Plastic grass was only in its infancy in 2011, having started to be used in gardens in the 1990s – there probably wasn't much laid in London between 1998 and 2008.

But now?

A study by Aviva in 2022 found that, nationally, one in 10 homeowners with outside space has replaced at least some of their garden's natural lawn with plastic grass.

That means, of the 30m gardens in the UK, 3m have been lost beneath plastic.

Where does that leave hedgehogs?

In Manchester city centre, my old mate Choel witnessed the local extinction of a community that, 20 years previously, had made me feel alive.

But everywhere we are all chipping away at life itself: housing estate by housing estate, garden by garden, paving stone by paving stone, roll of plastic grass by roll of plastic grass.

And there's more now, isn't there?

The climate crisis has finally taken centre stage, as raw and destructive as a skip full of blossoming cherry trees.

As if hedgehogs haven't enough to deal with, they're now dying of heat and thirst.