Lanterns

We have a love-hate relationship with our neighbour’s huge Tipuana tree. It stands close to the border between our two properties, but I am convinced that we receive 80% of all that it sheds during the year, be it the brown winged seed pods, the multitude of golden-yellow little flowers or leaves. This past weekend my husband created a canopy of lights in Chinese lanterns for his birthday party and at least for one evening we LOVED “our” tree! To be truthful, as much as we hate the mess the tree creates, we cannot really imagine our lawn without the gorgeous shade it provides.

But this post is really about the lights. What he rigged up were four separate strings of a rope to carry the weight, tied to electrical cable for the light fittings. He then rigged up each strand between the tree and the parapet of our house. With each light fitted with a small 40 Watt bulb, the combined effect was a ceiling of Chinese glowing lanterns that bathed the entire lawn in soft light. 

The net effect was absolutely magic because of the atmosphere it created, and the rig deserves its own blog post for the simple fact that my white collar husband, who normally has only about a 50/50 success-failure rate when it comes to small household DIY jobs, pulled off an engineering marvel!