It's Friday afternoon, after a good week in the islands. The daily squall is open us, and once it passes over - I've watched it come in over the sea from St Croix - I'm off to take the boys to swim some laps in the Nanny Cay pool, as we worry a bit about their swimming (sploshing in the sea is not equal to a few lengths of crawl & backstroke). One has to work quite hard on the competitive side of things here, it all being a bit laid back (unless it's tennis or sailing). I'm still transitioning to my Dragon Mother persona, though one has to be pretty single-minded here to get even close.
After a quiet weekend last week and 2 exceptionally abstemious weeks, tomorrow is a Big Night Out. Whilst the annual 'Rotary Gala Dinner Dance' may not sound like the height of sophistication, this is apparently the social event of the year - attended by the Great & the Good, including the uncrowned prince of the BVI, Richard Branson.
I've managed to squeeze into a 6 year old dress, borrowed some nail varnish and am having the hair done. What's even more exciting is that it's been held on Scrub Island (although this does mean unfortunately that Tyler gets to do two back-to-back double shifts -7am to 11pm) so we're going to stay overnight on Saturday, and have a nano-weekend break, WITHOUT THE KIDS! Just the very thought of someone else making the beds and cooking the dinner is enough to get me into a complete froth of excitment.
Only other big news is that we have added 4 chicks to our menagerie, got to see the Christmas pantomime (Cinderella) and finally got our Christmas presents sent from Cape Town.
It's half-term on Monday, and we're off with a couple of mums & kids to a little island called Marina Cay, for the day.
I think I may almost be happy.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The New Normal
It has been a bit of a while since I last wrote. Sorry! Despite the fact that all you think we do is laze around beaches drinking ‘Dark & Stormies’ and making sure the children are having an idyllic childhood – we also have to sit in offices/kitchens, deal with the appalling banks here (no inter-bank transfers, for example) and get to grips with the tsunami of homework ( the lifecycle of the coconut tree being the latest). Shopping, however, is a finite activity - maybe two trips a week to the supermarket. Everything else comes via the mail.
Anyhow now that we’ve been here for 5 months (feels more like 5 years) we are really getting into some routine, helped very much by Tyler switching to day shifts, with only about 2 nights a week – which has been fantastic. He’s even had the past two Saturday’s off. For the past few weeks we’ve been having lots of all the new normal. Most importantly, we’ve started to relax a bit now and we are actually starting to have some fun. The past weekend was a good case in point.
On Friday evening we all met up at The Dove , which is ‘the’ local restaurant & bar, once you’ve eaten through the menu a few times, one doesn’t really worry too much about the food anymore. Tyler joined us after his shift about midnight, and we managed to catch up with just about everyone we know. I was introduced to the partner who is opening up the new Ernst & Young office here. I suppose it was just a matter of time, really.
Saturday was spent with Tyler and the boys and some friends at Smugglers Cove, watching the boys chuck coconut shells into the sea, find the good sailing ones, and then making sails (sea grape leaves) to race the boats.
Now Sunday was definetly how you all think we live here all the time. I even said at one stage during the course of the day, that if my SA friends could see me now, they would be convinced that we had all been lost to the Lord of the Underworld (who just coincidentally happens to be Osiris) forever.
A group of us including grown-ups, teenagers and kids went bumping off on this big speed boat (the ‘FrolicKing”) to Jost van Dyke Island to the famous Soggy Dollar bar where there is only white sand, turquoise water, palm trees and a bar and no jetty. One therefore has to jump off the boat and swim to the bar which is why your dollars and a few other things get soggy. Quite a novel way to start the day off – which is then spent sitting on the beach watching other people jump off their boats.
The Soggy Dollar is also the place where the ‘Painkiller’ cocktail was invented, and unfortunately they are very, very good. After a lovely day watching people jumping off boats & driking Painkillers, we decided to go off to another island – in fact a boat called the Willy T (no clicking on this link for anyone under 18 years) which is moored off Norman Island – to finish off the day, picking Tyler up from Nanny Cay, along the way. Thank goodness, a sober person.
I must paint a small picture here. Sunday was Superbowl Sunday and Sunday was also, well, Sunday. By the time we zoomed up in the FrolicKing to the ‘Willy T’ – everyone had spent a long day on various islands doing what we had. Not sure what it is, but there is something about mooring a boat in the middle of the sea which has a strange effect on people. Hang on to your woman and lives, basically. As Jane C screamed "THIS is definetly the portal to the underworld." In fact many people did look like those slimy, scary creatures in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ (well particularly by 6pm in the evening anyway). It was all very funny but totally, totally Evil.
Somehow we managed to get home and still cook the Sunday Roast and get the children into bed. To be honest, one really cannot have that kind of day too often – we’ll all be spending the school fees on rehab. Not to mention possibly leaving kids on deserted islands and getting lost at sea.
So it’s back to the Monday to Thursday AA Club Soda Club and being responsible citizens again. Until the next time!
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| Live Webcam at the Soggy Dollar Bar, Jost van Dyke. Bit like those ones you get at watering holes in the Kruger Park, but different animals |
Anyhow now that we’ve been here for 5 months (feels more like 5 years) we are really getting into some routine, helped very much by Tyler switching to day shifts, with only about 2 nights a week – which has been fantastic. He’s even had the past two Saturday’s off. For the past few weeks we’ve been having lots of all the new normal. Most importantly, we’ve started to relax a bit now and we are actually starting to have some fun. The past weekend was a good case in point.
On Friday evening we all met up at The Dove , which is ‘the’ local restaurant & bar, once you’ve eaten through the menu a few times, one doesn’t really worry too much about the food anymore. Tyler joined us after his shift about midnight, and we managed to catch up with just about everyone we know. I was introduced to the partner who is opening up the new Ernst & Young office here. I suppose it was just a matter of time, really.
Saturday was spent with Tyler and the boys and some friends at Smugglers Cove, watching the boys chuck coconut shells into the sea, find the good sailing ones, and then making sails (sea grape leaves) to race the boats.
Now Sunday was definetly how you all think we live here all the time. I even said at one stage during the course of the day, that if my SA friends could see me now, they would be convinced that we had all been lost to the Lord of the Underworld (who just coincidentally happens to be Osiris) forever.
A group of us including grown-ups, teenagers and kids went bumping off on this big speed boat (the ‘FrolicKing”) to Jost van Dyke Island to the famous Soggy Dollar bar where there is only white sand, turquoise water, palm trees and a bar and no jetty. One therefore has to jump off the boat and swim to the bar which is why your dollars and a few other things get soggy. Quite a novel way to start the day off – which is then spent sitting on the beach watching other people jump off their boats.
The Soggy Dollar is also the place where the ‘Painkiller’ cocktail was invented, and unfortunately they are very, very good. After a lovely day watching people jumping off boats & driking Painkillers, we decided to go off to another island – in fact a boat called the Willy T (no clicking on this link for anyone under 18 years) which is moored off Norman Island – to finish off the day, picking Tyler up from Nanny Cay, along the way. Thank goodness, a sober person.
I must paint a small picture here. Sunday was Superbowl Sunday and Sunday was also, well, Sunday. By the time we zoomed up in the FrolicKing to the ‘Willy T’ – everyone had spent a long day on various islands doing what we had. Not sure what it is, but there is something about mooring a boat in the middle of the sea which has a strange effect on people. Hang on to your woman and lives, basically. As Jane C screamed "THIS is definetly the portal to the underworld." In fact many people did look like those slimy, scary creatures in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ (well particularly by 6pm in the evening anyway). It was all very funny but totally, totally Evil.
Somehow we managed to get home and still cook the Sunday Roast and get the children into bed. To be honest, one really cannot have that kind of day too often – we’ll all be spending the school fees on rehab. Not to mention possibly leaving kids on deserted islands and getting lost at sea.
So it’s back to the Monday to Thursday AA Club Soda Club and being responsible citizens again. Until the next time!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Bonds, equities & potato prints
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| Source: BVI Beacon taken on 20 Jan |
For those of you who don't quite know what I do when I sit in the office in the mornings (I think that is everyone?) what I'm really doing is paving the way, through my growing knowledge of the stock market, for my first mega yacht - like the one above.. When we first saw it on Monday morning on the way to school the boys were jumping up and down screeching "look at the submarine" - which it does look a bit like, or maybe something out of a ropey Austin Powers movie
But I, of course, knew better. Because of my job (monitoring the performance of our trusts and mutual funds under investment) I get to do a lot of reading of the Wall Street Journal, Bloombergs, the FT & Yahoo Finance, which means I'm learning an inordinate about Russian oligarchs, 'Wealth & How to Spend It' and mega yachts. So I just happenend to know that this yacht, called 'A' is the largest mega yacht in the world and belongs to some 30-something year old Russian. You can read all about it in the WSJ link above. Now, we do get to see our fair share of mega yachts in the 'Hood, but this one really takes the prize for unfettered ostentation and FUness - all $300 million of it. Anyhow, nothing like a little bit of bad taste to brighten up a Monday, and T tells me that they went and scraped it on the Scrub Island dock as well, so that made us feel even better.
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| Boys at Sailing Club |
My solution to digging myself out of melancholy is usually to get hyper-organised and 'do things'. In a moment of pure madness, I signed up to run a craft workshop for 5 year olds once a week (WHY?) and now I'm faced with my first one on Wednesday. I'm feeling hugely daunted - flat-out terrified actually, and will understand the psychology of it all at some later stage - but there you go. I'm running a toddlers craft group. Amazing.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Counting 1-2-3
Clouds are still hanging low over both the island and me, so I'm counting my blessings 1-2-3 to try and cheer myself up:
1. Not many boys...
.........get to go on a real treasure hunt, on a yacht, around various deserted islands, now do they? This is exactly what Georgie did last Saturday for his friend Derek's 8th birthday party. This is the lively crew above, and the picture right is the explorers on Salt or Ginger Island, not sure which, finding clues to locate the treasue. We picked up Georgie about 5:30 and then went and joined some friends who were SUPping (Stand Up Paddling, for those of you who didn't know this important Caribbean acronym) at Brewers Bay, and enjoyed a Savanah as the sun set. (I'm ignoring the fact that I also lost my new Calvin Klein sunglasses in the dark - but what are 'mere things' when you have Supping at Sunset?).
2. We now have the BBC...
.......having loaded 'My Expat Network.Com' on the laptop, we can now watch the BBC live online. William is glued again to CBeebies, and apart from live streaming, you can also watch programmes that you missed for up to a week afterwards. Now, we just need to track down a cable that joins up the laptop to the actual TV screen. We also get the (English) Sunday Times delivered to us on Monday (ie The Monday Times) so I can really read the TV Guide purposefully.
.... although it is in Spanish and has a heavy leaning towards what I call 'ballet' music, it still feels fab to have Mozart instead of Shaggy, for a change. In this vein - we have also found out that the boys can take their Royal College of Music exams on the island and do not need to fly to London. I have also - rather rashly - promised to take them to concerts in New York, in our self-declared war against cultural isolation. I suspect I may be setting the bar rather high here.
4. T is starting to do some day shifts....
....which means we get to see him occasionally. Today we are meeting him at the beach at 3:30, which is something we havn't done in a while. Last night we even went out for dinner date, but unfortunately chose the worst restaurant on the island, and were finished by 9pm.
5. Howmay people have a Rasta gardener?....
........I now have Irwin from Domenica, who has a spiritual connection to my flowers and veggie patch and who has to be the most fabulous gardener in the world. I've even started my new orchid collection. Everything grows like weeds here. Jah power?
Alright, I'm feeling much better already and I can even think of more - a potential trip to NYC for my birthday, a Kindle that downloads in a blink, the fact that my nephew spent time with my Ma in London - but speaking of which - William has stumbled into my bed, where I'm writing this, and wants his CBeebies fix, so better sign off.
Another day is starting here on the island. It's Sunday, so that means that the CLEANER comes today (better whizz around and tidy everything up, otherwise it gets chucked into the washing machine) and there's no bigger blessing than that, I can promise you!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
New year, Old lives
Judging by the number of emails I'm starting to receive again, everyone is getting into the new year. It's lovely to hear from everyone again.
Not sure if it's all the endless unpacking that is causing some cosmic disturbance, the 24/7 single-parenting, the mind-numbing repetiveness of domestic drudgery, the fact that we have only had one car for the past 3 weeks (as mine has a BURNT OUT CLUTCH - so no surprise there) and our garage appears to be scouring the world for a part via the internet, blah de blah de blah.
Anyhow I've started off the year a bit blue, which is a good thing I suppose, as things can only really go up from here.
I'm missing big things & small: ironed sheets, old friends, long driveways, sports in the afternoons, laughing about obscurities, the cosiness of familiarity
In this new year, I'm feeling slightly daunted by everything new. The island bit is not so difficult ( turquoise sea with bad roads) but the rest is.
By next year, everything will not be so very new new new. So here's looking at everything old - good or bad. I'm saying Happy Old year and Brave New year to all of you!
Not sure if it's all the endless unpacking that is causing some cosmic disturbance, the 24/7 single-parenting, the mind-numbing repetiveness of domestic drudgery, the fact that we have only had one car for the past 3 weeks (as mine has a BURNT OUT CLUTCH - so no surprise there) and our garage appears to be scouring the world for a part via the internet, blah de blah de blah.
Anyhow I've started off the year a bit blue, which is a good thing I suppose, as things can only really go up from here.
I'm missing big things & small: ironed sheets, old friends, long driveways, sports in the afternoons, laughing about obscurities, the cosiness of familiarity
In this new year, I'm feeling slightly daunted by everything new. The island bit is not so difficult ( turquoise sea with bad roads) but the rest is.
By next year, everything will not be so very new new new. So here's looking at everything old - good or bad. I'm saying Happy Old year and Brave New year to all of you!
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Christmas Box
The past 3 weeks have been pretty intense, but good. My mother has taken to island life like a brown boobie pelican to the Caribbean Sea and seems to have enjoyed her time here. She hasn't even missed TV, though I suspect she has watched just a little bit too much Dreamworks & Walt Disney for her liking and is ready for a good dose of BBC.
The festive season kicked off with a real bang - I had my office Christmas lunch and the First Annual Girly Chrimbo (Christmas Blow Out) Dinner on the same day- so had to pace myself a bit, as they both involved getting on boats and a lot of alcohol. I survived both and was even joined by Tyler at the Girly Chrimbo which moved from The Last Resort to the Cabanon, the local nightclub dive where we all had a jolly good opskop and lots of fun. We realised that it was actually the first time T and I had had actually gone out for an evening without the kids. Amazing.
Christmas Day was spent with all our local 'family' and we had turkey and all the trimmings. Father Christmas was also very well desposed towards the Caribbean this year and lucky moi got her Kindle, and the boys got their well-travelled Hot Wheelers. T got a large contribution to his iPad and the day off.
In fact T has actually been very brave and changed jobs. You may all recall that his first adventure into BVI Cheffing had its challenges, and long story short - he is now the Sous Chef at Scrub Island, a new 5 star resort owned by Marriot (http://www.scrubisland.com/) with a large professional kitchen and in charge of all the baking and patisserie. He's very pleased and enjoying himself a lot.
We knew we could push ourselves, as we were off to do nothing at Cooper Island for the week, and that's exactly what we did, apart from a wonderful dive to the RMS Rhone on Tuesday and reading 2 books (Freedom - Jonathan Frantzen) and Chris Cleave (absolutely brilliant). We also ate and drank a lot, musn't leave that out. The weather wasn't brilliant - but as you can see from the photo which really looks like a cheezy postcard, this is a relative thing.
New Year was spent at Trellis Bay Fireball Party, all very new agey with calypso thrown in - but where in the world could you take your 81 year old mother and 5 year old boy, and still have a good time? T was working (Foie Gras stuffed morels, Kobe beef etc) but joined us just after midnight and we still hooked up with the Clatworthies around 1:30 for a glass of champagne. Like we really needed another one,
Today we all feel a little shell-shocked but are off to yet another invitation, New Years Lunch - so I need to dash, but just wanted to post all our family news.
We've been thinking so much about all of you around the world - in New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and England - and thank you all for your wonderful support and patience with our family this past year. It has all been pretty hectic, but we think we've laid down some good foundations for the future and we're all still in one piece (it was a bit touch and go at some points along the way!) but we're looking forward to 2011 - the year in which everything hopefully stays exactly the same as last year!!
Lots and lots of love to you all and all possible health, wealth & happiness for 2011. xxx
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