion of holding down the slightly awkward 'on' lever and the safety lever. When I stop, I can still feel my arm muscles vibrating at the same frequency as the cutting blades. That feeling can last for a long time after the final hedge has been trimmed.

Is it worth it?

I am not sure if I have worked all my major muscle groups with the right combination of cardio vascular exercise or even used up a fraction of the empty calories that I consumed in weakness, but I do feel less guilty and the garden looks hell of lot better!