Over Easter, we put the finishing touches to our Garden changes so we can at last use the garden again! We’d decided that we wanted to find a replacement for the paving that we’d feel happy with Abi playing on, and inevitably falling over on. We considered a few options, but the one we liked best and decided on in the end was rubber mulch.

Firstly we had to remove the paving slabs, which came up much more easily than expected, although it was still a big job as they were fairly heavy. Once we’d done that, we had to put in an edging to hold the mulch in place - for this we decided on log roll edging. We ordered the edging but then when it arrived it took us a while to get round to fitting it, but once we got round to it, it went in well - hard work as you have to hammer each one in so that it goes down to give us the depth we needed (the logs were 6 inches high and the mulch was only due to be 2 inches deep).

The mulch was delivered to side of the kerb on the Thursday before Easter, and I had to carry each of the 20kg bags all through the house to store them ready to lay it. The next stage was to lay weed block which I initially thought was going to be easy - just a case of cutting the right length strips and putting it there - but when the wind picked up, I realised that we needed quite a few weights to hold it down (good job we hadn’t got rid of the paving slabs!)

After I’d initially put down the weed block (with Abi in the sling), I enlisted some help to tape it together and prepare it to put the mulch down. Abi really loved the gaffa tape that we’d used to join the sheets as it was so shiny and was disappointed when we covered them up with mulch. Once she sat on it though, she seemed to find it interesting and fun to play with.

Unfortunately, the colour started to come off the mulch, so we’re waiting for the company to come and replace it for us - but otherwise its great!