Bull

It's the old saying - you can take the girl out of the farm but you can't take the farm out of the girl.  Our house is full of memories of when we were farmers.  The iron bootscraper was given to us by an Austrian friend who came to stay.  It was made by a blacksmith in his home town of Kitzbühel.  We have never wanted to scrape our muddy boots on it, it's much too charming.  And the oil painting was given to us by a friend from New Zealand who lived in one of our farm cottages for many years.  She now lives in Auckland and we had arranged to meet for lunch when I should have been there in January.  It's the portrait of one of our favourite bulls, Napoleon, a Charolais.

(And we used to have a party for all the farmers in the village every Summer, hence the wine glasses in the dresser).