Girl Friday, not to be confused with Black Friday

Forgive me yet another crummy Blackberry photo, but I keep missing all these Cadbury Moments in the bakery- so no future websites and cookery books, if I do not put perfectionist tendencies aside.  I'm sure you get the gist, anyway. Lots of baking and pumpkin and pecan pies for Thanksgiving. 

Today is wonderfully wintery - cool, rainy, misty. A Stay-At-Home type of day to sort out the million and one things that need doing, but also to avoid the Black Friday mayham in town today - despite our almost complete lack of shops - as well as 3 cruise ships. This didn't stop me however from doing my first bit of random Christmas shopping and I also managed to over-indulge my stationary fetish. Which normal woman can resist a pretty box of 'merci beaucoup' Letterpress cards? Not this one. And of course they weren't on sale.

So I'm now happily ensconced indoors, sort of getting on with all my Girl Friday things, but not really. We are putting up our Christmas decorations in the bakery tomorrow, which need to be made today - so that's also on the To Do list. There's bakery ordering to be done, cheques to sort out, judo belts to be found, quotes to send out, accounts to update, Christmas cards to fiddle with, advent calendars to fill. An endless moosh of domestic, business, bureaucratic, bakery and family things that just pours in relentlessly.

So of course I thought I'd start with the blog, in no way a priority, but in the same happy basket as the Letterpress cards, which makes for quite a jolly morning really.

So there you go: I'm both grateful and thankful for random mornings. We all need 'em once in a while.

Boys Sailing & View Report

View from our bedroom. About 6am 

This past week was a cracker. The bakers baked & baked and baked and the orders continued to stream in, which is fantastic.  Tiredness on my part (something to do with hoiking cases of Heineken up steps. Don't ask) led to a few dark hours at the end of the week. This little video about artisanal bakeries lifted my spirits more than any cocktail could have.  There is something deeply satisfying about owning an artisanal business with happy customers. Long may it continue.

The boys had a good week settling in at St George's, which went well. It's a happy, traditional little school and seems to be just right for our boys.

Our 'baby' William turned eight this week. It feels like a bit of a watershed in a way: Boys are now out of the puppy stage and all thriving and growing. It is complete mayham trying to be the mother of three busy chaps and to keep up with the washing/judo belts/caps/shoes/homework etc, so most time I don't even try. They're good value for money however, which means we don't need things like TV's or a social life, as they provide enough entertainment to replace all of that. Tyler says he is going to say on his deathbed he wished he'd watched more television, not less as one is supposed to say.

No boy can ever have enough Lego.

The view is still there - as you can see - and there was very little sailing activity.

Good One



Caribbean Dinghy Champs 2013: Winners Team BVI

I'm officially sick of being miserable. A friend said to me this week "write a book!" and my reply was (after "when?") was "what about? It's so boring going on about how hard it is all the time".  I'd be like a Leonard Cohen soundtrack, although I believe he's cheered up now that he's in his Seventies. Hope yet, then.

I'm also pretty betwixt & between with this blog: 'What To Do With The Blog' is another refrain in my Leonard repertoire. The reality is that I have a lot of local readers and well, basically - the smaller the island, the blander the blog.

I made the silly mistake the other day of "unfriending" a couple of "friends" (not knowing you could just "switch off" "friends" - isn't virtual life fantastic?) which resulted in a fair amount of unsolicited vitriol. So unless I pretty much want to offend half the island, I will have to continue to write about the view and how tired I am. Not forgetting Children's Sailing, of course (see below).

Anyway it's been a pretty good week. James went off to Antigua as part of the BVI sailing team to compete in the Caribbean Dinghy Championships, and not only did Team BVI win, but James & his sailing buddy Sam came second in their class. Pretty bloody awesome, really.

We've also has some much needed new staff join us in the Bakery to help with our ever expanding traiteur range and to start preparing for Christmas, which is already giving me sleepless nights (oops, there I go again....."It's foooour oh clock in the moooooorning....." drones Leonard).

It's all fabulous.

We've also had to concede that homeschooling is for people who actually stay at home, unlike us, who don't. Georgie & William start at St George's Primary School tomorrow, where their father went.  St George's is an Anglican church school with an excellent academic track record following the British Caribbean Curriculum. It's in the historic part of Road Town in a brand new building,

St George's

but shares the lovely St George's Church Hall and grounds. Tyler still remembers listening to the bats in the bellfry during long assembly's.

The boys will be able to learn steel pan and also  how to spell properly and seem oddly excited about having to polish their shoes.  Given that they will be attending Diocesan boarding schools, St George's is going to be an excellent bridge, we feel.

We are sad however that homeschooling didn't work out: Our one month of the real deal (September) was a lot of fun and left me in no doubt that homeschooling gives kids a huge advantage. We will continue to learn French and some other stuff to keep us all on our toes.

The bakery is also rocking. I'm up to Florida later on this week to kick start Phase 2 in World Domination.

I'm still feeling a little heart sore about family but c'est la vie, life goes on.



Family

Eight years ago my family exploded after a series of heart-breaking tragedies. Within a few years most of us had moved from South Africa to the four corners of the universe: One to a remote mountain-side in New Zealand, one to the very outer suburbs of  Melbourne, one to Far North West Ireland to a tiny surfing village, us to a tiny dot in the Caribbean - with another on an isolated farm in Kwazulu Natal - and a few 'normals' in Cape Town and London.

It's sad that we are all so far apart. I almost envy the Kennedy's their Hyannis family compound, though in reality it's probably hell and the kids detest going there and it's all drama.

When we do get together it's a Big Treat, much anticipated and looked forward to. We've been counting down to seeing my nephew Myles and his wife Jane who visited us from Ireland this past week.  Myles & Jane run a very successful café bakery called Shells in Strandhill, Co. Sligo and more recently a deli/ gift shop. They've also just finished writing their second cookbook and are winding down from their Summer season.

Although we don't see much of each other, we get along famously due to our shared interests and history. So in amongst surfing and beach trips and restaurants, we chatted for hours and hours about lives, our families, recipes, children, our dreams, our frustrations, our fears, our hopes and everything else under the sun. We laughed hysterically at silly jokes, teased each other mercilessly, sang a lot and had a ton of fun.

Nothing is more important than family, surely? The feeling of being part of a clan is something almost primal and the sense of continuity and security is both self assuring and re-energizing.

This past week was truly a very happy week and we loved showing the island off as well - but all too soon it was over unfortunately, as we all get back to our busy lives.

We knew this was going to be our one small respite before the Season starts to take hold again, and we made the most of it.

In true family style.