Dad would not approve

My childhood home was on a suburban Sydney block.  Our lawns were like bowling greens and one of my chores was to weed them by hand.  Between the front fence and the road is what is called the “nature strip”, which he also maintained immaculately.  

Our local council would come along with a load of top dressing and dump it outside those houses who were maintaining the nature strip well.  Our neighbours were never “rewarded”like this so our front area was almost fluorescent green by comparison, which I found embarrassing.

We have had so much rain this summer that it’s been difficult to find a dry window to mow our acres.  I grabbed a little window today but the ground is so soggy that the mud is coming through.  Dad would have been disappointed.