I'm not sure what stage of rewilding his garden had reached at that time, don't think there was a lot of moss, mainly flowers and whatnot.

My dad did the same with his, only to find his neighbour had tried (sincerely) to be helpful and mowed it while dad was out of town. My dad does not speak highly of his neighbor's intelligence.

Keeping thieves away by never cleaning the bike reminds me of the old bicycle touring strategy of hanging sweaty and unwashed clothes to dry from your handlebars when parked. Bonus theft deterrent!

Also, I technically do have an engineering degree, which is why the lights and wiring are, ahem, functional. Most of the time.

To be clear, having an engineering degree is cool – it's the very specific (but all too common) type of engineer that wants jerk off into his own mouth when he sees a Cybertruck and organically follows Elon Musk on Twitter, that is lame and has a lot of bad ideas, sometimes about "innovation" of bicycles.

Buying used makes a lot of sense, especially for commuting. The design of the bicycle was basically perfected in the late 1800s, anybody trying to tell you different is a fart boofing Tesla fanboy with an engineering degree and zero cycling experience.

(Admittedly, I ride a carbon frame road bike with electronic shifting, not because I'm a shit sniffing engineer with a hard-on for Musk, but because I'm a middle-aged man with lycra for brains).

Hah! Shows your morals! He could have meant you could build it, but your thief brain went straight to thieving, eh, thief?

/s