The Night of the Lawnmower

I'm feeling a little fuzzy this morning, last night young Mr Newman turned up and we spent an evening in the yurt swapping stories and drinking homemade wine. Suffice it to say that if you meet up with Mark ask him to tell you the story about the German nightclub / rave in the early nineties. I had heard it before but I nearly wet myself, again, Helen however hadn't and I'm not sure she's recovered yet.

I told Mark about the famous Butcombe prowler. During the week one of our neighbours had interrupted one of the unwashed in the process of trying to nick their ride-on lawnmower and an email had gone round the village telling people to lock up their garages and sheds and not leave stuff out.

This evening when we had gone out to the yurt I had opened the door to be confronted by the lawnmower, now I don't normally keep the lawnmower in the yurt but I had been cutting the grass in the field with the hand mower last week as the ride-on has died and I'd left it in the yurt because I couldn't be arsed to take it back over to the garage. It was now outside the yurt by the door.

I'm afraid that by about 11:30 we were running out of steam and Helen needed to be up for work the next morning so Mark stayed in the yurt with the woodburner and we headed off for bed. As we left I said to Mark.

"Watch out that no one nicks my lawnmower during the night"

I still couldn't be arsed to take it back to the garage and to be perfectly honest the chances of anyone nicking it out of the field are slim to none.

At about 2 in the morning I was woken by ...something,  a noise out in the garden. Helen had woken up as well.

"Did you hear that? It sounded like someone shouting or swearing"

Just then the noise came again, I jumped out of bed and looked out into the garden and I could see someone out in the field near the lawnmower.

"You won't believe this, I think someone is actually trying to nick the lawnmower"

By this time Henry was barking fit to bust a rib and the chickens had all started squawking like mad. I dragged on the nearest item of clothing and ran downstairs, I went out of the front door and ran round toward the chicken run, straight into Mark who was in a similar state of undress, he appeared to be wearing a dressing gown and not much else.

"Ouch, fuck!" we had collided rather impressively and managed to bang our heads together which made me see stars.

"What the fuck is going on?" I shouted over the rising noise of chickens, dog and now Helen who had joined the party dressed in her onezie wanting to know what was going on.

"I don't know" replied Mark, "I thought I heard someone outside trying to steal the lawnmower"

"What happened?" I asked.

"Well I woke up when I heard the noise outside, it was really quiet and I couldn't be sure, so I grabbed my dressing gown and went out.", said Mark.

"Did you see anything?"

"No but I thought there was a noise from up by the gate. I went up to have a look but I couldn't see anything and then something bit me on the leg"

"Something bit you on the leg?", this is not an occurrence that usually happens in the English country side, "What was it?"

"I don't know, I didn't have any shoes on and I thought I'd been bitten by a snake."

"What did you do?"

"I screamed and jumped and then it bit me again and I came over here to see whether I could get into the house and have a look at my leg"

We went back into the house and I took a look at Mark's ankle, there was no sign of any bite, snake or otherwise. In fact, apart from the overall hairiness it looked like a perfectly normal ankle.

"Hang on" I asked "You were up by the gate at the top of the field?"

"Yes"

"And you were bitten on the calf weren't you, not the ankle"

"Yes, how did you know?"

At this point, I am having difficulty containing my mirth, "Oh God, I don't believe it"

"What? what bit me?" Mark is looking increasingly anxious not to mention slightly miffed.

"Nothing bit you at all, you walked into the electric fence"

You may remember that after the shenanigans with Henry escaping down the stream, I surrounded the garden with electric fence. It goes across in front of the gate at the top of the field, and last week I replaced the dodgy battery with a fully charged one. I can tell you from bitter experience that touching that fence makes life far too interesting, it is like being bitten by the proverbial adder.

Just to be on the safe side we did have a quick scout round but there was no sign of any of the lawnmower stealing ungodly in any part of the garden. Just to be on the safe side, I put the lawnmower in the little yurt and we repaired to bed.

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