Another walkabout, another quarry.

After the weekend's exertions and discoveries, it was always going to be difficult to get up and into the swing of things today. And it was. When the alarm went off this morning my whole body seemed to sink deeper into the mattress in defiance - I allowed it a ten-minute reprieve (thanks to our four-legged friends all being quite patient this morning), before staggering out of bed. At first it was difficult even to bend down to pick my clothes up off the chair, but I knew that once I got going I would be fine. Sure enough, one doggy toilet trip to the garden and a visit to the geese later, I was feeling ready to get on the turbo trainer. It was tough to get going this morning, but I was pleased with myself for pushing on with it.

After that, and after a shower, it was time to sit down in the office and start my week's work. Meanwhile, Stuart was outside with Reggie and had worked out exactly how he had been escaping the confines of the patio and getting up onto the terraces. Rather than jumping the gate, it turned out that he had managed to find a tiny gap in the wire fence and squeeze himself through it - this meant it was a relatively easy fix, and Stuart got straight onto doing that. I fear that this may only be a temporary fix though, as it doesn't seem like it will be long before he really will be able to jump the gate – he can already get halfway across it if he takes a run up.

Once the fence had been further Reggie-proofed, Stuart joined me in the office for a morning's admin. Among other things he created a booking form for apartment guests who book with us directly, paid a tax bill, and set up a recipe page on our website. Yes, that's right, you can now find the recipe for three-bean dip on our website. There will be more recipes to follow...

Before long it was time for us to tuck into the aforementioned three-bean dip for our own lunch. We decided to dine al fresco today as the sun was shining brightly and there was not a cloud in the sky - it truly was a beautiful winter's day.

After lunch, we reluctantly traipsed back to our respective posts in the office, but after a further hour's work we both felt the need to get outside and stretch our legs - not to mention Reggie's.

On today's dog-walking agenda was simply a walk up and down the donkey tracks that lead off our drive. We decided to start with the one that leads downhill, starting just by the gates. Neither of us had been down this track for quite a while - I had explored it with Mum back in October, and we had been partway down it with our Kiwi helpers in November, but no further. Once again, we found that the landscape in January is very different from that of October/November, and with little to no leaf cover on the trees, all sorts of interesting tracks and features revealed themselves.

We found the old quarry that Mum and I had found back in October, as well as a very clearly defined track that leads from the quarry up to the drive (although the top part of it - the part that joins the drive - is too overgrown with brambles, even now, to pick out) - of course, that makes perfect sense as the people who quarried the stone would have wanted an easy way to access the quarry and get the stone out of it.

A little further on we found ourselves at the edge of the terraces beneath the house. We could clearly see at least two more that we have yet to touch - all very exciting stuff.

After we'd scrambled around the trees and clambered back up the donkey track to the drive, we were feeling quite puffed - we'd been exploring for about 45 minutes, so we decided that would be enough for Reggie's little legs today. He, of course, had had a wail of a time scurrying around the woods, sniffing at things in the piles of leaves, running up and down the banks impatiently while we cautiously picked our way over rocks and through prickly bramble tendrils.

When we got back to the house we both said how much we really wanted to get on with things right now - having seen the outline of the terraces, we're both really keen to get them cleared and can imagine how wonderful it would be to have free access around our land. The frustration of it all at the moment is, of course, that other things (such as having to earn money, having to fix fences, having to sort out oozing septic tanks and so on, not to mention the days when the weather is against us) get in the way - not only that, but in the backs of our minds we both know full well that, in another 6-8 weeks the landscape will have changed again and a lot of what we were able to pick out today will be hidden for another year by layer upon layer of thick undergrowth! We will get there eventually though.

We spent another hour or so at our desks (fighting the urge to go outside in the beautiful weather) before tending to the animals and the fire and settling down for the evening.