The weather is turning and like animals coming out from hibernation I’ve noticed my neighbours out in their gardens, starting to do the jobs they’ve been putting off and I am amongst them!

This year it looks like far more of the gardening will be falling on my shoulders so I have been eager to find a few things to make my life easier.

I’ve started with planting some easy care and hardy plants, a few heathers. some elephant ear, bulbs that will come back year after year for some splashes of colour. I’ve even nabbed a few plants from my mother in-laws impeccable garden, but that’s just the start of it.

I’ve added some amazing Solar Powered Fairy Lights to our greengage tree. They look amazing and now they are up I don’t have to do anything with them. I love that they have made more of a feature of my tree, it’s really pretty and rather whimsical. Even better I love how easy they are and that they require no care at all.

I’ve used the Elan fairy lights from The Solar Centre in warm white. I like the fact I could choose the colour light and that they came with 100 lights to the 10m string, a lot more than many others I have seen. They run off rechargeable AA batteries, so if you don’t get enough sun you can charge the batteries yourself.

They turn on and off automatically as it gets dark but there is a switch you can use as well if you don’t want them on for any reason, you can also switch them between flashing bulbs or a constant light. Personally I’m not a fan of the flashing, I pictured twinkling but in reality it is a flashing. On, off, on, off, on, off. These are fantastic value at £14.99 and I’m very tempted to get some more.

The biggest change for me has been from the amazing folk at GTech. We have got their Cordless Lawnmower and for me it has been a game changer.

Our garden isn’t massive but it’s far from small, we have a front and back lawn, separated by a gravel driveway. The back lawn is split into several parts, with patio areas, paths and walls. It is awkward, to say the least and lets not go into the garden toys everywhere!

A corded lawnmower isn’t an option for us and never has been. The awkwardness of trailing cables and extension leads, needing to go in and out of the house to change over sockets and trail cables through windows. It just never worked. We also definitely need a mower with metal blades, the lawn is a bit bumpy, L has a nasty habit of using his dump trucks to move gravel about so there are stones everywhere. We need something heavy duty.

These needs have led us down the path of a petrol mower. Which I have literally never used. It was way too heavy, I could never get it started, it needed servicing and care I never quite understood. That was all fine whilst husb had the time to deal with it. He likes cutting the lawn. But now he’s working so many more hours, if I have to wait for him we’ll be living in a jungle.

So in come the GTech Cordless Lawnmower. Cordless, tick. Light, yep, I built it up in our sitting room one evening and carried it out to our shed. Big and bulky, yes, but heavy, not at all. The battery life is really good. I did the entire garden, front and back, on half a battery.

I love that the handle folds down over the main body of the mower, so it stores away quite nicely and I like the large grass collection bucket. I had to empty it a couple of times but it clips in and out easily and there is a flap on the top of it that pops up so you know when it’s full. The metal blades ping through the various sticks and bits of gravel L has left strewn across the lawn.

On the whole I found it incredibly easy to use. My only minor niggle is that it doesn’t take much for it to turn off, a slight move on the safety bar as you are turning a corner or something and it’ll cut out. It’s not a bg thing, but it is a bit annoying.

I’ve been happily cutting the lawn with and it was just so much quicker and easier than our previous mower.

Obviously I got husb to try it out as well, he is the only one who can make a real comparison afterall.

I think he has actually fallen in love with it a little bit. He also found it was a bit trigger happy when it came to cutting out and would have liked to have seen a slightly lower setting, than the lowest provided but otherwise he was very impressed.

It is very solid, so much lighter, means he no longer has to store a can of fuel in the shed to top up the tank, which always made him a little uneasy. It’s quieter than the old mower and cleaner too. It doesn’t spray out any little clippings, he noticed his trouser and shoes weren’t as covered as they used to be.

I cannot believe we didn’t do something like this sooner. It would have made everyone’s lives so much easier. I am incredibly impressed with it. The GTech cordless mower is just superb. Not that I am surprised based on my past experience with the brand. In fact there’s not much I don’t own now and each thing has made our lives that bit easier.

I’ve got a few things left on my gardening to do list. A few more plants to get in and my little water feature needs a good old clean out after the winter. But at least I now have a trim lawn that I can easily take care of myself and some lovely lights up that look great every evening regardless of the weather.

Disclosure – I was sent my products in return for an honest review.