Andy Richardson: Put off gardening chores by major calamities of the past

I've been going a little bit Freddy. That's Freddy Krueger, not Freddie Mercury. Glitter pants and a plastic crown don't suit me.

Published

And I can't carry off a moustache to save my life. They make me look like the illegitimate offspring of Mark Lawrenson and Burt Reynolds. And that's not good.

My Krueger fixation began when I hired a Sherpa to get from one end of my garden to the other.

The garden had last seen a mower in 2008. It had morphed into a landscape from Jurassic Park II. Krueger-style tactics were necessary to cut a swathe through the ivy and self-seeded rowan trees.

By Andy Richardson

I took to it with gusto; waging war on the weeds like the human equivalent of Round-Up.

The pile of detritus at the foot of the garden grew so large that it blocked out the sun.

Now, we watch each day as our man-made total eclipse begins at 11.13am.