The Simple Life is Hard Work

Just to make things more fun, Tyler fell off his scooter bike yesterday and is now known as the "Limping Chef'.  Lots of 'owieees' and a badly dented rented bike, ups the anti just a little bit more.

I thought I would post my shopping list from  yesterday.  Hyde Park, it is not:

1. Large roll non-stick gauze
2. 1 hospital size pack of clinical gauze
3. 5 boxes antiseptic cream
4. 5 rolls Micropore
5. 20 pound sack chicken feed
6. 3 yards shade cloth (for veg patch)
7. 10 pots (couldn't help myself because was at the garden centre anyway) unidentified pretty flowering plants
8. 3 Bottles of cheap South African wine (to keep me happy)
9. 6 X Heineken
10. 6 X O'Douls (to keep Tyler happy)
11. 1 box Orea 'Funstix; (to keep boys happy)
12. 1 gallon Clorox (bleach) to keep cleaner happy. Her nickname is The Chlorox Queen, as she bleaches everything in sight

The rest of the weekend was spent applying all these things so at least the house is clean, the clothes are washed, we've had enough of a social drinks out  in the dying hours of Sunday evening for me not to feel too martyrish. I think I'm going to have to moonlight in the office this week, I have so much to do by Saturday.

Daytripper

Little Thatch

I've got a new term for our Caribbean Lexicon - "Billionaire Days". Bit like "Queen for the Day" - but with more toys.

Believe me when I say that our lives on a day to day basis, are  fairly normal, humdrum and even maybe a tad 'suburban', though I do struggle a little bit with that one - as there really is nothing faintly suburban about this place. However, our daily routine is much the same as Johannesburg - just with lots of  housework, terrible roads, no shops, trillions of yachts and heartbreaking scenery all around one.

And then sometimes, just to make up for it all, we have these 'killer' days - where you just have to pinch yourself to see if it's real.  This past Sunday was such a day. We were invited to have lunch on 'Little Thatch' - a private island, just down the drag. So off we went, black eyes and all, joining the local party at the 'Jolly Roger' dock to be picked up by the island 'rib' (rubber ducky) loading up with the ubiquitous cooler boxes full of wine and Caprisuns - and then zooming off to paradise.  Half of the excitment is all the logistics and all that boaty-nautical stuff which I'm beginning to love. It's deeply glam.

As much as our Wickedly Good Day a few weeks ago on Joost & the Willie T  represets how the world views Caribbean rackety living, so Little Thatch was kind of how I vaquely imagined our lives would be on Tortola. Ha ha ha. This beautiful little house on a white stretch of palm-lined beach etc etc. Anyway we dont live like that, but we do get to play occasionaly like that and have a perfect day, without all the fuss of having to actually be a billionnaire.

I'm starting to learn a few rules here: Never ask people what they do for a living - many reply with a blank look. Never assume that people are employees - they tend to own the place. I could go on, but I wont -  I'll reserve this for dinner parties in Johannesburg, where I'm back in 10 days time.

I'm so looking forward to some shopping and friends, but rather dreading the 20 hours flight.  I guess it will all seem like Pluto again and places like Little Thatch,  a mirage.  I also wont be hopping into my G5, like some others we know. That will be me in Economy Class with my iPod on max, feverishly wondering how I can make my first million, which should be just enough to buy a little pondok-with -a -view on Tortola. 

Smiling & Waving (with a sad post note)

When my camera returns form the States after being fixed, I’m going to be like everyone else and do short blogs with lots of pictures! I feel very old-school in that I compose these long, detailed missives, when everybody else writes in Tweet-speak and sticks to the Face Book formula. I’ve forgotten yet another Face Book password, so I officially resign on that front. I' also starting to really get back into cooking & creating, so I may chuck some of that in as well. I think our lives in the islands are starting to become fairly predictable.

During some particularly trying times last year – my favourite expression, taken from ‘Madgascar’ I think, was “just smile & wave boys, smile & wave”. This was done through gritted teeth whilst not resorting to physical violence. Can’t say I’m missing any of that, but for some reason this morning – it came to mind again.

This time for very different reasons, thank goodness and quite sweet, at that. As I sat in the 5 minute ‘tail-back’ into Road Town with the 'Swedish House Mafia' blaring happily on the CD (Shakira – the Spanish version, no less – gets firmly replaced once the boys have been dropped off at school) I realized everyone was tooting each other and sticking out their arms to wave good morning as cars joined the queue from various feeder roads – and there you were – a new ‘smile & wave boys’ , just like that.  It was a happy moment.

Lest I bore you with too many bucolic scenes, I had another ‘moment’ last night – as we sat ‘en famille’ after dinner – one child practicing the piano, Tyler reading the newspaper, another child watching CBeebies or something and another one doing their homework – it did feel a bit like a scene out of “Little House on the Prairie’ and my heart swelled, even though I, of course, was doing the washing up, albeit with a very large ‘island-style’ G & T (80% gin 20% tonic) on hand.

All this affirmation has been necessary as Monday was our 6 month anniversary of being here – and man I am really missing my friends, and had a bit of a wobble. It creeps up on ‘ya.

Anyhow I made a big Bobotie and kept myself busy, and tried not to miss everyone too much, and updated my lists and did all the things that you do when trying not to think too much – and the day passed, and the next day arrived and everything was OK.

On the weather forecast this morning, the radio said –“the weather is exactly the same as yesterday. It does have todays date on it, but yep, it’s exactly the same!” You’ve gotta love it.

Postscript: I wrote this blog on Thursday day and unfortunately on Thursday evening I had a car accident. I was on my own coming up the notorious Elevator Road.  I’m OK apart from 2 very black eyes, but the car is probably a write-off. Luckily fully insured. Although we are all a bit shaken up' , it all could have been a lot worse, and everyone has been very sweet and supportive. It's truly a case of what doesn’t kill you, makes you wiser.