I've had a troubled relationship with the infernal combustion engine ever since my first car, a tiny, second-hand FIAT 500, which I kept paying off well after it had broken down after only six months. It taught me a lesson and I never had another car until I got my first company car at the age of twenty-four, a huge 4x4 TOYOTA Landcruiser painted in safety-yellow and bearing the insignia of the Bechtel-WKE construction project on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea.
After that came a succession of other company cars in New Guinea, in Burma, Samoa, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Greece, to the point that I never had to bother about repairs, oil and grease changes, flat tyres, or even filling up with petrol - they were all part of my remuneration.
Fast forward to retirement and I found myself surrounded by a diesel engine in my tractor, a 4-stroke (whatever that means) in my ride-on mower, and several two-stroke lawnmowers which would only start after I had almost dislocated my shoulder and which are gathering dust now, thanks to the German company STIHL and its battery-powered tools.
Many months ago, I bought a battery-powered lawnmover which is a joy to use as it never fails to start, to which I recently added a battery-powered hedge-trimmer which I have already used to great effect on every hedge at "Riverbend", and I'm about to also buy the above battery-powered grass-trimmer which at $369 is an absolute STIHL.
