When my little sister, with a face that was the very definition of glee, handed me a note from my dad telling me to mow the front lawn, I thought the task would be hell. My sister Alice very well knew that, and this was the source of her amusement. I'd said that since my band Idiotchild aren't playing this festival in Thetford that we were supposed to be, I'd stay at home and maybe do some work or something whilst my dad went off to East Anglia to drop some stuff off for a client. Clearly my dad knew only too well that this meant I'd lounge around all day working on my own website, so he left a note condemning me to lawnmowing duty.

Well, now I know that lawnmowing is nature's definition of a good time. The sun is out, you're surrounded by birds and insects busying themselves happily (or probably actually screaming "piss off away from the hedges, you bastard!" at me in their own inimitable little way), you're wearing a really big hat to avoid sunburn that makes you just look so cool, and you have this almighty weapon in your hands, so to speak. Not only that, but I had brought for my listening pleasure the Goldfrapp album Black Cherry. So there I was, Discman blazing into my ears, Flymo purring contentedly as it chopped ants in half, conducting an odd kind of dance in amongst the flora and fauna of our front garden. Anyone watching me would have thought I was a prat, but I, to myself, was the very essence of deep honey, the mower my strict machine, the hairy trees about to be less so (at the base at least), twisting round the garden like a train, tiptoeing round the edges to make sure there was no slippage. The grass was a crystalline green except in rare instances where the sun had burnt it almost to black, cherry blossom filled the air and it felt like I could go on forever. It felt good. It felt right.