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Having been silently nagged out of enjoyable languor by the length of the lawn, I hauled our mower onto the grass in readiness to restore some semblance of respectable order. That’s when I discovered that one side of the mower’s handle was hanging off.

Now how had that happened? It had been attached when last stowed away. I would have noticed, otherwise. Somewhere between the lazily waving grass where the mower now sat and the cupboard where it usually rested was the widget which held the handle on.

Could I find it? No, of course not! Despite spending over an hour rummaging around on my knees looking for the black plastic screw-like widget, it remained in hiding.

Using the mower with only one side of the handle fixed in place would have been hopeless, if not possibly even dangerous. And naturally there seemed to be no way of using some other cobbled-together device to hold it safely and securely together.

“Oh well,” said hubby, later that night, “it was on its last legs anyway. Let’s buy a new one.”

Perhaps you can already guess what I found when I mowed the lawn with the new machine. Yes, there it was, lounging upon a dandelion like a yob on holiday – the missing widget
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