It’s the Other Harf’s 48th birthday today, and he really, really wanted a hydraulic wood splitter for a present. Yes, a hydraulic wood splitter would be fabulous (we have two fireplaces to feed, and lots of huge stumps which don’t fit into fireplaces) but I did some ringing round, and turns out they’re the price of a recent model hatchback car, so that idea was a no-go.

So it was vouchers from his favourite rural supplies store RD1 instead. I am sure he will enjoy kitting himself out with overalls or thermal socks or a Swanndri or some such woolly, outdoorsy farming item of clothing to make him look the part.

Miss 9.11 did well with her gift; she made him a little key-ring tab at school out of dyed bone with his initial carved in it. Turns out they make all kinds of things in “Technology” these days. Bless her cottons.

We’re not going out to dinner as we’re off down to Auckland Saturday morning to visit our friends L & S, leaving Miss 9.11 in the tender care of her grandparents. Plans involve shopping (for the girls) and a few rounds of pool and darts at the RSA (for the boys – it’s the only place the pair of them actually feel like boys as everybody else is 70-plus) followed by dinner out on Saturday night somewhere grown-up and reasonably fancy.

However, I am making the OH a special birthday dinner tonight. Smoked salmon for starters then a very blokey part-time farmer type of main course of aged eye-fillet steak, homemade chips and blue cheese sauce, accompanied by a not-so-blokey bottle of Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, rounded off by the OH’s favourite Movenpick chocolate icecream.

Really rather grown up and reasonably fancy.