I was heading up to the veg plot for a bit of therapeutic pottering between tasks this afternoon when I heard the dreaded vrrmm brrrrmmm vrr-vrr-vrr-vrrrmm of mechanised gardening going on and remembered that Wednesday was the day the landlords have the gardeners round -and by ‘gardeners’ I mean two lads with a van full of every petrol-driven toy you can think of – and that, even worse, they were concentrating their attentions on the walled garden. My idea of gardening is something done to the strains of Radio 4, broken only by the sound of a spade striking a stone, or perhaps some light swearing when I lose track of my fork. Again. And I have an irrational loathing* for the other kind of gardening, the kind that requires people to wear ear defenders, although, in fairness, that may have just been them attempting to block out Moneybox Live.
This time they weren’t leaf blowing, but they were strimming so I left them to it. I still don’t believe that it’s possible to properly garden an actual flowerbed with a strimmer, but that may be why my flowerbeds look the way they do (they are, however, impeccably wildlife friendly). I took myself out of earshot to the front garden instead and tried to find a compromise between scorched earth and wilderness. And, while I didn’t leave the garden looking anything like as groomed as the neighbours’, I did at least manage to work around the last of the late autumn blooms. You can’t do that with a strimmer.
Of course, you can’t absentmindedly leave it in your compost bucket either…
* Well, I say irrational, I think when it comes to leaf blowers it’s perfectly rational. As the waters close over our heads, or the last ambulance grinds to a halt because we have used the last drop of petrol, our descendants will turn to us and say, ‘you used to burn fossil fuel to do WHAT?’
Town Mouse 
I have an irrational loathing of Money box Live
It’s probably entirely rational actually. But I find it strangely soothing to listen to other people’s problems
ditto patio heaters
yup
I’m particularly annoyed with leaf blowers. We have a fellow just up the street ( well within earshot, believe me) who, prior to the snow finally coming down and putting a stop to him, was out there EVERY AFTERNOON painstakingly divesting his lawn of every last leaf. So annoying.
According to Gardener’s Question Time (fount of all knowledge) you should just cut the grass with the leaves still on it, gather up leaves and clippings together, and make leaf mould out of the result. Tell your neighbour the BBC says he’s doing it WRONG ..