Post Festival Summer Mix

The Ananzi Dancers. Photo by Buddha Mather for Virgin Islands Festival

We've had a week long party here on the island for the Emancipation Festival. For the past 3 days it was in Carrot Bay, so our sleepy little fishing village was throbbing (literally - our windows were rattling the music was so loud) with gangsta rap, fungi, reggae, calypso, R & B and more Rihanna than anyone should ever have to listen to in a lifetime. It's been a lot of fun, but after three nights of no sleep the novelty had definitely worn off although last night we watched the Olympic Closing Party (lets be honest there was about 3 seconds of 'ceremony') which was just as fabulous. A total jorl as we would say in South Africa. We particularly liked the nuns on rollerblades.

Carrot Bay Donkey Races: We're there somewhere in the crowd

Anyhow since the good old motto of "if you can't beat 'em,  join 'em" definitely applied this week, here's my contribution on the party front for a good summer playlist and what we are listening to at the moment (I've tried to only do 'lyric-only' You Tube posts to try and help with the SA crappy bandwidth challenges):

Uno numero with  Madeon Finale: A classic, happy Ibiza-type dancy song which usually kicks off our housework on Saturday morning as it's always on BBC's Radio One (until we cannot stand another second of dubstep that is);

Next up is the Dawson 2012 Summer Anthem, the Rudimentals Feel the Love. The video is also fantastic and it's so uplifting it could get one through 13 miles of half marathon if played on a loop. Think it's going to be played a lot on the Floating Gin Palace SG;

OK, we've heard this a few (million) times in the past week: Young Jeezy's I Do ft Jay Z and Andre 3000. It makes one want to drive around in a droptop Bentley with fake Olympic Gold medals of a summers evening (well, not literally);

Sticking with the theme: " I just want it all" by Kidink. I can relate to the words but maybe not the brands, or the lifestyle for that matter. Anyway still like the song.

Since we're now fully in Miami party mode, might as well stay there with Avicii's Levels. I'm sure I recognise half the people in the video from the Soggy Dollar and the Willie T.

OK, enough mindless dance music, time for some goody Jamaican dancehall. By the way, how cool was Jamaica at the Olympics? TEK DAT as we say here in the islands with the whole of the Caribbean rooting along as well as stellar performances by T & T, Bahamas & Domincan Rep. I'd play some more local music but am having trouble trying to find out what half of it's called. Anyway we all love Movado. This was his beeeeeg hit played to death on the radio 'Delilah' and a newer one with Laza Morgan. Video could have been made here.

Since I've not been very successful at id'ing local music we need some Superstylin for good measure. We've been listening to this for about a 100 years and it plays everytime. One more festival dance biggie: Ne-Yo's Let Me Love You. Almost over this, I think. 

Okey dokey. Time to mash it up (arn't I just the funkster?) with Ed Sheeran & Rudimental. I didn't like the original version of this, but I love this one.  It's enough to make one teetotal.

Sticking with indie: Cage the Elephants "Shake me down". Another Radio One favourite but doesn't quite do it for the mop swinging however.

As we all know it hasn't been the easiest 6 months for us with very little seeming to go our way. I've always loved the Stereophonics and Maybe Tommorw just about sums up how it's been along with Jack Johnsons Crying Shame. I know we'll look back on all of this and laugh oneday, but it's been pretty gruelling. Things are absolutely on the up now finally. Oven parts are being couriered from New York as I type, shelving and counters are being installed today and the outdoor paving is starting this week. It is actually going to happen.

Some more good 'fight-back' music beloved of both Tyler & I and played heavily on our long car drives from Joburg to Plett: Devil by Stereophonics and then time to end on a high note with some South African music: Dave Matthews Band and some good rousing kick-a$$  rocking that has kept us from keeling over with self-pity.

Hopefully soon we'll be able to do a "Live from the Bakery" double compilation album with more Dawson favourites. We'll aim for a Christmas release by which time the bakery should be open....
Enjoy xxx

And then the earth shook....

On Thursday we experienced a 4 point something earthquake whose epicentre was only 22 kms (10 miles) north of Tortola, which meant we got the loud bang, ominous rumbling and then lots of rattling and shaking.  This also happenend  to coincide with the day Tyler finally switched on the oven in the bakery, with our temporary water and our temporary electricity.  As posted on Facebook: "That wasn't an earthquake darling; just a mass, global, collective, happy cheer from your friends and family. " So that explains it then! 

Dosn't he look pleased!

Sad to say we did have to switch the oven off again pretty quickly after the photo opportunity, as flames started leaping out the back and then it shut itself down. Sigh. Anyway, it obviously needs some tinkering after its long journey and an Engineer or two. This does not stop us however from  pushing full steam ahead for a bakery opening in the first week of September.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. The kids got hold of my camera, and found all kinds of apps I never knew I had:

Not Dads oven

Baking with Kathy

Georgie's view of his younger brother

Gracie the Pirate

Princess Fussy aka Flora featuring Georgie's spelling

Apart from buggering around with my camera, the boys had another fun week. Yesterday they went to the salt pond behind Smugglers Cove to look for fiddler crabs. This is definetly not a place for girls. I stayed home and did the housework and then pinned lots of pictures of perfect, clean houses. 

Boy Heaven

Kool Aid

OK, I've cheered up and am back to my old self again. It was a good week.

Here are some of the things that made the difference:

We all need a little bit of Ab Fab in our lives

We watched the show on BBC last Tuesday which was so hysterical we had to send the kids off to bed as the brilliantly politically incorrectness was just confusing them.

Gracie goes for a run

This is Gracie's new trick. She runs full pelt up the mosquito screen door  and then swings from the top a bit before scuttling down again, like a spider. We get this daily show from our bed!

We actually got water this week in the Bakery. Still no electricity, however.  I'm now completely over trying to be calm and upbeat about this drama dragging on for 4 whole months.  Just give us the goddamn electricity, you $#heads. I want an OPEN bakery and a bank account with money in it again and REAL BREAD to eat, for f*%ck sake. I've officially run out of patience.

Beetle Slug Bug

This reminds me so much of Tyler's deeply chic little black & cream Bug he had in Joburg
(before it was stolen, that is).

We are picking Susie up at the airport in the Cat!

The floating Gin Palace has been booked and we are looking forward to sailing away on the 23rd August. We will be pottering around Anageda and the North Sound with Susan Gawith & Boys. We are all counting the days for our trailblazing friend to arrive!

I couldn't agree more

How cool was the Opening Ceremony?

Tyler had to sit holding 2 wires together as we had rigged the TV to watch BBC (ie NOT NBC!)

My brilliant nephew Myles and his beautiful wife Jane launched their amazing cook book:
The Surf Cafe Cook Book. Buy one on Amazon now!

Lettuce Turnip The Beet. Totally gratuitous cute picture which if it doesn't make you smile
means you are a completely cold, heartless bastard

And lastly: Happy Days. Flora is settling in as you can see!

"What I miss about the BVI"

Harmony & Tyler on Tortola c1970 

My Mother-in-law, who lived on Tortola in the Sixties and Seventies, read my blog today and emailed me her list:

"Here's my list of misses:

1. I miss the warm weather
2. Wearing sandals all the time and being barefoot
3. Just having summer clothing, no winter
4. The warm sea
5. Being a hippie
6. The world passing by and not knowing it.

I know it has all changed, but I still miss it".

It was rather humbling to get this email and made me realise how grateful I am to my intrepid parents-in-law who came here in the first place and started this rolling family adventure. I'm completely in awe of my MOL Harmony, who was the island 'It' girl of her day and delivered 3 kids (all by Dr Robin Tatt, one during a hurricane) on Tortola and used to go shopping on the seaplane ("The Goose") to St Thomas.

I do love living here and it's been almost two years now. Our family is scattered around the world in outposts as far as Sligo, Melbourne, London, Cape Town, Rorkes Drift  and New Zealand as are many families. I just miss them all so much. Sometimes Facebook is not enough. I want to swop notes and things  with my nieces and ruffle my nephews hair and hug them all till they can't breathe. I miss chatting in my Mother's sitting room and I miss my friends so much that I zone it out.

I'll soon get over my sad patch and start planning new things. For now, it's comforting to see these old photos which provide some continuity to our lives here. They make me realise that this is really home for Tyler and it is a wonderful place for the boys to grow up.

Tyler, Tortola c1972 

Another List

Since I’m having such a grumpy Monday morning which hasn't been helped by beautiful photos of Plett, I’ve decided to have a good wallow and list all the things I really miss now that we live in Paradise:

Plettenberg Bay, South Africa: This place is hard-wired in my soul and today I'm missing it

So here we go: Apart from my friends, my family and Woolworths, I really miss:

1. Electricians and plumbers who actually turn-up within about a week of when they said they were going to and then actually do the job. As in finish it and get paid. Genuis

2. Lunch at Assagi on Friday’s

3. Walking the dogs at Delta Park on a winters Sunday afternoon

4. EFT’s and all those straight forward banky things that one takes for granted. They dont exist here

5. Sitting on Lookout Deck eating Mossel Bay wild oysters with a glass of Thelema Sauv Blanc

6. Saturday breakfast at the Woolies in Hyde Park Corner

7. Fynbos. All of it

8. Dunkeld Flowers. Oooh, I really-really miss those huge, gorgeous big bunches of flowers that I used to get for the house every Friday

9. Portuguese fish sellers. Also the bakery at Dunkeld which I can’t remember the name of (eeek)

10. Snuggling under a down duvet in Jojo’s house in Shepherds Bush, although last night I did wake up about 3am completely frozen as I’d fallen asleep directly in front of the AC turned on full blast on the coldest setting.

11. Lovely ladies in matching Johnson doeks and aprons. Black and white ones for dinner parties (I think I may weep now)

12. Sloane Square. Kings Road. My London spiritual home.

13. The view of the Thames from Victoria Bridge on the train

14. Ille le Pain in Knysna. The lunch tasting plate with those pork rillettes & cornichons on wood-fired sourdough.....

15. The Saturday Organic Market on the Plett-Knysna Road

16. All the little shops along Fourth Avenue Parkhurst. And Parkview. And Greenside

17. Driving through the Ttstiskama

18. The whole of the Winelands and all the wine

19. Driving through the Karoo. But not Colesburg

20. Driving back from Hermanus - the view of Cape Point from Hangklip

21. The view of Joburg driving from the airport. I've always coveted the Karl Becker painting of this

22. The Jacarandas on Pallinghurst Road, Westcliff

23. The Ridge

24. Martini’s at the Polo Lounge

25. The Bush. All of it

26. The view from my brothers Rorkes Drift farm stoep looking out over towards Isandlwana

27. The fountain in the middle of Zoo Lake

28. The view from the Ambassador Hotel, Bantry Bay. Seagulls, crashing waves, seaweed.

29. 44 Stanley. Not the parking

30. Salome Hurwitz

31. Garden Centres: Lifestyle, Craighall Park and Parktown North Keith Kirsten. Oh golly golly I miss those places so much. Three of my vases were broken last week. Heartbreaking because probably wont replace them now

32. The War Memorial view down Saxonwold Drive

33. Sportsmans Warehouse. Can you imagine howmuch sports clobber we are going to have to buy on the Internet for 3 boys?

34. Ribbons, goedetjies and Akhalwhayha’s at Oriental Plaza.

35. Weylands on Thesen island…

Actually I’m now thoroughly depressed, so I’d better stop. It’s not that bad here.

Read the top line carefully

Summer Fact Sheet

Tired Boss, Dog, Child

Sometimes I struggle to throw a blog together. So tonight (Sunday) as I'm feeling so tired, crabby and otherwise, I've decided to just make a list of everything that's happened in the past week. Bit like the last blog really:

1. Monday: The Boys did wonderful things with Kathy, like build forts.
2. Monday: the Plumber arrived at the Bakery. We all got very excited thinking that he would connect the water after FOUR MONTHS OF WAITING but after about 5 minutes he left, saying he needed "earth moving equipment" and never re-appeared for the rest of the week.
3. Tuesday: Kathy is fantastic: The Boys are having a ball. Summer continues.
4. Also on Tuesday: The Gas Man arrived  at the Bakery, but since we are missing electricity (the Electrician was there on & off, mainly off) and a concrete slab, he just plonked his exceptionally large gas tank with Medusa-like connections down and that was it. So w now  have gas, But we don't.
5. What happened on Wednesday? Please remind me. I think we cooked until about 2:30am in the morning or something silly like that.
6. Thursday morning: I was so tired I could weep as I still had to get up at 5am.
7. Thursday Night: We did the Maples 'Summer Party' at Old Government House. Hectic beyond words. 137 pax.  It was a very ambitious menu, but we all got to live another day. I was on the Pass, so think menopausal Gordon Ramsay.  
8. On Friday, I was so tired  I felt my age.
9. Friday: We took Kathy & the kids to Bananakeet  for sundowners and supper. It was a very pleasant evening,
10. Friday night: We slept like the dead.
11. Saturday. Did as little as possible. Read my Kindle and tidied the kitchen
12. Sunday: Spot of Spiritual Duty for some. Others stayed in bed and read the New York Times on their Kindles. Then the same person cooked until she dropped. And then we all went off to Wells Bay for lunch and a swim.
13. Sunday: Of course we came home and watched the final day of the Tour de France. Nothing more exhilarating watching cool dudes in Lycra whizzing down the Champs Elysee's. I actually perked up. 
14. So did Bradley Wiggins. God Bless Sky. As he had won, we had to share a bottle of Chablis in the Colonies. Also Ernie Els won the Open. Another half bottle. And the Cricket.
15. OMG the Olympics start on Friday.
16. Business may suffer for the next month.
17. As may I.

Boys Summer List



Happy Boys
 (photo by trudy )