Ali finished painting the lounge last Thursday so we got to go and buy our Christmas tree today now we have somewhere to put it. We went to a cut your own farm in Hollis (Lavoie’s) in the hope that a fresh cut one won’t shed too badly and because it sounded like a fun thing to do. The bloke on the gate advised us to ‘make sure you’re in 4-wheel drive, its a bit muddy up there’, handed us a saw and some string then pointed us up the hill towards the fields of christmas trees. He wasn’t kidding, the torrential rain yesterday had left the track with foot deep mud ruts that had us slipping and sliding all over the place as we drove up the slope - top fun. I’ve never really done the off-road thing before except once in San Diego when we took a ‘short cut’ back from La Jolla and that was just a lumpy road. Fortunately the Dodge was up to the challenge and we sailed up with no real worries about getting stuck. Fifteen minutes later we had a suitable tree cut down and tied to the roof bars and we were slipping and sliding our way back down towards the gate. Only one sideways incident gave cause for worry and a bit of rapid steering soon saw us heading in the right direction again. ‘Again, again’ said Caleb when we got down.