When the Other Harf was contracting at my work over May and the beginning of June a role in another department came up, and even though it was paying half the salary he used to earn when he last was in fulltime employment and he can do it with bells on, he decided that the Depressed Job Market being what it is he’d apply,

For a couple of weeks he heard nothing, then on Tuesday he was asked in for an interview the following day.

When I got home I asked him how it went.

*cue moochy expression*

“I don’t interview well. I’m sure they just got me in ‘cos I’m your husband, and Chris (my manager) had recommended me. I doubt whether I’ll get it…”

Friday morning came round and he waited by the phone – the decision on the role was going to be made by mid morning.

Approximately 11.30 I get a call.

“I got a job!” he crowed, “I got it!”

“Oh wow! Well done you, you rock! I guess you interviewed much better than you thought, huh?”

So, after almost a year of being without paid work (his toiling round the farm, taxi driver for the kids and cook/chef/bottlewasher duties definitely count as work) and six months of active job seeking, my lovely Other Harf has a job!

He is one very smiley man indeed and I am his very smiley wife!

These tyres have been languishing in the long grass beside the barn for the past three years, kindly given to me by our neighbour for the purpose of growing potatoes in.

I am unsure what came over me…perhaps it was this sentence in a magazine I was reading last Sunday: “Now is the right time to plant Jersey Bennes!” and that Jersey Bennes just happen to be my favourite potato, particularly with lashings of butter…

Anyhoo, Friday I purchased a bag of Jersey Benne seed potatoes and today I scrubbed the tyres of the three years worth of moss they had gathered, and planted them.

Ah, wee pototoes, I sure hope you live up to expectations because you’ve been a long time coming!

With no cows to munch it down, we invited our neighbour to bring her horses over to graze the grass down to a sensible level: the very handsome Cracker on the right and his lovely daughter Gracie on the left (Cracker’s ladylove Saffy across the road wasn’t allowed to join the grass party – not sure why).
Soon we will be taking delivery of our new mob of beef weaners but in the meantime this father and daughter team will make short work of our very lush paddocks – as well as being rather beautiful just to have around the place.

It’s a classic winter’s day here in Northland: rain, rain, rain, with quite a lot of wind. We are off out tonight to visit friends, and to be honest, I ever so slightly wish we weren’t, as there’s nothing more I’d like to do than chill out in front of the fire with leftovers on my lap (we had my aunty and uncle stay last night and I kind of overdid it on the casserole front) and watch The River Cottage Treatment. Party on, Fi.

But, still, despite having to extract myself off the sofa in the crappiest of weather, it’ll be great to see our friends K and R, who are visiting from Auckland. They moved down there in January and we haven’t seen them since – it’ll be interesting to hear how they’re finding life down in the Big Smoke after the frenetic and riveting pace of life in sunny ol’ Whangarei.

Yesterday it wasn’t quite as winterish, and I managed to dodge the showers and get some gardening in, kitted out in a beanie, gumboots, a fleece and a huge raincoat in a flattering shade of BRIGHT yellow.

As I attacked mile after mile of the ubiqutious kikuyu, which is going nutso with all the rain, I noticed the umbrella shaped leaves of the cineraria are starting to pop up in their usual haunts and my favourite flowers, jonquils, are poking their green shoots through too.

Whoa…I can’t believe this will be our fifth winter here…

So it’s the Other Harf’s last day at work today and that six week contract has sure zooooooomed past.

It’s been a little bit…odd…working with my husband a mere paperclip’s throw away but there have been so many positives: most of all, his happiness. Happiness at having a purpose, getting up, ironing his daily shirt and earning money. Satisfaction at a job well done (the people he’s worked with tell me he’s worth his weight in gold and they’ve never worked with somebody so thorough) and most of all, appreciating a whole new side to a person that I love.

Now, all I want for him is a job. He’s been looking for work for six months and so far? Only one interview out of approximately 50 applications (he didn’t get it, either).

Once upon a time what I’d expect for him is a job that he’d enjoy, a job where he gets paid a lot of money and if possible, a job with lots of perks.

But now?

Just a job will do.