The garden is cleared and the crane arises

 We enjoyed the company of son Ben and his partner Kaz over the weekend. They are always a pleasure, entertaining and enlivening our day. Ben and I retired relatively early, leaving the two women to talk, a rare welcome chance for Ann to share her mind and worries with a female companion. Besides bringing good company, Ben was especially useful, mowing the front and back lawns for us. These lawns are a great challenge, as we have had a succession of gardeners who promise to come every fortnight, mow them once, then leave in despair, never to return. The problem is their erratic nature (the lawns, not the gardeners). We have a random array of trees and bushes on the back lawn, and multiple fruit trees on the front that have overgrown till their branches are meshing together. Even worse, as a result of neglect, the grass had grown excessively long and was hard to plough through, but Ben tackled it gallantly and brought it back into submission. 

My crane grows legs

Matthew has now moved north with Rosie and baby Arwen to live with his mother. Once complication is that they have a cat, a large tom called Beamax but their mother also has a cat, already minus one ear from fighting. Thus far they have not dared let their cat out of the bedroom, so it will be interesting to hear how they mix when finally they meet whisker to whisker in a dark hallway. 

I have returned to creating my crane to the point of fixing it with legs manufactured from the arms of an old television aerial. It is now about ready for painting. Not yet sure how I will mount the bird, but hopefully inspiration will strike when the need arises.