Longhauling back to Pluto

I'm now back on the island, having been away in London & Johannesburg for 2 weeks. It was a good trip and wonderful to see everyone again. In Joburg I managed to do some 'local' things like go to the Ridge farewell for Trishie Parker and my SA Book Club Christmas Lunch. In London, my dear friend Ailsa hosted a dinner for my London Friends & I, and since she is a professional cook (regularly for David Cameron, I'll have you know) it was all very delicious. I also did lots of Extreme Shopping, mainly at Woolies - and came home with piles of island clothes, christmas wrapping paper and toys. All of this plus my 81 year old Mother, had to be lugged back over the Atlantic Ocean, and we flew out just in time to have Gatwick close behind us, due to the snow and ice.

Having been away from South Africa for 3 months, several things jump out at one, which clearly I'd been missing in the Caribbean. My strongest observation is that everyone smiles all the time - on the streets, in the shops, when they are trying to sell you stuff at traffic lights etc. It made me realise that here is not very smiley, in fact the general mien is grumpy with a dose of indifference and impatience thrown in for good measure.

I was then overwhelmed by the level of 'boutique hotel' living everyone enjoys in their own homes in Johannesburg. This included:

1. Folded pyjamas under the beautifully made bed, which was turned down at night

2. Tea - made & brought to one, on a tray with a tray cloth and a homemade biscuit

3. Suitcases unpacked, cothes hung up and/or washed, ironed and returned.

Not for nothing that my good friend says that 'they can switch the lights off round me, but I'm staying here with my bediendes'. In fact someone in Johannesburg very boldy stated that Housework Makes You Ugly. I sadly now have little choice but to get on with it as I'm no longer a SA Princess. So it's back to my jumbo bottles of Fabuloso and 'Spray & Pray' as Billy delightfully coined it.

The flight was pretty awful. We had the requisite screaming baby for 7 hours from London to Antigua, with me very loudly barking "It needs some Calpol' like Tourettes Syndrome, and then sticking my headphones on to listen to the The Suburb's 'Arcade Fire' three straight times in a row - also very loudly. We got to Antigua with relief, only to see the same family boarding the little plane to Tortola. It's a cruel world. The baby then continued to scream, falling into an exhausted sleep somewhere over St Kitts & Nevis. It is at times like these, that we are all very grateful that rum is so cheap in the Caribbean, in fact they should have given it to the baby (which was teething). Bugger the Calpol.

So I'm back in my sparkly life with my little brown boys, who are about to break up for the Christmas hols on Wednesday. Tortola really did feel like Pluto whilst I was away - it seemed so far away and so unimaginable, particulalry in the freezing sleet and slush of London. But it's real, I'm here and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. Our container is meant to be arriving this week, and I feel slightly weak at the knees about where we are going to put everything and all the unpacking, but nothing that lots of rum and a machette can't sort out.

Diving Monday + Cupcakes

Tomorrow, William turns 5 but we held his party yesterday (Sunday)  at UP's, the local Cine/Bowling/Food Court complex - which took 8 years to build, bankrupted the developer, who is now in court for fraud as the former owner of Western Union - from which he apparently used funds to build UP's....

It's all reads a bit like a Peter Mayle story -swop Caribbean for South of France, but I, for one am very grateful for his selfless community sacrifices and the kiddies 'Jimmy Jungles' play area - saviour of parents. The party was fabulous, enjoyed by William's entire class of exceptionally noisy 5 year olds and their parents - most of whom were all looking & feeling a bit fragile after a very good grown-up party the night before.  Being new to the island, and not (yet) invited - I of course was being Uber Mummy, icing cupcakes on a Saturday night, and hence was feeling Red Bull energetic on a Sunday, which is unusual really.

William and his self-declared future wife, Asia (another Saffa)

Anyway, today I'm clapped  - clearly the price for perfection but also after 8 hours of diving and being on a very choppy boat, but we did finally qualify today - and what complete fun it was. Up until now we had pretty much had private lessons, and very quiet and sedate dives in calm waters. Today was completely different. We had a boat-load of Other People, all Americans down for Thanksgiving holidays ( I found out today, to my horror, that the school CLOSES for 2 days for Thanksgiving. Most of the kids are either British or Other, and only a very small minority is American - but over 60% of the teachers are American - being an International School with the IB Programme. Damn).

But back to diving: We've also had high winds, rain and an actual cold front (a relative term) so today was really horrible weather, but this did not dampen the spirits of our dive boat and the 12 people on it. 

We had 2 DM's - a very mad Italian and an insane Brit -  who were so rackety and up for fun, that I did wonder for a minute or two. But good old PADI achtungness, never lets you down and we had excellent dives, in fairly trying conditions (panicky newbies, lost fins, broken masks, crappy O rings - and then finally -  lost toursists). We saw three sharks - the first one as I put my face into the water on getting in and still had my snorkel on and a subsequent 3 after that. It went downhill from there. When we got to the bottom (40 ft) even the DM's had to admit it was one of the biggest nursery sharks they had seen - wallowing about 10 metres in front of us, eyeing us out with their horrible little eyes. Anyway after Tyler had buddy-signed that it was probably not a good idea for me to dig holes with my nails into his arm (blood...) I calmed down a bit and remembered to breathe again. I'm now so over sharks...

A feature of here is 'Rendevous' (ie collected and dropped off from our yacht or boat). So, when it came time to drop off some of our very fun guests from Pittsburgh - they couldn't remember the name of their boat (this after several Red Stripes). So to cut a long story short, we drove (is this the right word?) around looking for their charter, which took a looooonnnng time, but provided a fascinating, albeit wet & windswept guided tour of Peter & Norman island inlets, moorings and sounds.

We finally got back at 4pm (usually back by lunch-time)  and then had to go racing off to pick up the kids from school (only an hour late). Thank heavens for after-care and a small community who "know the Dawsons always dive on a Monday" so knew we hadn't abadoned the children (tempting as this often seems).

I'm also starting to plan quite vigourously - my 10 day trip 'off-island' to London & Joburg. I can't even begin to tell you the logisitics necessary for this. Needless to say, yet another vast cast is necessary - mainly from the Phillipines, but also a few new friends and some solid back-up from a good team in the office. It all feels a little bit too soon, although I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone again. I feel like I've only just left - in fact there must even be a few people who never knew I had even left in the first place.

I leave Friday 26th - am in London on Saturday for Xmas shopping, get into Joburg on Sunday morning & am back in London again, the following Sunday. Return to the West Indies on Wednesday 8th Dec with my Mother, who is spending a month with us over Christmas.

If I feel tired now, how do you think I'll be by Friday?  When you all see me back in Joburg or London, looking so laid-back - it's actually going to pure sleep deprivation and an overdose of cupcake baking.

The Zoo has arrived

Mimi & Jasmine have finally got here - 6 weeks later than originally expected and with a whole lot more drama - which went from Saga to Epic, after Tyler spent TWO DAYS in Puerto Rico trrying to get them out of customs. The animals are fine and happy, it seems, in their new home. We, however, are shattered and still recovering.

To cut a long,boring story very short - after being extorted by the vet in SA the animals were finally put on a plane to fly in transit via Madrid & San Juan (Puerto Rico) and then to Tortola. They had every permit, injection, blood test, visa, expert permit, CITES certificate, travel document, inter-continental permission, vaccination and anything else that anyone could possibly think of  and charge us for, all of which had involved a cast of hundreds. An entire industry, we discovered makes a good living from transporting pets.They were of course, meant to stay in TRANSIT until the BVI vet cleared them into Tortola.

All hell, of course, broke loose, when some dimwit brought them through customs into hallowed US ground - and you could hear the klaxons from here - as everyone kicked into gear to deal with illegal aliens without the right papers. You can only imagine. Tyler was literally running around the island for 24 hours having to get a whole set of new tests, innoculations & papers to get them out of quarantine and back on track. What a nightmare. He finally had to pretty much charter a little plane to fly back to Tortola and arrived back 24 hours later than planned.

Do not even begin to ask howmuch this all cost. On top of the original flight. On top of 2.5 month worth of Hilton-priced boarding fees. Oi.

Anyhow, life is getting back to normal. Jasmine is almost back to her original screech level and James and I had to rescue Mimi from the next door neighbours in the dark tonight, with James jumping over 3 metre high fences, like a hero.

And of course they make so much mess, I could cry, but there you go. I suppose you cannot put a price on family.

Where is the goddess in domestic?

Despite more mud-slides, death-defying roads and Caribbean efficiency that makes South Africa look like Switzerland, the biggest shock to the system has undoubtedly been on the domestic front.

Being practically a single parent these days, I just cannot believe how unbelievably tedious domestic work actually is. I realize now why you have to have mugs which say 'Yummy Mummy', because if you don’t remind yourself  how fab you are doing a crap job, nobody else will sure as hell give it a nano-seconds thought.

As Tyler was not working during October and I was, we were still in SA-mode (ie Tyler did Domestic and I did Bread Winning). Since Halloween Weekend, the new Family Dawson has kicked in (ie Tyler works 16 hour days and I’m now a housewife). This is one of the reasons we moved here, remember?

As we sank deeper into domestic chaos, I realized with some trepidation, that the house was now my job. Having not swung a broom since living in London 13 years ago, this was a bit worrying.

I’ve always rather fancied the idea of dabbling in housework, inspired by reading too many Home & Gardens with Cath Kitson rose-sprigged peg baskets and Martha Stewart’s uber domestic gorgeousness. So after the initial disbelief and denial had worn off, I picked myself up, put together my little bucket of cleaning goodies, made lots of lists and proceeded to try and get some level of order back into the house and our lives, feeling very Marie Antionettish about it all.

Well. What a *#$ng crock that all is. Domestic work is relentless, boring, dirty and most depressingly – completely thankless. I kept feeling like a heroine everytime I remembered to switch on the dishwasher or make a bed – expecting at least some applause and acknowledgment. Then I started getting a bit Type A about it all and wanted it all sparkling and started jumping up at 10pm to wipe down the paintwork. I even started to feel a little sanctimonious, in fact.

Until that is, I forgot to wash the children’s school clothes over the weekend – and they had to go off on Monday morning – with filthy khaki shorts, even filthier white T shirts (PE) and disgusting white socks. Oh, the shame.

Now I’m beginning to see how some of all this time we seem to have here gets used up. Housework.

However, help is on the way. Marielle the lovely lady from the Phillipines will be starting this week to help out a bit. No heckling from the peanut gallery, thank you.

Whirlwind (not to be confused with tropical storm)

Master of Evil, Skeleton and Ghoul

Goodness the past two weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind as we really settled into island life. This place makes our Joburg social life look like an occasional OAP outing.

Last weekend was of course Halloween, and we actually managed three parties - drinks with the Jermyns on Friday in costume, Cedar School Big Party at Nanny Cay on Saturday and then Trick or Treating around our estate (dubbed Harney's Hill or Lego Land, depending on whether you like lawyers or not) and then a good 'after-party' at our neighbours - which required more eating and drinking. I think even the children were Halloweened-out after 72 hours festing.

The Mad Chef



James got his first surf board, and we were off last Sunday morning to Josiah's Bay, with Tyler trying to teach him. Considering that the last time was at Plett on a very large 'softie' board in a few ripples - the transition to a real board with real waves, was quite something. Here is a picture of Cameron (son of local boss) on the board which we have brought  for James. Please note that Cameron is ranked No 3 in the Caribbean and James still has some way to go!  

On the work front last week, the Big Boss came down from London for the week and I actually had to - very nervously - put some pen to paper. My biggest comment about the off-shore business - and lets be frank, it's not exactly a subject of which one speaks too openly - is that you'd better be careful of where you put the decimal points.

We had our first dinner party last Monday evening  - with afore mentioned boss and the local boss (father of surfer wunderkind) plus several others. T whipped up a fabulous meal with our rather limited kitchen (some of you might remember Tylers duck with dark chocolate?) and we drank some Chocolate Block to go with it, and some wonderful NZ Sauvignon Blancs and a Tarte Tatin. We survived, and thankfully everyone was very jolly & drank a fair bit. Tuesday was a bit haggard. 

T is back to work and now has an extra job in the mornings helping out our Delaware-based ICT consultants - so he has gone from nothing to 16 hour days, in one week.  Anyway, this means that we can now start building a bit of a war chest for that bakery.....(and the house, and the yacht and the ...).


The rest of the week just blurred by in a mad dash of driving up and down hills, picking up kids and generally trying to stay on the bus. Had Book Club again on Thursday, which was very enjoyable, at the most beautiful house I've yet seen on the island. This time we all went in a lift club, so no stressful drive-ways. The book was 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese, set in Salassie's Ethiopia and a very beautiful book. We alternated between discussing the book and gossiping, both pastimes being very enjoyable. Our group is made up of 1 Irish, 2 South Africans, 1 Zimbabwean (but grew up in the UK), 2 Danes (but 1 grew up in Tanzania and 1 spent lots of time in Egypt)  3 Brits and 1 American/Canadian. That pretty much reflects the island.

On Friday I took the boys to Smugglers Cove after school, and they lolopped around in the water, and I treated myself to a Banana Daiquiri. After that we got DVD's (for me "The Kids are All Right" - with Annette Bening & Julienne Moore - excellent and highly recommended) and Chinese take-aways. The perfect Friday evening really.

Saturday was supercharged. T and I did shopping in the morning and then it was off out of the starting blocks and up a few hills in first gear. The boys went off to a party in the East End and I did the annual 5 mile Run/Walk for Breast Cancer. Considering this is a subject a little dear to my heart this year, it was all quite wonderful with lots of participants and fun.

Then it was zooming over to the other end of the island to pick the boys up and off to the Catholic Church's annual fundraising Curry Night, which might not sound like the most scintalllating night out on the town, but was absolutely fabulous. It is made up of about 15 different 'countries' all cooking their national curries with condiments and bits to go with - Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Phillipines, Domenican Republic, St Lucia etc etc even with a joint table this year from Ghana & Nigeria - all dressed up in national costume and serving the most delicious food one has ever eaten. Everyone dashes around eating as much they can and then drinking lots of water! I was with Jane and the boys and we had a charming table (all Swiss German - this place is SO multi-cultural it's not even funny, except it is!). The boys disappeared off with many of their little friends and were all spotted at one stage - rather worringly- playing on the harbour wall. 

Today we are in a flood warning again - it hasn't stopped raining for about 24 hours and I'm actually wearing a long sleeved T Shirt tonight (admittedly with shorts). We gave up on trying to get to the beach and went to the movies instead. and watched "Guardians of the Legand" which the boys loved.

We have been sitting in the mists and the frogs tonight are symphonic. This is the tail end of Hurricane Tomas which wrecked havoc over Barbados last week and Haiti this week, which has done a sort of double-back number, and last night gave us Shock & Awe, with lots of thunder and lightning, wind and torrential rain. We apparently have another day or so of this, and then hopefully Hurricane Season (fifth most active since 1857 or something) will almost be over. Needless to say the roads are beyond appalling and we just grind around in low ratio, slipping and sliding all over the palce and trying not to be too much of a girl about it all.







Half Term Cuba

We've just come back from an absolutely wonderful long weekend break on Cooper Island - just up the channel from us by boat. William said "Mommy. I love Cuba. Please can we come and live here"  and you almost have to agree with him - although it is a tiny tiny island with a hotel, a few yachts and not much else.

We've been there for 3 days - sleeping, reading, kayaking, snorkelling, eating, swimming. I've made a picture journal to give you some idea, but it was quintessential Caribbean, and one of our best little holidays ever.

The snorkelling was incredible - all of us swam together amongst Finding Nemo - gazillions of silvery bait fish, all being hunted by huge tarpons and barracuda (about the size of William). We saw stingrays, puffer fish and trumpet fish. Tyler swam on the back of a sea turtle.  It was dazzling and all in a few metres of water, just off the beach, although we also did some adventurous stuff with the kids on the kayaks, as well.

The resort is small and most guests come in on their boats (we got picked up by the resort).   In the evening it is buzzy with about 30 yachts moored in the bay,everyone coming in on their dinghys for drinks and dinner - although we have decided, after watching all of this from our beach loungers, that yachts are a bit  like upper-class caravans - people putter  around and then sit on them drinking lots of beer and playing poker. It really could be Mossel Bay, but just with a few million $$'s and admittedly a teensy bit more glamour. Not to say we don't want a yacht. We desperately do!

Click on the photo if you would like to see it larger version

Not the average Sunday

We had Georgie’s rescheduled partyon Saturday and here are some photo’s. Just as I’m starting to think that it’s all getting a bit humdrum (no hurricanes, floods or other dramatic events to report) you just have to look at these photo’s and admit that it's all worth it. 

We did the food – fruit skewers, bagels/Philadelphia/smoked trout (a la The Williams) and the bar did hotdogs for the kids & drinks (fruit punch with or without rum). We also had an exceptionally lurid cake, a Caribbean speciality, which meant that all the kids had blue-stained mouths and fingers.

Although we’ve always enjoyed all the kids parties before – this one by far wins hands down for Party Holder Satisfaction, because I can honestly say I wasn’t stressed for a single second. That has  got to be a first for me. Needless to say I did have a few fruit punches...

On Sunday we went exploring in T's new (old) Nissan Pathfinder. We trundled down some serious roads and eventually ended up in Rogues's Bay, which was a scene out of Robinson Crusoe - white beaches, palms, crystal sea, completely deserted. All of us went out for a snorkel along the lava flow (see above)  even little William on Tyler's back. Here is a video to give you a taste of our Sunday's - hope you can see it. 

The rest of the week has been so quiet in that I went to work for 5 mornings, the boys went to school, Tyler went shopping and nothing dramatic happened.

It is however half term this week and we are all looking forward to it. The last two months have been pretty intense, to put it mildly – and although we do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time flopping around and relaxing, there are some stress cracks appearing in all of us, as the enormity of the move sinks in.

We're thinking of getting "off-island" as they say, as Friday is a public holiday  (the BVI appears to have even more than SA) and going somewhere else - such as , urrr, another island. We were looking at places to stay tonight, and I kept saying to T  "I'm not paying $300 for something that looks like our bedroom...".

Hurricane Paula & the Sex Pistols

David Fullarton - Wish you were here

So now it's Hurricane Paula. It's becoming personal. We've had Julia (moi) Lisa (my sister-in-law) and now Paula (my niece).

Whilst we wait for the next potential bunch of thrills, we've been getting on with the more wonderful side of island life - which is having a blissful Sunday at Smuggler's Cove  - snorkelling, reading, eating Jerk Chicken rolls, snoozing on the beach loungers and swishing around the bath-temp sea. Then off to Cane Bay Garden -Tortola's equivalent of Sea Point,  for sundowners and supper with friends. Today - after work and other serious stuff - sundowners (Rum & Ting - sort of the Caribbean equivalent of brandy & coke) at 'Peg Legs', which is our local down at Nanny Cay, watching the sunset in all its pink-shimmery glory across Drakes Channel. So all in all, another tough day in paradise.

However my afore-mentioned niece Paula Mills, who is a brilliant graphic artist based in Melbourne   has sent me this awsome link from artist  David Fullarton which I completely LOVE. Not to mention that it also quotes the Sex Pistols "a cheap holiday on other people's misery, I don't wanna holiday in the sun"...

Up for Air

We all emerged on Friday, to resume life, with lots of mud, landslides and flood-damage all around. Don’t think I have ever seen so much rain before in my life. Honestly thought the island might just disintegrate and dissolve into the sea, but since most of it luckily, is pure rock, it just endures. The roads have gone from really bad to truly shocking, and even T had a scary road last night, which he had to do a 30-point turn on, with wheels hanging over the edge etc. Tried not to look too smug, and be sympathetic, but it was hard.

So now things are back to normal, until the next red thing I've already noticed on the Hurricane Tracker coming from the south-west hits us. Georgie went off to a bowling birthday party on Friday, the other two had various play-dates. The grown-ups went off to our first dinner party on Saturday night, which was rather eye-opening, as dinner parties on the island are clearly serious affairs. Our rather folksy Chicken Curry and Woolies House Red approach, will need to be upgraded a bit, I think.

Anyway we met some lovely new people, who we are going to go sailing with next week (and who also coincidentally own the fabulous SA wine shop) and the other couples were Cedar parents, so just like Joburg really (ie replace Cedar with Ridge). It was a lovely evening, fabulous food, bottomless Verve Cliquet, all eaten outdoors under the stars. Got out alive at 1:30am and not feeling too fragile today. Have already learnt my lesson - hangovers in the tropics are to be avoided at all costs.

We are now gearing up for Halloween. Where we live is almost Tortola’s only ‘suburb’ (ie houses on 50˚ degree slopes with semi - killer driveways) and we are clustered together in a fairly hospitable little enclave, if you want to ignore the various pitbull terriers, chiwhawhas, cows and other dangerous animals wandering around. So the Trick or Treating is held here, which means we’ll have to get the pumpkins out. No doubt these will be air-freighted in from California or Hawaii or somewhere. Honestly the island must have the world’s worst carbon footprint – a favourite game of ours is to look where everything comes from – “oooh look garlic from China”. It’s extraordinary. Anyway in order to maintain this world record, the children’s outfits are being ordered online from Wal-mart, and I’m considering buying the bumper Martha Stewart Halloween collection, but am resisting the need to perfect all of this. Am saving myself for when the container arrives. And the Pat & Carrot.
 
Yesterday morning, I tried some clothes 'shopping' in town and hit the stores - well the Tortola Department Store and Said's International Fashions, as I needed a new little slinky number for the dinner party (we are still living out of 5 cases remember, half of which are winter clothes. It was still freezing in Joburg 6 weeks ago). Anyhow, the shopping experience was a bit soul-destroying - so I'm working on a new idea to both cheer myself up and streamline the Caribbean shopping experience...

Sitting out Otto

We have now been at home for 3 days - everything is closed - and there has been a State of Emergency declared on the island due to all the flooding and damage. Apparently there hasn't been this much rain in 30 years or something. It's pretty wild. It hasn't stopped bucketting down and we have very strong winds. Otto is working his way up to becoming a full hurricane, but has already moved up to the Turks & Caicas - we are just feeling the effects and will do so until Saturday.  Cannot believe that weather would become such a big thing in our lives. Our favourite websites now are Storm Pulse and the National Hurricane Centre. Amazing.

Luckily we have had electricity and telecoms, so apart from the very limited amount of things to do (read, play rummy, computer games, surf the internet) we are OK and not too much damage in our area, although as I write, T is outside busy chopping down banana trees. The Elevator Road is looking pretty precarious, and driving has definetly become dangerous - so looks like we wont be going anywhere soon.

Need to order lots of electricity-free activities and take up knitting, or something. Maybe when the piano arrives we will start using that for family entertainment. Anyhow, the kids are being amazing really, and nobody has injured anyone else yet, but I actually can't liken this to any other experience I've ever had before.  What is the Caribbean equivalent of 'cabin fever', which sounds like it is rather Canadian and associated with snow?

Latest NOAA Weather Update (our compulsive reading):

As of 11AM Sub-Tropical Storm Otto has been re-categorized as Tropical Storm Otto and was located near 23.8N/68.0W, or about 620 miles south-southwest of Bermuda. Otto is moving slowly to the northeast. Maximum sustained winds are near 60 mph. Otto has made the transition to a fully tropical system with thunderstorm activity more concentrated near the center. Rain bands associated with Otto continue to move through the eastern Caribbean region.

 Now that Otto has become a fully tropical weather system, it has a greater chance of becoming a hurricane on Friday. By Saturday, Otto should begin to weaken as it accelerates out to sea. Although Otto’s center will remain well-away from any land areas, a large band of squalls extends from the eastern half of Otto out to 500-600 miles south and east of the center. These squalls are impacting the islands of the northeastern Caribbean Sea. Additional heavy rainfall is expected across the islands of the northeast Caribbean today through Friday morning.  Some scattered showers could linger into Saturday. In addition to the flooding, mudslides are also possible.

Tropical Depression 17

We have been holed up now since yesterday afternoon with torrential rains and storms. Not quite a hurricane yet, but lots of damage around us. The bank behind our house has slid down over the road, and now we have some new banana trees and top soil (and rocks) that we didn't have before.

We've got in all the supplies (water, chocolate, parrafin oil for lamps, wine) and luckily we still have electricity, but we're all expecting this to go out soon.  Until then we watch DVD's, play rummy, eat.

Being cooped up with 3 little boys  has its challenges - T has retreated upstairs and closed the door to read his book and I've been reading all the meterology websites.

Missing

We are all  missing friends, family (and Woolworths). Not sure what it is about the One Month In Thing, just know it is biting deep. Has also been kicked up a notch with me sending out our new contact details, and the respondent lovely emails, all of which are so appreciated, and make us smile and whimper at the same time.

Here's what I'm really missing, right now, bar the above:

1. 5FM/Classic FM

I cannot abide the crappy radio stations here and since we cannot seem to get the new CD to work (Error 6) I switch relentlessly between Sunny FM (Peter Gabriel/Cold Play/Fleetstone Mac - O.M.G)  BVI Radio (ads and reggae) or St T Rock Station - which plays a lot of Van Halen  (I thougt they were dead). I am about to implode on the music radio front. We spend a lot of time driving here and so I need lots of (1) calming music and (2) motivational stuff to get up all the hills.

2. Dudu

Tyler finally had to swing the mop today and tackle a hell-load of washing/cleaning/dusting - as this place was going feral. I so miss Dudu. I know I'm being a pathetic White SA madam. But I am. My house is always dirty now, and we live in perpetual squalor. We do try, but I get a bit bored by it all. Do Domestic Goddesses actually do housework, or do they just pretend and then go off quietly and get a Fillipino? I'm confused.

3. Emails

This has to be said, but I was expecting more. Very few people write and my mind-reading skills seem to have watered down now that I am a few oceans away from SA (ie you may think that I know that you are OK, but I actually don't).  Please stay in touch!

4.  Jeans

We live in shorts/vests/very little/nothing. It is so hot you dont even want to think about clothes. Make-up melts off your face.  I'd happily  totter around in a bikini if I could, but aesthetics and taste rules out. My wardrobe is very short on both shorts and vests, so I need to shop in whatever the place it is that stylish Caribbean girls go to shop to look goodish in nothing (but without the bling, which is very big here).

5 Daily newspapers

As much as I love the internet, I could do with a daily newspaper. But to be perfectly frank, I've been missing those for the past 12 years, so nothing new really...

This place is amazing. You have lots of time to do nothing. I need to solve this riddle.

Birthdays and Book Clubs

We’ve all been busy, busy, busy.

Thursday was book club, which I really enjoyed, but as per usual, had problems with the driveway. Even low ratio did not magic it away. The babysitter thought I had done a runner, when I finally pitched up home, an hour late.

Yesterday was Georgie’s 8th Birthday. Can you believe this gorgeous child is getting so big? He went off to school with 22 doughnuts for his class and Dad was despatched to St Thomas to go shopping. The requisite Lego and other pressies were duly handed over and we had divine tuna and saffron rice for dinner, prepared by the resident chef. The party is actually next week – a snorkelling affair at Brewers Bay, with drinks (parents) and hotdogs (kids) at the little bar on the beach - with a snorkelling-themed ice cream cake - which is maybe a bit high risk.

Tyler finished up on Thursday, for the month and I started work on Friday. Before I had barely blinked, and said “off-shore trusts” I’d finished my half day and was off for lunch at ‘Charlies’ – because, of course, it was Friday, and traditions have to be upheld.

I have also spent the past 72 hours devouring news and ordering magazines on line. I  sent a (reggae) singing birthday
card to New Zealand and generally caught up with the world. Bliss. 

Tyler came staggering back from his US shopping trip with telephones, Wi-fi routers, kettles, towels, kids lunch boxes and a multitude of other things necessary fore island life. It is a slight case of Extreme Shopping, lets be honest - but now I can hardly wait for Puerto Rico - which is the real deal. St T is just KMart & Home Depot.

William was meant to be going to St Thomas this morning with his friend Sammy to go to ‘Coral World’ – again fairly extreme to let your 4 year old go to another country – on a boat – for a birthday party, but unfortunately Sammy has got the dreaded 'Bug" which is going around the island, so I suspect we will just hang around the beach today and recover from our hectic week! We have diving tables to learn and gardening to do, but mainly we need to do some sweeping and mopping - the house is a "bladdy tip".

Sorted

OOOhhhhh, We are now Connected.  We have internet at home even though I am squatting on our bedroom floor (do not even ask why) and Tyler had to run around with the out-of-retirement- I remember- your-parents technician to actually, physically (this is a true story) go and 'help' with making the ADSL connection at the main station his very own self......Luckily we had the background in telecoms installations and my rather vicious lack of patience, which I  had on Thursday,  when I was told that C & W were no longer doing any installations "due to  d'hurricane". I fail to understand Caribbean at such times, and generally become unpleasant and unreasonable until a solution is found. This combination of on the job technical know-how and murderous focus seems to have worked this time, but should probably not be used too often going forward  if we want to live here longer than about a year.

Anyhow, I can now buy a Kindle and shop on-line and rejoin the human race.   I was starting to have a few Doris Lessing moments - aimless White woman flopping around the Tropics listlessly in thin, sticky cotton dress (just without the sex). A month of no technology has definetly re-affirmed my love of all things Global.

News for the Week:

Friday: I went out for dinner with new friends. Since I'm no longer use to either adult company or going out at night,  I got rather over-excited and had to spend Saturday mainly cowering under our mosquito net with a Grade A headache.
Saturday: See Friday
Sunday: We went out for lunch in Josiahs Bay to celebrate our wedding anniversary - which was actually on Saturday, but see Friday.
Monday: Tyler saw a shark on our dive. I, thankfully, did not, otherwise I would have walked back to the island.
Tuesday: Signed my new contract. Never thought I'd say this but I'm actually looking forward to working again. Start on Friday - Georgies birthday. Went to spend the afternoon with lovely SA friend in Lamberts Bay. Got the children home at 7:30. Disgraceful mother. Children exhausted and still had to do homework. Anyway it was a lovely afternoon.

Highlights for the Week going forward include a new book club on Thursday. This is a very grown up one where you actually have to read the book ( The Help by Kathryn Sprockett - excellent) and behave (unlike our one in Joburg). Lunch (hopefully)  with Abigail  - Sugar Apple blogger newfriend. Starting work.

Urrr, that is about it.

Photo from Le Tartine Gourmande

PS In defence of my driving skills, which illicited some comments:

1. The cars are left hand drive (you keep looking for the gears with your left arm and end up with the door handle)
2. The roads are right hand drive (in keeping with the US/UK parity here)
3. Most roads look like this picture.

Loving/Not Loving

I’m not having a good island day today, in fact it is not even 9:30 in the morning and I’m shaking like a leaf. Reason? I cannot reverse out of our driveway in the new car. I have been trying now for the past hour and cannot get enough power to get up it, not stall, and not scrape the wall – which I managed to do in the hired car. So I’m not loving today, and I’ve had to phone Tyler to come and help me. And you all thought our driveway in Seventh Avenue was bad!!

In my efforts to calm myself down, I am playing mental Cosmopolitan love/hate lists, so here we are:

What I love about living on the island:

1. The island sparkles. My permafrost is thawing and I sleep at night. I’m starting to dream again. The pace is wonderful and everything seems manageable. I see a life.

2. Men seem very happy here. Maybe it’s the slightly swashbuckling 4X4/Machette/Work/Sea combination – but men seem to be very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Most of the “city” here are lawyers who all work long days and then seem to sail a lot. All my men – both big and small are thriving.

3. The lifestyle – when everything works – is magical. Lovely homes, sociable, fun.

4. The access to everything in both the US and Europe is so easy and reasonable. To be able to receive things 2-5 days after placing the order and for it to actually arrive through the postal system, is still a huge novelty.

5. People are wonderful – easy, friendly and supportive. I’m looking forward to making new friends and lots of parties!

What I’m not loving so much:

1. It’s like living in the Transkei. Things take time, it’s scruffy and many things remain inexplicable. I’m becoming furious about our lack of internet connection, but everyone just smiles indulgently and then tells you their horror story (“it took 3 months/2 years/never worked” etc).

2. The roads are seriously hectic. Very steep, narrow and potholed - compounded by everyone roaring around in huge cars. One gets accused of being “a bit of a girl” when any fear is shown. A Hummer is definitely an option (if only to drive over the latter).

3. Bugs. Particulary horrible are these little buggers called “no-see-ums” (because you can’t see them) which just eat you up until you develop an immunity. Then the mosquitos (“I hate Skeeto’s” says William) are constant. We have mosquito covers on all the doors and windows, and my new perfume is “Peaceful Sleep”.

4. Culture. The choice is Gospel or Reggae. There is a cinema and it only costs $2 to hire all the latest DVD’s from the local pirate above the (very good) Chinese takeaway. Satellite TV is meant to be coming to the island, so we’ll hang in there.

5. Tacky Tourism. When the cruise boats arrive, the island seems to go into theme park mode. It’s an excuse for crappy food, bad service, high prices and a knee-jerk Calypso style, which is cringe-inducing. If anyone knows ‘Nims Island’ – it is just like the Buccaneer ship arriving!

On balance however, as long as one dosn't burn out the clutch too often, it is everything and more that we could have dreamed of. Paradise it ain't - but a very good life, certainly.

I’m treating myself to an Internet Fest today - replying to emails, reading papers, looking at eBay and Amazon. Tyler is working all day at the restaurant and this is the first morning I’ve actually had to myself in about a month!  I've loved having this time off and have another glorious week until I start with Osiris at the beginning of October.

I've now cheered myself up with writing this so Happy Days.

Flat Earth Society

We still, boringly, do not have our internet connection at home yet, and we’ve not had much time to hang around the marinas’s for the wi-fi, so I'm still feeling like we have fallen off the face of the earth and would dearly love to have the internet for those long evenings whilst T is working. On the plus side, Cable & Wireless have just landed a sea-cable onto the island, and are busy putting in a large fibre optic pipe up our road, so soon we are going to have excellent bandwidths and speeds – just not this week.

We had another busy week last week with Tyler starting work at Red Rock (http://www.redrockbvi.net/)%20on on Tuesday. September is the lowest of the low season, and 90% of all the restaurants are closed – which Red Rock is doing in October. So he has a couple of weeks to learn the menu and then has the month off, before they start to get busy in November again. Frustratingly all our cookery books are in the Container, but we’ve had some fun with looking at new ideas and developing Tyler’s Caribbean collection.

We’ve also bought our new cars – which takes forever. We finally decided on this huge Hyundai Terracan (not sure I’ve even seen them in SA) as it has extra seats in the boot and will be large enough for 3 growing boys and all our clobber, and Tyler has an old Nissan Pathfinder.

The boys are really settling in now, and have a routine already. William had his first playdate on Friday with his new little friend Sammy and Georgie had a sleepover at his friend Derek, who has a fabulous tree house in his garden, where the boys spent most of the night. Saturday was a hectic blur of kids birthday parties with Georgie off at a swimming party at the one end of the island (on the scariest 70˚ degree hill you’ve ever seen, which I had to drive/slide down in torrential rain) and James on a rather ill-fated camping party at the other end of island on Saturday night. He has been so badly bitten by sand fleas that we’ve had to take him to the doctor for cortisone. It all sounded a bit Lord of the Fliesish, and don’t think he will want to do that again in a hurry.

Our big news for last week was the opening of the new supermarket, which actually looks like a normal supermarket (ie clean floors, wide isles, fresh vegetables etc) which must seem so banal as news, but is really BIG here. One S. African girl said she almost cried when she walked in, she was so happy! Anyhow we are hoping that this will raise the bar.  The island is developing so rapidly, with a new bit of civilisation been added everday. This is, of course, both a good and bad thing, however hopefully the next fronteir will  be daily decent newspapers. Since we pay $7 for a loaf of bread and $6.50 for 2l fresh milk, one can only imagine howmuch they would cost, but I can see this rather flat earth existence becoming wearying unless one has hard connections to the 'outside world'.

However, we are definetly settling well into island life. Yesterday Tyler and I started our diving course. This is our wedding anniversary present to ourselves, as it is actually how we met (diving in the Maldives) and we had promised ourselves to start diving again. It was a magical day. We went off to Norman Island – passing HMS "Wave Ruler", which is currently moored out in Drakes Channel for ‘hurricane support’ and to keep a watchful eye on the British islands, which is strangely reassuring.  We did all our mask flooding and buddy-breathing in a little bay and then went off and did a ‘proper’ 15m deep dive off Angel Fish Reef and saw lots of coral and fish including a sea turtle, a sting ray and some Spiny Caribbean Lobster, which looked about the best fresh fish we’d seen since we got here!

Other news ( you can see our world is getting smaller) is that our vegetable seeds are sprouting like triffids, and we are going to have to start our vegetable patch a lot sooner than we thought. Since the whole  island is like one big greenhouse, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, but we are not used to anything happening so quickly anymore!

No escaping the bouncy castles

Sunday 12 September


We have now been on the island for 2 weeks, and what a long week it has been. Time seems to be slower here, longer, heavier. A week feels about a month.We are all pleased it is the weekend.

William went to his first birthday party yesterday – there was even a bouncy castle (grimly roped up to all kinds of poles because of the wind and soggy ground after a night of torrential rain). Five year old parties seem to have a universal ubiquity to them, and this one was no exception. I was however impressed by the endless Pimms for the parents, and several magnums of champagne, which everyone quaffed down in plastic cups.

Last night we also had the Woodfields and Jermyns around for a braai. Tyler and I had spent most of Friday foraging (local term for food shopping) and came up with local beef T Bones, local beef spareribs and chicken drumsticks. We also found arugula (big treat) and went American-stylee with corn and potato salad. We redeemed ourselves with Tyler’s chocolate pavlova (but with blueberries, not raspberries!). We have a very basic kitchen and are really looking forward to our container arriving with our stuff – which will still take months.

We’ve managed to get all the Start Up done however – all we are waiting for now is our landline and internet connection at home. The level of petty bureaucracy on a small island is mind-blowing, but we havn’t taken to the rum (in a big way) just yet and we still think most of it is quite charming. We also need to buy 2 cars. We are currently looking at a Jeep Cherokee for me, and a Ford Durango (V8!!) for T.

We’ve also started to put out our social feelers. We’ve had dinner at Red Rock, the restaurant where Tyler is going to be executive chef (starting Tuesday) which is really lovely and the food good.  I’ve met with my new company, and am just waiting for all my Belonger papers to come through, and then I will start working.

We are also starting to find things on the radar now. Right next door to my new office is a great home store, where I’ve met a group of Cedar Mums – including a great South African girl who has been living here for 2 years (Jane Chatsworthy) and opposite my office is a brilliant French deli – where we had saucisson baguettes and a glass of French wine for lunch on Wednesday (not quite Assagi, but not half bad either).

The boys are getting into a routine with school and are settling into Spanish (Hola Mama, hasta la vista) PE, serious lunch boxes and all things new. We’ve been going to the beach most days after school which we can continue to do, as I’m only working until 3pm. The boys snorkel for hours because the water is like a tepid bath and we come home when the sun sets. After supper it’s frog-hunting and yesterday, much to all the boys delight, they found a snake. Nothing on the island is venomous, so I’m reasonably chilled about all of this – particularly since Tyler and his little friends used to go in for tarantula-teasing when they were kids.

I’ve now not read a newspaper for 2 weeks, nor seen any television (I hear a sharp intake of breath from the SA-side!). Yesterday I treated myself to ‘This Week’ (31 July) and August Elle, which had all the winter fashions in it. Since I’ve almost not stopped wearing either my shorts or vest-tops since we got here – it could have been from another planet. I think the feeling is described as being discombobulated. It’s not a bad feeling, just weirdly disconnected – bobbing along on our little watery island, zooming up and down steep hills. A strangely small life.  Quite likeable, but very different.

We seem to have a lot of time. I guess there’s not much sitting in traffic jams or other time- wasting things. We read at night and fall into these long, deep sleeps under our mosquito net, which leaves one feeling saturated in the morning.  We are definitely getting Kindles and iPads. Gadgets like that are made for places like this, where our primary distractions are either the weather and the local to-ings and fro-ings. The irony, I suppose, is that we now have more time for everything.

I cannot wait to get our home internet and feel like I will only settle when I get this.  I’m dying to Skype, update my blog, get news feeds from the New York Times and all other normal, Wordly things.  Everyone here also lives on email.

It seems like the more one feels disconnected, the more connected one wants to be.

A Normal Week

Tuesday 7 September

Hurricane Gaston has made itself felt a bit through the night – strong winds and spectacular Joburg-type thunderstorms rolling over the sea plus the inevitable power failure, so I’m already up at 5am. It is still dark but hot and sticky. Also the many roosters start crowing around about now and I can hear the neighbours Hummer growling up the driveway – so a new day starts on Tortola.

The week started off with a punctured tire and a dead bird in the driveway (have we already pissed off the afore mentioned Jamaican neighbours, d’ya think?). The drive to school is about 20 minutes and school runs from 8:45 till 3pm. It's quite late as neighbouring island kids have to get to Tortola via boat.  Little William is loving ‘big school’ (it’s the uniform) but said “it lasts forever” and they are all wilting a bit when they get home in the afternoon.

Yesterday morning (Monday) Tyler and I went to a “List”. When people need to leave the island, big lists get circulated for stuff to buy. This poor woman had been on the island for 4 months and had  lost the plot – hurricanes and tropical storms, bugs, mud-slides, incalcitrant bureaucrats, horrible supermarkets (she is from LA but has been living in Tuscany) was just all too much and she had decided to leave within 72 hours. I think this place can do that to one quite easily. It certainly has a Wages of Fear aspect to it, as can be seen from this photo from Tyler’s dads seventies collection. Many roads still look like this. [I’m posting this later and when we came past Elevator Rd this morning, a car had slid down on its roof (there is some rain today) and it looked like a poor little tortoise on its shell, thus deepening my sense of Wages of Fear.]

Anyway – us chirpy new islanders - had a shopping fest, limited only by the amount of dollars we had on us and we came away with laundry baskets, mosquito nets and enough loo paper, cling film and Twinings English Breakfast tea to last a couple of years. People here have serious Food Storage, and do impressively huge bulk buying in St Thomas and bring in their ‘national’ foods with alacrity, but there is only so much Campbells tinned soup I’m actually prepared to eat. I’m now deeply thrilled that our efficient shippers packed all our food – bar the contents of the fridge – so that I too soon can have a storage cupboard to be proud of. There is a South African shop with the inevitable Mrs Balls, Niknaks and Ina Paarman but it also has an excellent wine shop where we picked up a bottle of Chocolate Block and Pongrancz at $19 (yipee!).

The rest of the day was spent ‘Starting Up’ including an hour and half at the Cable & Wireless offices. We will have our home phone and internet in about 10 days with unlimited broadband, so excited about that. In the meantime, we will continue to hang around the cays with all the yachties and their Apple Macs on wi-fi.
We got home about 4pm and I collapsed on the veranda to read my book (the new James North Patterson) and Tyler took the kids swimming. I then had my first rum drink about 6pm with limes from the garden

Although our big garden was badly trashed last week by Earl, we still have paw paw trees, mango trees, banana trees, coconuts from all the palms, sugar apples, limes, bread fruit, tamarind and a few other things I don’t recognise. I’ve already planned out where I’m going to put my vegetable patch, but just need to find seeds (and everything else actually) to get this going. We have several chickens and their chicks scratching through the garden, so Tyler is threatening a coop.

The sun is up now and soon we will have to start the new day. I can see that it is already noon in South Africa. This quiet dawn time has been rather pleasant – so may make it a habit (after my early morning run and yoga on the beach of course).

It was wonderful to get so many emails yesterday, so please keep writing. Please also pass on the blog address, particularly to class moms and other school people so that the boys can remain in touch. They are all getting their own email addresses.

Photos from the edge

Morning

It's another beautiful day here in the islands. We are sitting at Village Cay, so that I can be on-line and then we are off to go and swim and snorkel.  The boys are busy watching Castaway on the bar TV, which is a bit how we felt last week!

Anyhow, we have found a beautiful 4 bedroomed semi-furnished house on a very nice estate on the south shore above Sea Cows Bay.  The road to our house is called the Elevator Rd as it is so steep, and our rented tank of a car, grinds up slowly – but it means we have lovely breezes (it is hot & humid) and beautiful views. The whole house is orientated towards the large wrap- around veranda, where we live. The ceiling fans are on all the timeand it  is all so - um….island and colonial,  one does feel a little bit falling into the ‘Island Living’ book  with a dash of Graham Greene and Pottery Barn thrown into the mix.

The island itself is pretty rickety and very, urr ……Caribbean! Chickens and goats are all over the place, everyone living on their veranda’s, the roads are truly bad and filled with Jeeps, Land Rovers, Mitshubisis & millions of Suzuki Vittaras. There are currently many men wielding machettes (the ubiquitous way it seems to deal with everything. T already has one!) and large, forbidding women all called Myrtle and Prudence who have loud, unintelligible opinions on everything, but are generally very sweet.

We are finding our way around the ‘supermarkets’ which all feel like your nightmare Spar in Port St Johns – and we have already firmly concluded that we need to become self-sufficient and only shop for basics and luxuries. There is a Thrupps-equivalent which is actually a good chandlers, and we have been going there a lot, but the main store stocks a whole Waitrose selection – so it’s not all bad, but Woolworths it certainly ain’t.

We are already moving onto island time and are trying not to be blasé. The boys want to snorkel and swim everyday, and yesterday James saw a sea turtle whilst snorkelling. School started late because of the hurricane, but it looks great and we think that the boys will thrive. James and Georgie are both doing Spanish, which is a novelty – but are treating everything as a huge adventure.

Trying to get back to normal, but it still feels like we almost fell off the edge of the world last week.

Welcome to Paradise - Category 4

View from our car of Sopers Hole on Monday morning

To say that the last week has been a bit challenging, would be the understatement of the century! Not only has Tortola not had a hurricane for 15 years, it can't remember the last time it had a 'real' one like Earl! We've managed to arrive in our new home the day before a hurricane hit it!

So the flight over was long but uneventful and all the other connections went well. We checked into a hotel on the north shore and were warned about a storm but everyone seemed quite laid back about it. Anyway we snorkeled around and kept saying things like "pinch me, pinch me"  and then on Monday all hell broke lose. This is a photo from the car - we had rushed over to the meet the headmaster (Tyler was actually freaking out because we were 20 mins late) and when we got to the empty school this completely incredulous person said "no of course we are closed , it's a hurricane!"

We hunkered down in our electricity-less,water-less hotel for 2 days until they threw us out and hoped that we would get to see our new life longer than a weekend. When we got up the next day (can't say we had much sleep) the world was a very different place, with major damage and a completely gob-smacked populace, who were annoyed that the hurricane services had not given a hurricane warning when one was actually hitting us (but since it was not hitting the US Virgin Islands and NOAH is Miami-based, go figure).

Anyway we survived, and since Wednesday things have been getting back to normal. The kids started school on Friday. We have found a lovely house, and we are starting to sort things out, but it is slow - mainly due to the impact of the hurricane and clearn-up.

Will get back on-line tomorrow again (we are sitting at the Nanny Cay bar with wi-fi right now) and start replying to individual mails and getting re-connected again.   Will also post more photo's and more news. This is just a quick one to let everyone know we hadn't been blown away!

I realised with deep certainty today, that we are well and truly in the Caribbean, when I tried all 5 radio stations in our brute of a Mitshubisi Dakar 4X4, that every single one was playing reggae.

Even as I type, Bob Marley (Exodus) is blaring out in the background, and Georgie has just bumped into a little school friend who lives on a yacht.

We are all well, but boy sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for!!

Are we there yet?

This time tomorrow night, we will be winging our way to Atlanta (17 hours). Then St Thomas (2 hrs) Than ferry to Tortola (20 minutes). We hope. We better be, because I can't take much more of this. Tyler and I are reduced to talking in text code ( r u nutz?) when we arn't either snarling or growling at each other.

The endless list of things still to do get done is soul-destroying. We are still driving around with a now unloved fishtank in the boot, for example. At least we are driving in a rented  (microscopic) Golf as opposed to the Audi, which went this afternoon.

We had farewell drinks at the Westcliff  last night (still to download photos) I had my farewell drinks at Ernst & Young tonight. I think we are now farewell-partied out, and everyone can't wait for us to get on that plane!  I also think we will  need a few weeks off, before we start with the round of welcome parties on the island. We have sounded less than enthusiastic when these have been mentioned.

I had a lovely email from my new employees saying " no rush" to start work, so loving the Caribbean already!  Plans for next week - once we've snorkeled a bit - will be spent settling the boys into school, finding a house to rent, buying a car, getting new cell phones, internet connections etc.  The boys start school on Wednesday.  It's so soon, we're thinking of getting the school supplies from the Norwood Hypermarket. Not sure that they will be carrying the uniform however!

Here's a picture of the boys new school - Cedar International  and a link. http://www.cedarschoolbvi.com/

Will try and post from the airport tomorrow. Afterwhich we will have a few days of radio silence, whilst we get new internet connections etc. Will also try another round of emails tomorrow. We are also staying on our South African cell phone numbers for the forseeable future, and we are sorted island-side.

Now need to pack about 150kg of luggage, so better put my flippers on.

Mummy, are we there yet?
http://www.cedarschoolbvi.com/