Did you start the autumn tidy up last week? Next week we will be into November, officially the Storm Month in Britain, and that’s why leaves should have fallen by then, to avoid trees being uprooted by high winds. There’s another kind of storm brewing too – people are getting deeply irritated by the drone of leaf blowers et al. In fact residents of the Hampstead Garden Suburb are so fed up with noisy gardeners that they’re thinking of initiating a football style red card system, which will single out offenders with yellow cards, followed by the dreaded red. The Act of Parliament of 1906 which set up the suburb included a law specifying that ‘noise should be avoided, even to the prohibition of Church or Chapel or Institute bells’, so it seems noisy locals will have to take this seriously. My advice is to get one of these – a rake specially designed for lifting broad sweeps of leaves and light debris – not as pristinely efficient as a machine but a great way to keep fit.
