My mother, now in her 80's, has a large area of lawn (couple of acres at least) which needs cutting. She has an old Allen Nation with about a 57" or 60" cut [3 cylinder gang-mower] at present, but its probably 15 years old and has "had it". A new one of those is around £ 6,000. http://www.gardencentredirect.co.uk/d515/g3908

Most of the lawn is a large area, easy to just mow up-and-down, but a smaller area has wide-ish paths around shrubberies.

I'm reluctant for her to just get a 24" ~ 36" ride on tractor with rotary cut as I assume that
a) the reduced cutting width will increase cutting time,
b) she won't have those nice stripes,
c) if she has a wide rotary it will probably scalp some of the bumps the three gangs easily run over at present.

D) OTOH she'd have a useful tractor as well.

So my thoughts are
a) Quad bike towing a gang mower - is that practical / cost effective?
b) robot mower - seems like a vast area for one of those, but there is a saving in not paying someone to do the actual mowing - a hand-mower for the paths / perimeter would be fine.

I hasten to add that she has someone to cut the grass for her, but to be fair he's no spring chicken either!

(I'm based in the UK)

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Kristen