Thats what I call progress

 Helped by my friendly wolf dog Rio

 massive progress day on the old shed new aviary

 and after careful use of power tools, sharp objects and many a cuppa

 it was soon (ahem) finished and ready for inspection.

 That only left the task of moving the ungrateful birds from their cage to their new dez rez which given the sharpness and power of their beaks, used for breaking open nuts, was quite a task fraught with peril. Imagine dealing with the facehugger from the film Alien, only more aggressive, thats them. Problem was solved by giving them something to bite other than my fingers, then scooping them up in a fishing net, stuffing the net in a box and quickly transferring them to their waiting lair.

As I had not lost any fingers I put them to good use being a nerd making model tanks for R and R.

That moment when...

I parked it somewhere....

Getting sorted

 Things are getting "sorted" at Rock HQ, by that I mean being in less of a state of chaos than normal. Target for the day is the children's play area which they steadfastly refuse to stay in which is why it contains nothing other than neglected toys and a massive budlea badly spelt bush.

 The reason for the clear out is not a fresh attempt to contain the children but a need to rehouse some parrot type things that are going to go into soon to be aviary. That mass of green by the way is next years project, a pond. There is one there somewhere.

 The new aviary is currently a shed, invisible from view from the house so now you see why the chopping back of the badly spelt bush has taken place first.

 Apart for that the day followed its usual course with a trip up the bonsai mountain

 to enjoy the view

 with a collection of K9s.

And as we have no TV, lots of time to engage in being a nerd.

Busy up top

 Its a regular occurrence, the trip to the summit of the bonsai mountain, unusual in that Rio was with me

 and we found this large family group of wild ponies grazing on the summit. They didn't stay

 for the view once we arrived

 and Rio was happy to plod around

 the summit cairn.

As we have no TV I fulfilled my need to be a nerd in the evening by making this tiny Opel Truck.

Welcome back!

 MBAOSPW and Supergrandma have been on holiday so to welcome them home we all met at the boys favourite Pizza Hut. Other pizza sellers are available.

My reward for not breaking anything while she was away :)

Initiation

 Tristan climbed the biggest mountain in south Wales before he was 4, so his little brother has to do the same. Obviously.

 So on a very warm afternoon the three of us set off to the summit of Pen Y Fan,

 Full of enthusiasm, mostly.

 Quite full of sugar.

 Which the boys shared nicely, big bro looking after little bro.

 At the saddle leading to Corn Du they added to the cairn.

 An hours and 45 minutes they had reached the top

 and were rewarded by spectacular views

 that feeling of achievement

 and lots of hugs

 for the little mountain goats.

 Getting down was a bit quicker but involved more sit downs.

 Thankfully the hot dog van was still open where they had two of the finest and ice creams.

 Eric and Ernie made the trip as well.

 RRMK2 was not tired after his initiation!

The Apprentice beaming with pride.

More marmot madness

 Having not found Marv I now knew exactly where he was and much to Rocky's chagrin I set off to find him without a K9 companion.

 Taking a shortcut this time of year meant crossing huge stretches of 6 foot high braken

 but eventually I was free of the Jungle and on the summit

 the left of which was a

 cairn and under a rock would be ...

 a pile of nut shells! Someone has nicked Marv!

 Eric and Ernie enjoyed the trip

 and we found a quicker way back

to find all four tyres were up, so its a win.

Where's Marv?

 Convinved I knew where Marv the Marmot was hiding yours truly coerced a fellow mountaineer into getting up at 2am heading for the hills and

 looking for said rodent.

 Ours would be a micro adventure over before a well earned breakfast at the cafe by our office before a long days social work.

 It has to be said it was worth getting out of bed for to see the sunrise over the Brecon Beacons at 5am.

 That said, by 6am there was a relaisation

 that despite the topography matching the photo

 as we got closer to where I thought Marv was

 turns out he wasnt. Maybe they planted him further east was my only thought and they used a stock photo of the mountains we were on as a clue, not to be where you could see where the picture was taken but somewhere else. If you catch my drift.

 Anyways by 7.15 we had trekked 9 miles with two to go before a massive breakfast

 and Mrs Bear was dog tired but happy

 especially when we got back to the car, one that had been lent to me while they fixed Stan's canopy.

 Why any moron would let our tyres down is beyond me, but these morons exist and one had hence a very late show at work

 after being rescued by a nice young man called Joe who was passing and had a track pump in his car.

Further along we met Leon the nice AA man who put the valves back in our tyres as they should be and by lunchtime we had breakfast. And a story to tell. But no cuddly toy.