So this week we’ll be bunking down in the lounge on our mattress due to our bedroom being overhauled by my father with brand-new paint (a silver grey-green for above the dado rail; a fresh coat of white for the window frames) and wallpaper (for below the dado rail – a pale grey-green background with a large, paler graphic floral pattern on it).

As Dad does this sort of thing professionally for a living it should be well finished by the weekend but already I’m missing my nightly snuggle-up-reading-in-bed sesh. I usually slope off to bed around 9.30ish and have a good hour’s worth with my current reads  – at the moment it’s Marian Keyes’ latest, A Charming Man and The Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith. I always have two books on the go and sometimes even three, much to the bewilderment of the Other Harf, but as I pointed out to him he can watch the Premier League highlights for an hour, then flick over to watch Property Ladder, so what’s the difference?

Yep, roll on the weekend and taking up residence in our new, much improved bedroom….

Today I’ve got an extremely sore wrist from all the stripping I did yesterday.

The Other Harf and I spent six hours in our bedroom with lots of soapy water, Classic Hits on for background music and all the windows open to stop us getting too sweaty.

All very exhausting, but fully worth it; the new wallpaper is going to look awesome.

Today the Other Harf is at work, as it’s year end for his company, which translates as working every second Sunday and late in the evenings and getting not a lot of recognition for it. Actually I tell a wee porkie there; he actually got himself a nice big chunky pay-rise this week for his trouble, but personally I’d rather he earned less and was home more. Heh…but that’s another story…

Miss 7.7 and the nieces have been out and about running round the paddocks, and Miss 7.7 is currently the odd one out as NOT being the one little girl to get zapped by the electric fence so far today. I had every sympathy as first Niece T came in wailing her head off, then three hours later Niece G, as I suffered a large zap in my left buttock negotiating an electric fence a couple of weeks after moving in to the Kiwifruit Homestead. It ain’t nice. At all. As Niece G succinctly reported: “I feels like I got whacked in the heart”.

Mum, Lil’Sis with Nephew T tagging along on an advisory basis have gone off to view an Open Home – it’s an American barn house the same as Lil’Sis and Bruvinlaw are building, so she’s wanting to get some ideas. Things are ticking along very slowly in that area as there’s red tape for the red tape when building new dwellings – especially, it would seem, new dwellings on rural properties.

As for Bruvinlaw, he’s spent three hours weed-eating and mowing the lawns, a task which used to be mostly up to me and which he’s taken over since they’ve moved in with us, but I think he really just likes zooming up and down on Dad’s John Deere ride-on mower – a big boy on a big toy.

Dad? He’s transfixed to the inaugural Hamilton 400 V8 Supercars on the telly, watching grown men drive round in circles. Just what is it with motorsport that fascinates people?

And today, I’ve been mostly faffing round with my stylesheet. Five hours later, and as you can plainly see, unsuccessful, which sucks the big fat kumara really.  I think I might extract my butt from in front of this PC, grab a cup of tea and go and loll on the beanbag on the verandah with some trashy mags before the sun slips behind the hills for good.