Jacquie's boyfriend lives near where the farm we have gone to work on is, which worked out well as she was happy to drive us there in her ex-husbands van (she only has a small convertible, and it would have been very hard to get there any other way). We took our bags into the little cabin that's off the side of Dave and Heather's house, which is where we'll be staying, and then had a drink of water/ coffee with them a bit, before meeting a few of Heather's animals, including her iguanas, Mexican walking fish, chinchillas, birds, bearded dragons, possum, turtles, dogs and a cat (as well as the farm animals which include chickens, ducks, cows, sheep, a llama, horses, and pigs). First job we helped her with was picking up the plums that had fallen down in the (quite strong) wind, and then we helped carry them to the quad bike and trailer, via the pig pen to see the piglets (so cute) and the chickens (every new animal I see I want to get!). We went back up to the house, with me standing on the trailer peg (it felt like I was surfing) and Alice sat on the seat with Heather (Heather is the one who does most of the farm work, and David drives lorries in Nelson). It's not so much of a commercial farm, it's more that they grow and produce what they eat with a little leftover to sell, which they leave for people to take and pay for in a room at the end of their drive. As well as fruit, vegetables, eggs and milk, they also sell Heather's homemade jams, cordials and chutneys (I'm dying to try some of them!).

Back at the house we cut up the plums, whilst discussing Alice's Occupational Therapy work, and Heather's work she does with crystals, and her looking after disabled kids. She's quite a spiritual person. She then put the pan with them in on to boil down to make juice later on. Me and Alice then washed the tomatoes which had been donated to them by the grocers (they get loads of free food because the companies don't want to pay for dumping, including bread from the supermarket, which we've got our eyes on- it's supposed to be for the pigs but seeing the food they get, it would be criminal to just chuck it away) and sorting the tomatoes into 12 pound bags.

We had a little drive around to see all the animals, and to feed the pigs and the horses. We've got competition with one of the pigs for the iced buns. It started raining as we got up to the field with the cows, so turned back to the house for a cup of coffee an hot cross buns (supermarket donated of course). We went back down to pick the rest of the plums, and then Heather said we could go in the spa whilst she made dinner (a spa is a hot tub in England English). It had a lot of chlorine in it so it made us cough when we put the bubbles on, but other than that it was very relaxing, with Heather's holistic CD on, and the view over the hills out the window.

Tea was pasta with salad, bread rolls, homemade cheese, and salami for the meat eaters. Hamish, their 11 year old son, has ADHD so didn't really eat that much. We had more, but are conscious of eating too much- all the comments in the visitor's book mention Heather's good cooking! We washed it down with some mint tea, the mint of which had been picked by Heather earlier. Heather cut up some (free) watermelon for us after we had done their washing up.