1. You persuade your visitors to tramp three miles to Knole. Halfway there, you realise you have no idea whether the house is open yet for the season.

You pass a pub. It's closed. You hope your visitors will be terribly good sports about the six-mile round trip without even a packet of pork scratchings to keep them going.

2. Gardens all around the neighbourhood explode with sound as everyone fires up their lawnmowers and beats you to the punch. Again. Anyone would think you didn't HAVE a lawn.

3. Walking a woodland footpath, you conscientiously plot the places where evil Spanish bluebells have taken hold, but you can't remember who you were supposed to alert.

You wonder how long it will be before you'll have to report sightings of those nasty black squirrels who're taking over from the grey ones.

You wonder if you're a tiny bit sad, as your children constantly imply.

4. The supermarkets pack the seasonal shelves with kneeling mats and grass seed, and you find yourself hankering strangely for gardening gloves. You already have five pairs at home. Somewhere.

5. You're startled by the appearance of your fellow commuters. It's the first time for months you've seen them in daylight. They're the colour of pancake batter. Thank goodness you don't look like that!

6. You keep finding wasps in the bathroom. You're incredulous; in your day, wasps never dared to appear before July. You blame global warming, next door's compost heap, and the council.

7. You weed and prune like a dervish, then remember that you ran out of deluxe council garden-waste bags last October.

Furtively, you examine the instructions on the side of the white recycling bag to see if it specifically excludes buddleia clippings.

8. You see geese getting into military formation above the wildlife reserve, and have no clue whether they're leaving or arriving.

You realise, gloomily, that you would never survive if civilisation ended and you had to spear your own bison.

9. Yet again, you are hot with jealousy over next door's fabulous, early-flowering, prawn-pink rhododendron, and vow that this year you'll track one down for your own garden. You won't.

10. Cones erupt from roads like giant acne, and everywhere you drive you hear the cheery sound of pneumatic drills.

You've forgotten to remember to wait when the temporary traffic lights turn to green, on account of there always being some twit at the other end who jumps the red light and thinks it'll be OK if they just put their foot down and slip through quick.

11. You and your spouse argue over whether to bring out the garden furniture. You bring out the garden furniture. Next day, there is three feet of snow.

12. Teenagers appear on the High Street in flip-flops and surfer shirts.

It is still 13°C.You predict they'll die of cold and congratulate yourself for remembering your cardi. The teenagers seem to survive. You get flu.