Author: Tricia Lock

I took this photo of my next door neighbours, Gladys and Jack. Jack is in his 90s and they both came out every Thursday to clap for the NHS. They are an inspirational couple and still very much in love. They encouraged others to come out and clap and waved to everyone in the street. They are lovely neighbours to have and I am lucky to live next door.

I entered the photo for the Hold Still photo project run by the Duchess of Cambridge and my photo was chosen as one of the 100 final portraits selected by a panel of judges.

They were all doing it, I could hear them!

The sound of lawn mowers, usually comes with the warmer weather, the sun high in the sky, no clouds, a fresh breeze and the continuous sound of grass being cut.  

So we were all told to stay at home, then we were told to be careful with D.I.Y.  Don’t be doing anything dangerous and causing accidents, this usually happens when people who have been cocooned all winter get let out into their gardens for some D.I.Y and grass cutting.  Well surely cutting grass would be safe, the sound of it happening in neighbouring gardens had me contemplating my own overgrown jungle.  Neighbours had a way of letting you know when it was your turn, the odd comment or do you need to borrow mine hint can sometimes do it.  We’d become very neighbourly in these last few weeks of confinement.  Clapping on a Thursday outside our doors, strange as it seemed was empowering although slightly bewildering as some never spoke a word in years to each other, but here we were clapping into the evening air for the NHS.   Clapping seemed an odd way to thank them.  So my contribution of not doing anything dangerous was suddenly thrown into chaos when my lawn mower took a mind of its own and went out of control.

It was another lovely evening and the urge to cut my grass became overpowering and I quickly set up the machine all with the safety switch to the ready, and proceeded to cut said grass!

Wo Ho! Look at me neighbours- out in garden cutting grass to desired level of acceptable proportions for suburban living – Wo ho! Off we go! Hold on! What is happening – lawn mower has decided to move faster than me – it has now taken off!!! But I am still holding the handle which is now NOT attached to the mower – oh no! This can’t be happening – flashes of ambulances, and pointed fingers are before me – how can I stop this mower from causing a disaster – luckily for me, the safety switch was on. I managed to stop the lawn mower in its track. It had headed for the only decent plant in the garden.  Quickly I looked to see if anyone saw the comedy of errors acting out in my garden.  No one around! Good. So I quickly took the electric lawn mower and put it back in the garage.  Garden looked like a teenager with a bad haircut!  A few passer-by’s nodded and looked slightly unsure of garden design, so I really needed to sort it out!

As I sipped my glass of prosecco that night, I was really glad I had managed to save the day and the garden with my trusted manual mower.  Yes it took several hours and lots of walking up and down, and accepting smirks from passers-by and blind moving window watchers, but the grass was safely cut!  

And I stayed safe also. Thank you NHS