Power to the hose.

We got a new path all around the back garden today. Ok, not exactly new, but it looked brand new! The whole of my bank holiday was spent with power-hose in hand banishing the year of city grime, aircraft deposits and general wear and tear to the history books. Yes, we now have a sparkling and colourful path once more, ready for those summer garden parties and bbqs where guests won't feel like they have to wipe their feet on the way out of our drive just to get into their cars!

Hard work! But somehow therapeutic and definitely satisfying. However, 4 or 5 hours of solid power-hosing makes your hands tingle, you bones creak and your back go into spasm.

Then there's the clearing up. So here's my question. Something that has always puzzled me. We have one of those 30m garden hoses that winds around a purpose built reel, like a big wheel that means you can extend it out effortlessly, and wind it back with the same minimal effort!.....Wrong!

The first bit is easy enough. You pull it out, attach it to the power-hose and go about your business, just tugging on the hose when you need some more slack. Make your way around the garden, all the time, moving the power-hose unit maybe 2 or 3 feet each time you have cleaned a section, now and again stepping back to admire your handy work. Every now and again, you get a little kink and water stops. Easily solved and you're on your way again.

Job Done. All finished. All clean. You pack up your power-hose first, as it's just started to rain, and you don't want the electrical extension lead to get wet. You go back to reel in the garden hose. No more than 10 feet in and the garden hose has knots in it....as if a boy scout has been following you around practicing his reef knots!

So you twist and turn, but this reinforced rubber hosing had some strength of it's own...it's not going to go back on it's reel without a fight! It resists every effort to remove kinks now and has now knotted itself up so much, you have trouble even working out where the next section disappears into the tangled mess. It's like spaghetti junction after an earthquake.

What I don't get, is that in order for it have got into this mess whilst I was pottering around the path at a snails pace, I would in reality have needed to be dancing the salsa with the power-hose, passing all and sundry over our heads and jumping through hoops holding onto the damn thing whilst a third party was playing hoopla in the opposite direction when I wasn't looking!

Took me half an hour to unravel and straighten the hundreds of kinks in this 30m snake, to slowly and neatly wind it back onto it's reel. And what I can guarantee you is that next time it comes out to play, now matter how neatly I had returned it or how smoothly it extends off the reel, come time to put it back...I'll face the same problem.

Who can explain this to me? It's got me beaten!