Well, winter is slowly setting in here in Dunedin, and my first wedding season is almost at an end. Before we moved out here back in September last year, I presumed that by May we would almost certainly have our strawbale house built, and I would probably be working two jobs to support the build! I've watched Grand Designs enough though to know that these things generally take about 11 times as long as you think they will, so although we haven't started on the house yet, I feel like we've acheived lots more than we thought we would.

Our temporary accommodation turned into a giant project and we built a 4 bay barn inclusive of our stylish(!) little flat. We have a fenced-off vegetable garden, 2 dogs, 8 chickens, water tanks, a driveway, and lots more to come. The plan is to start building the house in the spring, but this time I'm not going to put any deadlines on my blog! The designs are pretty much finalised so I'll put some images here soon.

Here are the dogs lying on the gravel we've been using to mix concrete. They do have a comfy bed to use so I can only presume the gravel heats up in the sun during the day and is nice and warm:




The view out of our front door at dusk:




And here is my neice Alice who is FOUR TODAY!!!!!!