Cyborgs in Somerset

 

Last weekend’s Sunday Times proclaimed that Somerset Is The New Cotswolds.  Exciting for those Londoners who can’t afford to live in the Cotswolds, depressing for those Londoners who moved to Somerset to avoid the kind of Londoners you get in the Cotswolds. The article didn’t mention our village, possibly because we’re a mile and a half from Taunton’s largest council estate, where even our decorator won’t walk on his own. Written presumably by an intern with no budget but with internet access, the article focused mainly on the usual suspects, Bruton and Frome.

I’ve written about Bruton before. It’s pleasant enough, with pretty walks and a sourdough pizza restaurant, but it’s not clear what draws the media types there in such huge numbers. Frome has long had its enthusiasts, priding itself on a “we’re a bit different from everywhere else” kind of vibe. This didn’t deter the Sunday Times from proclaiming it The New Shoreditch, on the basis it has a market.

Which puts us in the situation usually experienced by Brits on a foreign holiday. We want to have the right to come here, but we don’t want anyone else to come here and spoil the thing we came here for. That’s another reason I don’t quite get the wagon train rolling down the A303 to Bruton. Surely the minute you knew that George Osborne and Stella McCartney had moved there, you’d hurriedly buy a place somewhere else? Anyway, no sightings of celebs in our village, so we can get on with smothering Farrow and Ball paint over the walls, and setting up the robot mower.

"I've checked the SatNav, Rooster; it's solid as far as the A37. It's the dang bottleneck, I'll wager."

Ah, yes, the robot mower. I know that what any self respecting Londoner is supposed to do with their voluminous country lawn is get a ride-on mower, something I was rather looking forward to. But our lawn is resolutely ungeometric, with blind alleys and narrow avenues between flower beds, and the whole thing would have felt like a weekly time trial round an M&S car park. 

The dirty dentists probably can’t be blamed for the condition of the lawn, which is in keeping with the semi-wild feel of the overall garden, with things sprouting off in all directions, some of which may even be desirable plants. The lawn sits on a bed of something like sphagnum, sprouts odd leafy things here and there, and is pockmarked and bumpy throughout. The dentists left us an eco-unfriendly petrol mower which is very old, very heavy, very loud, and surfs the bumps with disconcerting rattles, leaving you after an hour with your limbs trembling and your ears ringing. After a few goes at this, I got carried away with the feelings of largesse engendered by the general haemorrhaging of our house move budget and suggested to Helen we get a robot to do the mowing for us.

“But you said you’d find mowing the lawn restful.”

It’s true. I did say that. I tried to put into words that the reality is more like being hammered with tiny rivets, while the fillings in my teeth jangle discordantly. It was enough. My purchase was waved through.

The online reviews of robot mowers major on the extreme relaxation of sitting with a drink watching a small round thing do the mowing. The reality – comforting for anyone who worries robots will take us all over – is that the robot mower cannot function without a cable to tell it where the edge of the lawn is and another cable to help it find its way back to the charging station. I took the supplied roll of cable and the bag of cable-holding stakes and set off round the garden.

I mentioned our lawn is a bit multi zone; this made the routing of the cable somewhat tricky; even more so when the cable stakes ran out half way round the lawn. I abandoned the job and ordered another pack online.

Two days later, dreaming of the relaxing drink I was going to have watching the robot do its stuff, I restarted the cable routing. It was gruelling, but I was getting there. Two hours passed; I was about two thirds of the way round.

I ran out of stakes.

Two days later, equipped this time with two bags of stakes, I set off again. I felt smug when the cable ran out, for I had anticipated this very event and ordered a spare. I used up both bags of stakes and had just three left when I arrived back at the charging station and plugged the cables in. A warning light started flashing. I looked it up in the manual. A break in the cable. I said some things about robot mowers best not repeated. I replugged the cables. The light turned green. 

"Take me to your Flymo"

I looked at the mower sitting on its charging station like piffy on a rock bun. It had a number of buttons on its back which the manual was no help in identifying. I pressed the one that looked like a “play” button. Nothing happened. Then suddenly, the creature lurched forward. It lives! I had given it life. It hurtled towards my coffee cup. I dived to get it out of the way. The robot spun round and headed for my tool box. I leaped to gather it up. 

Obstacles cleared, I watched the mower do its thing, waiting for the bit where I felt relaxed. I naively assumed it would mow the lawn like everyone else, heading off in a line and then coming back. Instead it would head forward with a sense of purpose, then stop, spin and head off in a different direction. It made one feel rather tense rather than relaxed: where was it going to go next? Why was it doing a bit it had already done? Why didn’t it carry on another foot and finish that bit rather than turning round and leaving it? But over a period of several hours it became clear there was some method involved. It was thorough, but slow. It might need 24 hours to mow the lawn. I left it to its random strategy. As I write it is still out there somewhere, to-ing and fro-ing.

I wonder if it gets lonely out there in the dark? Maybe the robot equivalent of the Sunday Times will proclaim that Somerset is the new Metropolis, and you’ll see a traffic jam of robot mowers clogged up passing Stonehenge.