I continued my gardening duties this afternoon by dumping chemical weapons onto the patio. Loads of weeds have started growing up through the stone gaps. My gardener, Jack, AKA Chemical Ali, nuked it all a few months ago, but the weeds have returned with a vengeance.

Claire bought a carton of weed killer in town yesterday. This was my weapon of choice. I don’t have much experience of weed killer. I remember Mandy Jordache tried to poison her mad husband with it, before stabbing him and burying him under the patio (I bet the nutrients from his decomposing body caused a few weeds!).

I must have been spraying for hours – all afternoon! In reality, it was probably about 20 minutes. Shortly after returning to the front room, for a well-deserved rest, it started to rain. Mother Nature had foiled my plans to destroy her pesky “plants”. Hopefully the poison reached the roots of the weeds before the rain had chance to wash it away. If not, in the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back!”

You may have won this battle, weeds; but you haven’t won the war…

This afternoon, I thought enough was enough. It was time to accept that our front lawn could no longer look like a chavvy council estate. I had to cut the grass. Given the fact I didn’t have a lawnmower and our gardener doesn’t operate an emergency 24/7 callout service, I realised that I had to cut the grass myself. One option would be to use scissors. We only have one pair of blunt scissors and a lot of grass. I would potentially be cutting the grass slower than it would be growing back. I therefore had to make the trip to Argos to buy our very own, brand-spanking new lawnmower!

After reserving the cheapest lawnmower from the online website, I made my way to Argos. While waiting to collect the lawnmower, I noticed a familiar face… either it was Ian Holloway or Ian’s Holloway’s evil twin.

It was most likely that it was the genuine Ian, as he is known to live locally, despite managing Millwall. After a Saturday afternoon at The New Den, Millwall, Ian must enjoy returning home to Bath. It must be great for him to change from one end of the evolutionary spectrum to another.

If I was a lesser man, I would have approached him, asking for an autograph. After all, in Argos, you’re never short of pens and bits of paper (normally used for writing down your orders). I respected man’s privacy. Besides which, I have his siggy in his autobiography, after a book signing in Asda some years ago. You could say Ian and I are on first name terms. Thank you, Ollie, for , respecting my privacy and ignoring me too.

The lawnmower was brought down from the storeroom, which I assume is run by gnomes and elves. When I got home, it was time to start mowing. Unfortunately it needed assembling. This proved trickier than putting together a rotating, musical Ikea flat-packed glass coffee table. After what seemed like 50 hours later, it was built. I started mowing. It was boring. I mowed and mowed and mowed; stopping briefly to move the cable, to avoid running it over with the blades and electrocuting myself. Lots of grass, weeds and dandelions were cut and torn up into a thousand pieces. I also ran over a number of piles of cat poo. I realised I had done this by the stench. I don’t know what happened to it all, but expect millions of microscopic pieces of feline shit were thrown into the atmosphere and my lungs. If I ever catch the cat which emptied its bowels onto my front garden, I’ll have no hesitation in running it over with the lawnmover. Lots of blood and fur, but satisfying.