ARTIFICIAL GRASS, WHAT A FABULOUS IDEA!

I am rapidly coming round to liking the idea of artificial grass.  I used to wonder why it existed,  it just seemed like another 20th century invention: "We can make it, so we shall!" (like alcohol-free lager, or touch lamps, or Beadle's About).  "Only lazy, stupid people like fake grass," I surmised, and felt smug in my conclusion.

Well, I've changed my mind.

My mother is the proud owner of a very green and lush lawn.  It's not very old, it was a replacement for my father's flower and vegetable garden, the theory being it wouldn't take much work to look after a lawn.  Would it?

Most lawns are dry, brown, compacted earth affairs that you can run a mower over once a fortnight and leave to look after itself.  My mother's lawn has an agenda: it wants to be the tallest, greenest, lushest, wettest bit of grass in existence and nothing any human being tries to do about it will deter it from it's mission.  Since the earth is spongy and wet, no lawnmower known to mankind will have any effect on it whatsoever.  So we must tame it with the use of a strimmer.

Oh, the strimmer.  how I hate it so.  Strimmers should come with a label attached, explaining that only men should use them and that any lady who does so should be aware of the consequences:  your lack of upper body strength means that you will be knackered from swinging it about, and your tiny lady hands will go into spasm from holding it and trying to keep it going at the same time.  (My hands are s-still sh-shaking as I write).  The end result looks like the head of one of those kids you see whose mum has saved a bit of money by cutting their child's hair themselves.

I am quite close to borrowing a sheep to do the job for me - although I don't think it would be able to operate the strimmer properly because of it's hooves (drum roll and cymbal crash...).  Or a flamethrower.  That would sort it out.  The prospect of artificial grass is looking sweeter and sweeter.  Although, I suppose you don't get the same type of eco-system with plastic that you get with chlorophyll...