Sunday, 10.15 a.m.

Didn't sleep well: the heat has returned. Every time I woke up, the cat purred.

Took Fury for a walk by the water early. She is not an early dog; she prefers to sleep until noon, or later. And all afternoon. And all evening. Especially if it's hot. But today, she was ready to go at eight, lively and waiting by the stairs as soon as she heard the rustle of doggie-bags. The water was clear, disturbed only by the wash from a motorboat far out in the channel.

I mowed the lawn this morning; wasn't feeling good, it needed to be done before I ran away inside. "Lawn" is probably not the right word; any purist would condemn it as a field of weeds. But it is green, and lush, and looks good when trimmed down to about three inches. It's a mix of grass, plaintain, lovely clover, marsh weeds and various other growing things. Somehow my lawns are always like this, even this one, that I bought only eight weeks ago--surely I haven't destroyed it in that short amount of time??? I feel envious when I see other peoples' green, pure grass lawns. In Sacramento, I pulled the weeds and reseeded the bare spots several times a year, but still the weeds ruled.

I could use "selective" lawn weedkiller, and reseed, or dig it all up and resod it, but I don't like the poisons and I have more pressing things to spend money on. It looks fine to me for now, and the bees and bugs and butterflies are not complaining one bit.

So I mowed the lawn. I gave in a few weeks ago, and bought an electric mower. Cutting nearly a quarter acre of grass and weeds with a push mower was taking too much time and energy. Finding a decent electric mower in the USA is not as simple as it sounds. I would dearly love a flymo. A hover-mo. My memoriy of Flymos is an easy-to-use, lightweight, go-anywhere tool. (My memory could be generous, it's around twenty years since I used one). You cannot buy Flymos or any kind of hover-mowers in the USA. No-one knows what you are talking about.

In a shop that sells mowers, you'll find one push mower, one electric mower, and about fifty different gas/petrol-powered mowers, ranging from the smallest to the huge almost-a-tractor-take-your-family-for-a-ride monster. Most Americans seem to prefer the noisiest, smelliest, most-polluting mowers they can find, preferably operated by an underpaid immigrant worker who turns up with a bunch of his colleagues with a truck and trailer, and mows, trims, edges and prunes half an acre in half-an-hour.

I am sometimes tempted to hire Jose and his men to mow my lawns. If it would help someone else to earn a living, if it would fit into my weekly budget, and if it would free my time to work o more interesting garden stuff (like wrestling Nasty Vines out of trees, wheeling barrows and barrows of mulch, and stomping down all the dead undergrowth with my nice new shiny black wellies (bought at a fisherman's shop, not present in local shoe shops), then I might just do it. Maybe. One day. Because even on days like this, when it's too hot and humid to be comfortable and I feel out-of-sorts and headachy, there is still a happy feeling from the last row mown, the edges trimmed, and the scent of freshly-cut herb.