Grass control

We have a lot of grass and weeds around the house as well as a very long drive. We have scythes which are good for cutting reasonable length grass on quite a smooth surface, but they are more difficult on a variable surface and for shorter plants. We have scythed all the way down the drive once (the drive is 300m according to the GPS which means when you do each side and the middle that is 900m...) and it was a lot of work plus we weren't really able to do in the ditch at the side.
So we thought perhaps a strimmer would be the answer. We wanted to give it a go though before we bought as they are quite expensive.

A (british) neighbor kindly lent us one... but we couldn't get it to start. We have learnt a lot about two stroke engines from the interent, but despite that we failed to get it to cooperate. In the end they couldn't get it to going either (which was kind of a relief) so in the end we hired one for half a day

There is no 'before' picture unfortunately - but the amount of growth higher up the bank shows what a jungle it was before Doug attacked it.

We have also ordered a 'tondeuse à main' or manual mower on the basis that the lawn itself isn't very big and we are more likely to do it often enough with something that isn't a hassle to get out (we had one in Camden that we liked - although it was a bit broken)