Hedge trimmer hiatus

I suffered a painful right hand over most of the summer, not that it stopped me winding thousands of paddles. I think the condition had been exacerbated by my using hand shears to cut the large leylandii hedge in our back garden, so today I decided to treat myself to a petrol hedge trimmer. After reading various reviews I settled on the Titan TTL 531 HDC from Screwfix (£89.99).

image from Screwfix

Initially all went well. I read the instructions, mixed up the two-stroke fuel, put it in and started the machine. It ran for ten minutes and cut the hedge well.

Then it stopped. I oiled the blades and spent the next 20 minutes trying to restart it; eventually it fired up and I was able to do another 20 minutes of hedge trimming. And then it stopped again. This time I gave up after five minutes as it was getting dark.

Tomorrow I'll check the spark plug. If it seems OK but the trimmer still won't run properly I might have to phone the helpline before returning it to Screwfix.