Barn, beach, booze, beautiful......

Today we started clearing the barn, it's a huge barn, full of heaps of stuff, a lot of which is rubbish and a lot of which is not. It was dirty, dusty work and although the photos below look like we haven't done much, I can assure you we have. We are probably half way and hope to get it all cleared tomorrow. Next then we have to de-cobweb and clean it up before we can start dressing it up for my party, I am really looking forward to that part.

 By way of explanation I'll start top left on each photo and go clockwise..

The barn, main door entrance at the end, far right will be where the band will be, long bench for the food, seating and bar area, view from main door.

I went for a walkabout taking photos of pretty much everything today, Alice our HelpXer wheelbarrowed a huge amount of mulch for the main veg garden paths and it's looking pretty good,

as are the vegetables

 Shade/glass house (still unfinished) where we're growing beans, peppers, tomatoes and cucumber 

and lots of other stuff

 

Continuing around the garden, Max and Clyde in the dappled shade of the silk tree, cabbage trees

the dove cote (no doves) part of the rose garden and Bonnie's tree

Scotch thistle, the boer goats, Amber, the two steers back from grazing elsewhere, sheep in the shade, Cara, Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me! 

And Isobel enjoying a scratch under the chin

Walking back along the drive, agapanthus(top middle), Mr Lonesome duck in the fast drying out pond, a silk tree with a view and plums we hope to harvest before the ruddy possums get them!

 

Later in the afternoon we took Alice to Raglan, too late to walk around the shops, we'll go back to do that. We drove up to Wainui Reserve so she could see the wonderful views and see Raglans surf beach, it was a stunner of a day and even though it was after 4pm  it was still 27degC.

After posing for a photo we went back to the town and watched the children swimming and playing in the harbour, with Karioi providing the backdrop it was just stunning

We ate at the Orca restaurant, Joe had green lipped mussels and an ice cold lager, I had chicken and Niçoise salad with a cider then a Pinot Gris, Alice had sourdough bread with a hummus and dukkah dip and some chardonnay, it was all rather divinely scrumptious...

 Stately pheonix palms against the perfect blue sky line the main road, the Harbourview hotel 

and the bark of an extremely old Pohutukawa tree

It's a long weekend here, we'll be carrying on with the barn tomorrow and maybe trying to get a little bit more done in the rental, it is so close to being finished we just want to get it done so we can rent it out again, we're a bit over it now but it's looking rather nice. 

Lets hope the next tenants treat it with a little more respect!

Right I'm off to get a coffee and maybe strawberries from the garden with ice cream!