Good friends and good times.

Work on the farm continues at a cracking pace. Rohan rolls out of bed early each day, unfolding his limbs and easing his feet into his workboots as he heads out to continue cleaning up the yard and the wood/tin from our demolitions. He's also been doing some tree trimming, including the chestnut tree at the back of the house, which has been trimmed a bit so that we have a better view of the mountain from the dining room window. There are a couple of other chestnut trees, so we can still have some to roast!

On Sunday my friends Kim and Jem came to visit Innisfree and it was great to have them at the farm. As the year draws to a close I'm grateful for good friends and both Kimbo and Jems have made me laugh many times this year, including at my birthday dinner with them and Tan, where I went home with a sore stomach from laughing so much. Jems was channeling Annabel Crabb and turned up with afternoon tea ready to assemble, may it be the first of many visits from them!

Monday morning Rohan and I did a bit more exploring in the sheds, looking for ways we can recycle and use some of the things lying around. In particular, I'm thinking of desks for both my inside and outside study (yep, such an academic I need two rooms for working!). We were checking out this bench in the machinery shed, which is currently covered with tin but which has some lovely looking hardwood planks under the tin cover- could be time for a bit of a makeover as a desk? With the old Remington typewriter Dave gave me for Christmas it could be a perfect addition to one study.

Dave and Jeff came down from Trentham for the day to help out and did some more painting inside. Dave has nearly painted all the rooms, and the paint colour has really transformed the interior of the house. While they worked inside, I did some packing back at the old house and then took to the outside room with the spray gun, putting an initial coat of white primer over the blue walls. This will be the outside study/ library/ gym/ extra spare room and while we can't do much about the blue tiles on the floor at this point, we can make it less blue by whitewashing the walls! From inside this room you have an excellent view of the orchard where the sheep were still eating themselves happily through the grass. They were happy to eyeball me through the flyscreen!

So as 2013 draws to a close, I'm grateful for good friends and for the good times that have already occurred at Innisfree - I'm sure that there will be more to come :)