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.