Coming along

Wickhams Cay 11 New Building: OBMI design plus my whimsical scribbles

You'll see I've been fiddling around with the blog design. It's not there yet, but I'll keep working at it. I feel like I'm becoming a "web mistress" ("web widow" more like it) with lots of evenings spent on my own clicking away at buttons whilst we continue to look for 'our' webdesigner (please refer any if you have). However, I lack even basic skills and usually end up in a terrible mess, as you can see from the blog!

It's been a good week. Tyler and I went diving on Tuesday for Valentines Day, off the back of Cooper Island. Our second dive was one of the best ever and we even got to see a Lion Fish (which you are allowed to spear here as they are invasive). The rest of the day was spent with the kids (and me missing my hair appointment - don't even go there) and in the evening we watched the latest Masterchef and "Moneyball". By our standards, an excellent day!

James has been away for most of the week at his Grade 5 Camp on St Johns, USVI. He took about 300 photos, which I'll download and post 1 or 2 here. I don't think he has wrenched himself out of Tweeniedom just yet. When asked about anything ("how was the food?" Awesome. "How were the hikes?" Awesome. "How were the tents?" Awesome) so hopefully by the weekend we will be able to have a conversation with joined-up sentences.  

On Monday, the first of our moves happened to Carrot Bay and all our storage has been sent over the mountain; about 100 boxes (at least half are books) which I cannot wait to unpack. We do the big move on Monday 27th Feb and Tyler and I have both taken the week off to settle in and catch up on a million errands that never seem to happen. Things are starting to happpen.

We also need some big chunks of focused time to get cracking with the set-up of the Bakery, which is now a few bricks high and hopefully still on track. It's super-tiny, as you can see, but is just our little starter  'factory'. The minute we have got that up & running, we have our beady eyes on the bakery-food-deli-outlet - which we have found, but just need to do some begging and pleading to convice the owners that we are a good idea.

Not much plannned for the weekend - sailing, packing and the usual.

A 100 Stollen later....

Our first day as a 'family' business - me clutching a Red Bull  

OK, a quick post whilst I wait to put in a new batch of mince pies into the oven. It's Friday evening - the 23rd. We've cancelled on the party we were meant to go to in order to bake and fill orders which have been coming in. I think Tyler has literally had about 10 hours sleep max this week and we've just heard that he has to work on Christmas Day. This has me hitting my lowest point here, to date - mainly driven it has to be said, by sheer exhaustion.

However, we count our blessings:

Firstly, and most importantly - Greg is out of the danger zone and it looks like he might be out of hospital, as of about an hour ago. Can't tell you howmuch joy that brings us.

Secondly, after about 100 stollens, 500 gingerbread men, 500 mince pies, and about 1000 Christmas biscuits - our first little outing as a bakery business has been wonderfully supported and very positively received. It's been so long in the planning that it is hard to believe it is finally happening. But it is, even as I type - Tyler is baking sourdough loaves in our tiny little kitchen and I need to go in and make 30 gingerbread girls and 30 personalised gingerbread hearts.

I think we may be having Chinese take-aways for Christmas lunch, as so far I've not managed to get to the shops. An interesting place to be in about 24 hours before Christmas, especially on an island (things run out quickly). We might have to do one of those quirky 'alternative' Chritsmas meals that bored Food Editors dream up and nobody makes (spaghetti bolognese for Christmas anyone?).

Thirdly: It's been winter here this week. Fabulous! I think I've managed to wear a long sleeve T Shirt every night. We've even switched off the fans and the boys have their duvets on their beds.

Finally: We're happy, we're all healthy, the boys are thriving and we see a great future on the other side of all this hard work and sacrifice. We miss our friends & family most desperately. My heart aches with it. But here we are, our second Christmas away (this time last year our container arrived today and we unpacked all of  Christmas) still standing.

Happy Christmas everyone, joy be with you and yours.