IT took a little over a week, but I have finally finished cutting the hedge at Hextol Towers – and for the first time ever, I did not cut through the cable of the hedge cutters.

It is always a momentous occasion when I cut the hedge, for it is a mammoth task, which sees neighbours out in force to watch me tottering on top of step ladders supported on two bricks, with lethal weapons draped around my neck.

It’s a job I try to avoid every year, telling Mrs Hextol that it is cruel to cut the hedge while the birds are still nesting, but this year the birds argument fell on deaf ears.

The hot weather, interspersed with frequent diluvian downpours, has made the hedge spurt to unprecedented heights, so I was ordered to rummage in the garage to locate the arsenal of tools I have to deploy tame tackle the rampant army of leylandii, laurel, sitka spruce, rowan, sycamore, weigela, assorted roses, privet, Spanish gorse, elder, birch, ivy and other unknown species that encircle Hextol Towers like a hangman’s noose.

We started off with just a single rowan tree and a nice fence,which I only had to creosote every five years or so, but the trees seem to have appeared as though by magic.

I remember planting a couple, but I am convinced the others have been sown by mischievous birds with a wicked sense of humour.

Wispy little twigs we just stuck in the soil are now a couple of feet in circumference, and almost as wide as they are tall. Lots of different birds nest in them, and the spread of their branches conceas all manner of things.

There are toys in there which disappeared before my eldest son started school, and he’s in his mid-40s now.

As well as the hedge and the fence we also have a substantial area of fencing backed with chicken wire, in a bid to stop small visiting dogs making their escape.

All our own dogs have been hearty beasts which can only escape if gates are left open, but visiting canines are of the less substantial kind, which can Houdini their way through the narrowest of gaps.

So I acquired many yards of wire, and many packets of stables to attach it to the fence, a process which saw me fighting a losing battle with springy wire, staples which refused to go into wood but pierced my skin like hypodermic needles and a hammer which preferred thumbs to staples.

I had been battling for several hours to insert the wire between the hedge and the fence when Mrs Hextol came out to see what was taking so long.

She shook her head in wonder at the sight of my deeply scratched face and arms, my liberal decoration with pine needles and other debris and my bleeding hands and said: “Why don’t you do it like this?”

In a trice, she had put in six feet of taut, bulgeless wire, simply by attaching the wire to the outside of the fence, rather than the inside. Now why didn’t I think of that?

The wire remains largely intact, apart from the odd German Shepherd head shaped bulge where the resident dog has hurled herself at some passing pooch which had got too close to her territory.

There was a cockerpoo escape the other day, but it gave itself away by barking the tune to The Great Escape as it sniffed its way down the outside of the fence.

The hedge itself is liberally laced with the most vicious thorns in Northumberland, as rambling roses have insinuated themselves among the foliage and hang on like grim death.

Cutting them down is fine, but they have their revenge when you are clearing up afterwards, with the big thorns ripping tender flesh, and the smaller ones stealthily inserting themselves into fingers and thumbs, so that you are still winkling them out with a needle at Christmas.

At these times, the brown bin is a blessing, and it’s surprising how many leaves and other clippings you can get in there, if you are prepared to jump into the bin from the stepladder to poss it all down, and dance about like a crazed French winemaker.

Even after that, I still had to take two bulging duvet covers and six drum tight dog food bags to the tip - and already the hedge is growing again, and the cycle will have to be repeated in September.