When the nest is empty

Once upon a time we were a four car family and in order to accommodate the cars when we were all at home F and A put down some tracks of slabs so that the cars could be driven onto the front lawn without doing too much harm to the grass.

Over the years the offspring have left home and we are now a two car family so no longer need to use the extra parking spaces. We decided to take up the slabs and replace the turf.

F laboured all day, getting up slabs and stacking them neatly out of the way in the back garden.

We ruined the habitat for the local ant population!


F then had to spread some topsoil in the area so that the clods were level with the rest of the grass, cutting the turf to size and putting it in place, then bedding it down so it remained in place and could mesh into the rest of the lawn.


I got the easy job of watering the newly laid grass, a job that will need to be repeated daily while the weather is so warm and dry, if the grass is to survive.

We were left with about a third of the rolls of grass – the supplier was very generous in cutting the turves – they were almost double the stated size. What to do with them? Well, now the new grass is in place it shows up the rest of the front lawn which over the years has evolved into a mossy weedy patch! So today F is removing the worst of the remaining ‘grass’ and laying down the remainder.