15/08/2019Taswegian1957

RDP: Grass


The Grass is Greener

It’s peaceful in the garden.

One of the things I like most about living in Tasmania is that I can have a green lawn. I used to live in South Australia and as if the hot, dry, grass killing summers were not bad enough, our house was built on a block composed basically of limestone. After several tries, we gave up trying to grow a lawn and had bark chips, pavers and ground cover plants.

My lawn is not one of those beautiful smooth lawns like a bowling green or a golf course but it is grass. Personally, I like the daisies mixed in with the grass. They remind me of my childhood in England making daisy chains with mum.

Daisies in the lawn.

What would sportsmen do without grass? As I write this I’m watching cricket on television from Lords Cricket Ground in London. The state of the grass is a big deal in cricket. Will the wicket be bouncy, flat or two-paced? Will the outfield be fast or wet and slippery? In the tennis world, everyone talks about the grass courts at Wimbledon, another iconic British sporting arena. All codes of football are played on grass that often turns to mud in winter. It’s a lot less painful to play football on grass but I know of a team who plays on a gravel surface in Queenstown, Tasmania

The Melbourne Cricket Ground.

I think it is important that every city has green space. Those quiet places you can go to enjoy a bit of nature amongst the concrete and steel. Especially if you are not fortunate enough to have a garden of your own.

St David’s Park, Hobart
Battery Park, Hobart
Botanical Gardens, Hobart

Of course, if all else fails you could always buy some astroturf and have fake grass.

Taswegian1957

I was born in England in 1957 and lived there until our family came to Australia in 1966. I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where I met and married my husband David. We came together over a mutual love of trains. Both of us worked for the railways for many years, his job was with Australian National Railways, while I spent 12 years working for the STA, later TransAdelaide the Adelaide city transit system. After leaving that job I worked in hospitality until 2008. We moved to Tasmania in 2002 to live in the beautiful Huon Valley. In 2015 David became ill and passed away in October of that year. I currently co-write two blogs on WordPress.com with my sister Naomi. Our doll blog "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls", and "Our Other Blog" which is about everything else but with a focus on photographs and places in Tasmania. In November 2019 I began a new life in the house that Naomi and I intend to make our retirement home at Sisters Beach in Tasmania's northwest. My current housemates are Cindy, my 14-year-old Staffy-Lab X dog and Polly the world's most unsociable cat who is seven.

11 comments

  3. Grass us a very big deal in baseball and football, too. Especially baseball. The groundskeepers have special ways of cutting the grass to make it “faster” or “slower” when the ball lands on it. And they are VERY VERY VERY PICKY about who walks on their grass! When I first came up to Boston, Garry knew the groundskeeper and he let us walk out on the green. That was a really big deal!

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    • I think cricket is similar as they talk a lot about how the wicket has been prepared, the length of the grass and even what type of roller will be used on it at the innings break. Bowlers can get into trouble for running on the wicket too.

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