Several little clumps of snowdrops have magically appeared along the edge of our fence in the back garden. Very pretty.

Unlike the current state of our lawn.

On Tuesday, Sophie used some of her saved-up pocket money to buy a swingball set. The swingball has proved strangely addictive to all three children; there have been noisy (and sometimes bloody) dawn-to-dusk swingball tournaments on the go for the past three days.

Sadly, these have proved fatal for the grass. Wherever the swingball set has been planted (and the kids have been moving it around the garden in an attempt to reduce the damage) the grass has been replaced by a muddy mess. It looks like a herd of wildebeest have been tapdancing in our back yard.

And the multiple pockmarks where their stilts (Christmas presents from my dad) have sunk into the ground (after much practice, the kids are getting quite good on them now) add a further special touch to the overall blasted-heath effect.

I wonder if the grass will ever regenerate?