Easter 2012




Sitting room, Carrot Bay


It's been wonderful having Tyler home this Easter, despite being busy with over 20 dozen hot cross buns to bake on Thursday and Saturday. Best of all, we had friends around for Easter Lunch which absolutely forced us to deal with some boxes and so by Sunday the house actually looked semi-habitable (see above). It used to be a bit like this in Joburg: Christmas drinks every year saw things like the roof being mended and hedges trimmed, so I'm always up for entertaining as a means to get some DIY accomplished. The weather on Sunday was the perfect balmy Caribbean spring day with everyone sitting on our balcony, lots of excellent wine and conversation and the house (almost) big enough to not notice the children.

William was a bit anxious that the Easter Bunny might not find us in our new house, but luckily, being a very modern child, he suggested we went on the Internet to update our address, so thank goodness then for http://www.easterbunny.com/ as all the eggs were again safely delivered. James, also being a modern child, noted that our domain address must still say South Africa, as  the eggs were from Woolworths. Arn't kids amazing these days? The wonders of an expensive education.


The rest of the weekend I'm afraid was tinged with great sadness, as our beautiful Abyssinian cat Mimi, disappeared on Thursday afternoon. We've hunted and called and have all been rather distraught.  She's been with us for almost 15 years and despite the fact that she was a queen of note and physically accosted the children when hungry, we love her dearly. Friends have been very kind to tell us of amazing stories of their cats pitching up days, weeks and even months later - so we live with a little hope. Even poor old Jasmine the parrot has been calling for her (along with an excellent imitation of the Croakie aned our spiffy new oven's timer switch).

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!