Tenders are finally out - bring on the 1st of October!

Well, you all be pleased to know that after almost 2 years in the making, our tenders have finally gone out to our prospective builders. The date for response is the 1st of October and we plan to break ground as soon as possible after that date.

Thank god for Mark Boyd is all I can say. His help and support through this process has been outstanding and friends don't come much better than this. He's not a bad architect either :-) As most of you know, we had hoped to have started long ago and the last few months have seen our frustrations rise to new heights - but it has been Mark who has kept us moving along and maintaining focus to reach this day.

As one of our other friends Annie put it, we're well on the journey to realising our dream and it's going to be truly fantastic. I'm with Annie... the way this year has flown it won't be long before we're all having cocktails on the lanai.

Fancy a Long Cointreaupolitan anyone?

Some things call for drastic measures!!

Scoffa, our favourite man with a bulldozer, arrived back at the farm this week (how he got the name Scoffa we'll leave to another time). We were expecting to see him 4 months ago, but he's on Carool time and better late than never I say.

So his latest challenge was to rid our property of the toxic Radiata Pines on our boundary. We have long debated the pros and cons of leaving these trees, but basically they suck the life out of Gareth's tropical gardens and nothing we have tried to grow under them for the last 3 years as made any progress.It was time to say - goodbye.

Remarkable what you can do in a days work in the country I say. Non of this stuffing around, no procrastinating, just bring the buggers down and you can see the result here.

Now for those of you who may be lamenting the loss off these trees, don't worry, we're planting natives that are local to Northern NSW on the boundary next weekend. And I'll leave the picture on the front page of our blog where you can see the pines in the background.

Such a satisfying weekend. No wonder so many of us Sydneysiders are foresaking our city life for the country. And on that note, we had some very exciting news this week, our friends Larry and Melissa from Enmore are moving to Mullumbimby - only 40 minutes away. You'll all be up here in the end!!

Have you ever wondered what our fabulous B&B will look like?

I was only saying to Gareth this afternoon, only a few people have seen how Escape Retreat will look. You've had a taste of the gardens (and by the way, I must show you some picks of Gareth's new succulent "hill".... more of that later.

In the meantime, here is a render. Sadly I can't seem to get the resolution better. But you get the gist. Check out the pool and pool house on the left.... and you thought NYE at Stanmore was fun!