Saturday, April 30, 2011

A royal treat of a day


About 7pm yesterday

It's not often that one's birthday falls on a royal wedding day, and you get a holiday thrown in for good measure - so yesterday really was a very special day. Tyler & I were up at 5am (not difficult as the roosters are already in full cry by then, and the sky is pinky gorgeous) to set up the BBC streaming download. We connected just as The Brides Mother Left Her Hotel. I got a bit distracted and teary-eyed about it all and ended up watching until The Vows, which then made me horribly behind in the big cooking marathon that needed to happen before Noon, when all my new friends were descending for our Royal Balcony Party.


We cooked, and whipped, and swept and shoved all the junk into the black-hole we call the Study, and I put on my tiara (yes, I had a rather large choice here could you believe) and then commenced drinking buckets of bubbles, guzzling copious amounts of Coronation Chicken (which was delicious if I say so myself) and watching an awful amount of Wedding TV.

The food went down really well. The Cherry Coke Ham was delicious and the rhubarb and Pimms trifle was a good one. We even had juicy strawberries and cream, which with champagne has to be one of the ultimate 'more-ish' puddings around. The piece-de-resistance however, was the birthday cake - which I had iced at midnight the night before (after several largeish aged rums) and was made with marshmellow fondant - which was a brilliant discovery in 'Boer Maak 'n Plan-ness' - as although we had a choice of tiara's, fondant icing was a push too far, for the local shops.

The millions of children disappeared into the hens coop or up the road, or somewhere - I was blissfully unaware of them, and then they all re-appeared when it was home-time, so perfect, really.

Of course, we are now still washing up - the downside to every party in this place - but I thought I'd give the sweeping a break to quickly post this. This afternoon we are off to watch a BVI international rugby match (against Barbados) where we seem to know half the team and the average age is about 38!

The children are back at school on Monday, there is piles of work to catch-up with now that all the holidays are over - but this afternoon I think I might just watch a few re-runs of yesterday, and dream a little more!


Tired, happy boys!


Monday, April 25, 2011

West Indian Weekend

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It's been a lovely, long, lazy weekend, but I'm now rather tired of the little angels and very pleased Tyler has taken them off to fly kites at the local Easter kite flying event on the Cruise Ship dock.

It being the crazy Caribbean, we are never more than a few days away from the next party, and the Dawson's are contributing two over the next week. My birthday happens to fall on the Royal Wedding day (Friday) so we are having a Balcony Party (instead of a street party). About 30 grown-ups plus kids, drinking lots of Prosecco and eating Coronation Chicken, whilst we look at the view and the Queen's dress/coat ensemble.  We are actually hooking up the TV in honour of the event. I'm making a Pimms & Rhubarb Trifle, and Nigella's Ham in Cherry Coke, and we're kicking off with Planter's Punch - so you can see that we really are assimilating rather quickly, if our menu is anything to go by!

Next Saturday, it's James's 10th birthday party at Scrub Island. 15 X 10 year old boys eating a BBQ and playing on the water slides. Should be fun. I've also remembered Tyler & I have a grown-ups party that evening, so we do give thanks for weekends like the one just ending, in anticipation for the next two coming down the track.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Friday, April 22, 2011

Happy Easter


We've just had a lovely Good Friday. T is working the whole weekend  as the hotel is busy - so we are making the most of just being here and chilling (or 'limin' as they say here). We don't intend to do too much, apart from going to the beach & seeing friends. I'm also planning for the Royal Birthday Party for next Friday (the 29th) which is our Balcony Party for the wedding and me - taira's optional! Being part of the Empire, we of course, have a holiday that day.

Late last night the Baker made some Hot Cross Buns, which we ate on the balcony this morning, for breakfast. The boys really enjoyed them:


After a lazy morning, we went off to the beach, as the weather at the moment  is quite glorious - calm, hot and so still you can see all the islands around us like St Croix and Puerto Rico, plus wakes of boats forever.

We flopped around the beach for the afternoon ( me joyfully re-acquanting myself with Nigella's Forever Summer, from which I think I'm going to be cooking from for next week)  and then off we went for to tea with friends. Later we had Fish Pie at home, The boys played on James's new laptop which he got for his birthday on Tuesday , and T and I barely moved from the balcony - it is so beautiful.


That's the boys in the sea on the left hand side!

When I unpacked all our little Easter decorations this week, the last time we had seen them was in Plett last year - where we have spent the last few years for Easter. It gave me a little squeeze of the heart as I remembered friends and happy times. Although always tinged with a sadness of missing, life is good here - as you can see - and our little family is flourishing.

So as we think of everyone across the world - we send you warm West Indian wishes for a Happy Easter and hope that you also have happy days and lots of Easter eggs!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Have a Great Day

Cedar Primary School Sports Day


It's been rather a long time since I last wrote, but I've returned from my mad dash to the other side of the world, 4 days travelling and 6 days in South Africa. My trip on the way out will go down as possibly Worst Trip Ever - and I've had a few.
With a tight connection between Atlanta and Johannesburg to make (and only one flight a day) somewhere over Florida we were cheerfully informed that we were being re-routed via Birmingham, Alabama to re-fuel. But Have-a-Great-Day. We were then even more cheerfully told "Do not ask us any questions as we do not know what is going on. Here's the Delta Customer Care number. We suggest you call them. Have-a-Great-Day". Things then started getting seriously surreal. Luckily I could get a connection - from the plane - and managed to call the 'care'  centre, which was situated in Salt Lake City -  who then cheerfully told me that I was going to miss my connecting flight in Atlanta as I'd been re-routed, and that there was nothing they could do. But Have-a-Great-Day.

I then called Tyler in the BVI, who also called Salt Lake City ( I thought he might have a magic password or something - in retrospect probably Have-a-Great- Day) but Tyler renamed the line the Delta Couldn't Care Line, which didn't bode well. I  was then told they could re-route me via Amsterdam - but only the following day - which required a day in Atlanta and a long lay-over in Amsterdam, arriving Joburg on Tuesday morning (this was Saturday afternoon). This would have been a FOUR day journey. When I slightly freaked out at this (I had 3 meetings on Monday and was only in Joburg for 4 days)  I was told there was nothing they could do, but Have-a-Great-Day.

At which point, I'm ashamed to say,  I exploded. I said I was having a really @#&* awful day, thanks to them and if one more person told me to Have-a- Great-Day, whilst being extremely unhelpful, I was going to implode. At which stage I was almost threatened with air marshalls. At which point I shut up.  Tyler found me another flight on Expedia and I arrived a day late in Joburg with no luggage. I really dont think I could live in the States. Talk about passive-aggressive.


Pre-Gala drinks on the balcony - dressed up as Flappers

Joburg & Cape Town were a blur. I barely got time to see anyone and felt sad about this. The upside is that I'm going to spend a good few weeks working in SA over July/August and bring the kids with me. Tyler also wants to join us in August for a holiday, which he desperately needs. He's still limping and pretty tired from working 7 days a week. It was wonderful to be back in the manicured sublimeness of Joburg Suburbia and the Gautrain absolutely ROCKS. Joburg as a lifestyle destination is a globally well kept secret, since the general perception is Mexico City in Africa. The truth is it's more like St George's Hill. With sun.

The past week on the island has been maniacally busy. The kids had their Sports Day today and break up for Spring Break on Friday. After a bad start on Saturday, firstly dropping T off at 5am and then getting a flat tire, the Cedar gala fundraiser (Roaring Twenties) was a great success and really good fun. Every online 'flapper' outfit must have been sold out  and for some reason all the chaps came dressed up as Al Capone. For a tiny community (200 kids) we raised $170,000 (R1.2m). All the classes had to put together themed baskets and I did the one for Williams class called 'Master Chef' (which included baking classes with T) which was auctioneed for $2500.

Dave, kids & supper!
On Sorry Sunday, I had to get up and start baking for a tea party we were having for Hillary, our neighbour and old friend of Tyler's parents. Tyler was meant to be on Scrub by 5am but I think got in about 8am. We had various 'island family' round for a very pleasant afternoon on the balcony and some friends dropped in with a crayfish/lobster they had caught that afternoon whilst diving.


Last night we were woken up with the house shaking and found out this morning that it was a 5.1 earthquake - which was border-line scary. But whatever...

....have a Great Day!