Week Two: Mission Normalising with an excellent Sunday thrown in

Week Two of the bakery being open and we're still standing, but only just.

I always thought we knew what hard work was, but all of before now feels like 'kindergaarten' or 'school fees' or whatever other metaphor one would choose to describe the past 25 years subordinate to the Real McCoy: Start-up bakery business, job, 3 kids and until today (drum rolllllll please!) ....no help. But that has changed as we now have the wonderful Claudette in our lives. I think I may have just become Claudette's Mercy Mission: "Goodniss meee, dis house is beeeeg. Ah ma 'lord, it's Dirteeee!" I am completely terrified that she will not come back again. We've already been fired by a cleaner once before. Hold thumbs for Saturday, when she is meant to join us again.

So the Bakery is up and running and we are very happy about this state of affairs.  The Baker gets up every morning  at 3:30am to get to the bakery by 4:30am to have the first bread out of the oven by 6:30am, in time to get the second baking in before the first lot runs out. It's all good. Really very satisifyingly, humbingly, gratifyingly good.  Hopefully we have another new baker starting in 2 weeks time and we are also looking hard for our bakery outlet premises. We need both very much and soon.

Saturday was spent doing either bakery (the baker) housework (the bakers wife) or parties (the bakers children). On Saturday night we all fell asleeep almost face down into our braaied ribs and baked potatoes.

Sunday was actually a Perfect Island Day, thanks to the McCallums, Bonnie & Paul with re-Action and their lovely friends Larry & Cindy. We sailed off to Peter Island on the 55' Cat with 6 families including 10 kids. I thought this was pretty brave of Bonnie & Paul. We moored off Peter and the kids kayaked, snorkelled and swam to their hearts content whilst a group of grown-ups took a rib dinghy over to the "Rhone" wreck for a dive. It was a wonderful, wonderful day with lunch set out on the beach for us and a lazy afternoon spent jumping off the boat and swanning around.

The Dawson Clan, who were 'Sundaying' the hardest of all - just needed this bit of time out after a few gruelling weeks. It was as we had wished it to be: hard work during the week and family time over the weekend. A perfect day which just happened and can never be ordered, which are of course the best ones of all.

Here are some photos:

"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 

TGIF

Cow Wreck Beach  - where we will be paddleboarding on Sunday

Sometimes things just get a little bit too pioneering here for a suburban girl like me. Another grumpy, sweaty mother muttered this week about how men are really happy here but that women were not quite as keen (I'm putting this very politely). I made this observation in one of my earlier blogs, but didn’t quite realize that we would be fixing our own car using the Internet. for example. The Ford had a hissy fit this morning and shut down. Mechanics wielding monkey wrenches wern't going to work this time, so we were left with Google. Just what you need after a long week. A look at the 'history' information on our internet researches for this week reveals such fascinating subjects as 'household mould', 'swelling caused by injections’, ‘why hens don’t lay eggs’ and ‘weekend breaks to NYC’.

We made the difficult decision this week not to go back to South Africa in July, primarily because - frankly -  I’m exhausted. So it’s a 'staycation' for us (trendy Recession-speak) and the slightly daunting prospect of 9 fun-filled weeks to organize for the children.

We’ll both take August off, and maybe do a bit of island-hopping and Puerto Rican shopping. Just how Robinson Crusoe we are with the island-hopping (ie camping on the beach) will depend on the budget, but I’m hoping for a little bit of R & R (ie boutique hotels with hot and cold everything).

Lesley Styles - see blog link

Sunday is a huge day for us, as Tyler has his first Sunday off for the year. As it’s Fathers Day, a big group of us are off to Anegada, a beautiful coral island which is part of the Virgin Islands, but about an hour away (all the other islands take about 20 minutes). James is riding in a bike race, we’ll do some paddleboarding and snorkeling, but Anegada is really famous for its lobster – so I’m mainly looking forward to lunch!

Have a good weekend everyone.

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.

3. I have found a classical radio station... 
.... 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!