The 17 cranes we see from our terrace have been still for seven weeks.

This week, they have begun to dip and swing once again.

Part mechanism, part animal, sometimes bending as though to drink from a pond, sometimes craning(!) as if to pick a leaf from a high branch, sometimes turning their backs in a huff, sometimes leaning into one another, as though deep in conversation and today, ignoring any any attempt at social distancing, kissing perhaps?

It has only occurred to me while writing this post that one of the reasons I have always been fascinated by cranes and have photographed them quite obsessively over the years, is that, as a child, my favourite toy was a yellow crane, which, somewhat oddly, I even took to bed with me. Having looked it up in a fit of nostalgia, I now present it to you:

Wish I’d kept it. But everyone says that about their Dinky toys.

I realise this all sounds rather romantic but Oh, the hideous noise that accompanies the building work. I didn’t realise the extent to which we’ve become used to quiet during lockdown and, though my husband, uncharacteristically, urges me to see the start up of building work as a vote for the future, to me it just heralds jangled nerves and a longing for Sundays.