Six years ago my back garden was an earthly paradise. Formal in its layout, this was offset by the riotous yet controlled planting, the progression of seasonal colour and the hillside behind that framed it. French friends would visit and declare "C'est magnifique" and wonder why we didn't dine outside every evening.
The first day of Spring, 2010 and the back garden is a Toys 'R' Us plastic wasteland, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought it a likely spot to dump a three piece suite. It's not that the youngest ones are bad - they help with the watering in the summer, they have their own garden patches and try their hardest not to step on the beds. It's just that they are children, and inventors to boot. Thus no bit of broken plastic, discarded wood or holed bucket is beyond recycling into something. Something large. The pleasure is all in the construction - it takes up 90% on the available playtime with only 10% then being spent on scenario planning which leads to the inevitable argument.
So on the first official day of Spring in Scotland, with snow on the ground, a rocket ship was duly built after school and the end to the game only came when it was dark and the see-saw became the escape pod (for one of them), thus destroying the exquisitely balanced engine assembly.
And I look out to where once bulbs would be pushing through and think... it's only for a few more years.
In other child-related news, it was the Classroom 2 school trip yesterday to the Glasgow Science Centre. Children had to parade early for a 9am departure, and whilst other parents were fussing around their offspring, ensuring they had the safest seat on the minibus or the right seat in the car to minimise sickness, I was beautifully blase in waving mine off without a care in the world. Seasoned travellers, having survived bi-annual visits to Essex (11 hours sometimes) and crossed the Channel for a tour of France in the car, I smugly had no worries.
Upon their return, only one child had done the full industrial Exorcist job in the back of the minibus, covering himself, the minibus, the plywood construction model of a submarine purchased at the Science Centre ("We're allowed to take money for the shop") and, quite possibly, other children with sick.
One of mine.
I made him get undressed on the doorstep.
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