Sarah Todd: Sweet smell of spring wafts in and makes me want to be doing

It's the smell of spring. If you could bottle it, a sniff a day would keep me going right the way through winter. It should be given out free on the NHS.

Talking to a proper gardener the other day, somebody who does it for a living, he says far fewer people than when he was a lad have the knack for knowing when the soil is ready for sowing seeds or planting flowers.

As a population we're so used to lives organised by diaries, bleeping computers and mobile phones – as well as endless "how to" guide books – that the innate feel for what's staring us in the face is becoming extinct.

For me, spring's quite an unsettling time. It seems such a shame to be stuck inside making small children eat their tea.

Also, all interest in the television soap operas that kept me going in front of the fire in winter goes out of the window. There's that feeling that you want to be outside doing something. But there's that much to do it's hard to know where to start.

Talking of the children, they're absolutely capped with a smart wooden swing – with two seats – that's appeared in the garden.

The poor deprived things have often moaned how "everybody else" has swings, climbing frames and trampolines. Every year at the Yorkshire Show we walk around the stands selling them and then hurriedly peel our offspring off the various pieces of apparatus as salesman appear, pushing the price lists under our noses.

We'd seen this smart swing as we'd been out riding and noticed the children never seemed to be on it, so we plucked up the courage and asked the mother if she'd ever sell it. After a bit of bartering, a deal was done for 20 if you-know-who would take it away.

"I wonder if they'll get sick of that trampoline?" asked our daughter, who was hurriedly told to be quiet and not push her luck.

It's interesting to wonder whether they'd have made their den if they had been bought a garden full of play equipment from day one. A peep into it the other day showed a table made out of old barrels and a piece of wood, some chairs and a makeshift hammock.

They've also rigged up a tyre swing and got a

"spying area" where they can see out and nobody can see in.

It looks quite cosy. Wonder how long it would take for their father to find me in here? To him, spring is chopping, tidying, mowers and other noisy machines. He's just not got the nose for it…

CW 22/5/10