Bonds, equities & potato prints

Source: BVI Beacon taken on 20 Jan

For those of you who don't quite know what I do when I sit in the office in the mornings (I think that is everyone?) what I'm really doing is paving the way, through my growing knowledge of the stock market, for my first mega yacht - like the one above..  When we first saw it on Monday morning on the way to school  the boys were jumping up and down screeching "look at the submarine" - which it does look a bit like, or maybe something out of a ropey Austin Powers movie

But  I, of course, knew better.  Because of my job (monitoring the performance of our trusts and mutual funds under investment) I get to do a lot of reading of the Wall Street Journal, Bloombergs, the FT & Yahoo Finance,  which means I'm learning an inordinate about Russian oligarchs, 'Wealth & How to Spend It' and mega yachts. So I just happenend to know that this yacht, called 'A' is the largest mega yacht in the world and belongs to some 30-something year old Russian. You can read all about it in the WSJ link above.  Now, we do get to see our fair share of mega yachts in the 'Hood, but this one really takes the prize for unfettered ostentation and FUness - all $300 million of it. Anyhow, nothing like a little bit of bad taste to brighten up a Monday, and T tells me that they went and scraped it on the Scrub Island dock as well, so that made us feel even better.  





Boys at Sailing Club

 We've had a good week with T still doing day shifts and things getting back to the new normal. Our children are becoming as scheduled as any other global, middle class kidsters - with soccer, sailing, extra maths etc. Luckily we get to chuck it all up and go to Cane Bay Garden on a Friday afternoon - the kids get to play with about 30 of their best friends until the sun sets, and the moms have a few Painkillers or GODW (glass of dry white) and relax a bit. This Friday was extra special, as the fisherman trawlled their nets off the beach, and they had 30 over-excited expat children 'helping' them bring in the fish. This was all happening as the sun was setting. The cruise ships had all gone, there were only 'locals' on the beach and it was so magical that we were all secretively thinking that this was exactly the reason why we put up with island life, for moments like that. Wish I had my camera there.

My solution to digging myself out of  melancholy is usually to get hyper-organised and 'do things'.  In a moment of pure madness, I signed up to run a craft workshop for 5 year olds once a week (WHY?) and now I'm faced with my first one on Wednesday. I'm feeling hugely daunted - flat-out terrified actually, and will understand the psychology of it all at some later stage - but there you go. I'm running a toddlers craft group. Amazing.

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!

New year, Old lives

Judging by the number of emails I'm starting to receive again, everyone is getting into the new year. It's lovely to hear from everyone again.

Not sure if it's all the endless unpacking that is causing some cosmic disturbance, the 24/7 single-parenting, the mind-numbing repetiveness of domestic drudgery, the fact that we have only had one car for the past 3 weeks (as mine has a BURNT OUT CLUTCH - so no surprise there) and our garage appears to be scouring the world for a part via the internet, blah de blah de blah.

Anyhow I've started off the year a bit blue, which is a good thing I suppose, as things can only really go up from here.

I'm missing big things & small:  ironed sheets, old friends, long driveways, sports in the afternoons, laughing about obscurities, the cosiness of familiarity

In this new year, I'm feeling slightly daunted by everything new. The island bit is not so difficult ( turquoise sea with bad roads) but the rest is. 

By next year, everything will not be so very new new new.  So here's looking at everything old - good or bad.  I'm saying Happy Old year and Brave New year to all of you! 

Thank You

Make your own free greeting

Christmas Box

Well, a  Merry Christmas and  Happy New Year to everyone - here's hoping for world peace, an end to poverty and in my case a liver that needs some serious time-out in January.

The past 3 weeks have been pretty intense, but good. My mother has taken to island life like a brown boobie pelican to the Caribbean Sea and seems to have enjoyed her time here. She hasn't even missed TV, though I suspect she has watched just a little bit too much Dreamworks & Walt Disney for her liking  and is ready for a good dose of BBC.

The festive season kicked off with a real bang - I had my office Christmas lunch and the First Annual Girly Chrimbo (Christmas Blow Out) Dinner on the same day- so had to pace myself a bit, as they both involved getting on boats and a lot of alcohol.  I survived both and was even joined by Tyler at the Girly Chrimbo which moved from The Last Resort to the Cabanon, the local nightclub dive where we all had a jolly good opskop and lots of fun. We realised that it was actually the first time T and I had had actually gone out for an evening without the kids. Amazing.

The next major highlight of the season was the arrival of our 40 foot container - roughly the same size of our (furnished) house last Tuesday and the knowledge that we had 16 adults and 18 children for Boxing Day lunch (why o why do we do these things to ourselves?). Anyhow more than half the boxes and furniture went straight into storage, and we are still wading through piles of junk (Tyler has 3 pairs of long john thermal underwear for skiing, for example) and just so much STUFF.  So we unpacked and unpacked and unpacked and unpacked (you get the picture) and we'll eventually get there, but at the moment it does feel like a very high mountan to climb. It is wonderful having our things again however.

Christmas Day was spent  with all our local 'family' and we had turkey and all the trimmings. Father Christmas was also very well desposed towards the Caribbean this year and lucky moi got her Kindle, and the boys got their well-travelled Hot Wheelers. T got a large contribution to his iPad and the day off.

In fact T has actually been very brave and changed jobs. You may all recall that his first adventure into BVI Cheffing had its challenges, and long story short - he is now the Sous Chef at Scrub Island, a new 5 star resort owned by Marriot (http://www.scrubisland.com/) with a large professional kitchen and in charge of all the baking and patisserie. He's very pleased and enjoying himself a lot.

Boxing Day we had a good old braai and all our new friends came to sit amongst the boxes, giving new meaning to the day  (Boxing Day - geddit?!)  and it was very chilled with people leaving around 7, and us collapsing into the bubble wrap.

We knew we could push ourselves, as we were off to do nothing at Cooper Island for the week, and that's exactly what we did, apart from a wonderful dive to the RMS Rhone on Tuesday and reading 2 books (Freedom - Jonathan Frantzen) and Chris Cleave (absolutely brilliant). We also ate and drank a lot, musn't leave that out. The weather wasn't brilliant - but as you can see from the photo which really looks like a cheezy postcard, this is a relative thing.

New Year was spent at Trellis Bay Fireball Party, all very new agey with calypso thrown in - but where in the world could you take your 81 year old mother and 5 year old boy, and still have a good time? T was working (Foie Gras stuffed morels, Kobe beef etc) but joined us just after midnight and we still hooked up with the Clatworthies around 1:30 for a glass of champagne. Like we really needed another one,

Today we all feel a little shell-shocked but are off to yet another invitation, New Years Lunch - so I need to dash, but just wanted to post all our family news.

We've been thinking so much about all of you around the world - in New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and England - and thank you all for your wonderful support and patience with our family  this past year. It has all been pretty hectic, but we think we've laid down some good foundations for the future and we're all still in one piece (it was a bit touch and go at some points along the way!)  but we're looking forward to 2011 - the year in which everything hopefully stays exactly the same as last year!!

Lots and lots of love to you all and all possible health, wealth & happiness for 2011. xxx

Longhauling back to Pluto

I'm now back on the island, having been away in London & Johannesburg for 2 weeks. It was a good trip and wonderful to see everyone again. In Joburg I managed to do some 'local' things like go to the Ridge farewell for Trishie Parker and my SA Book Club Christmas Lunch. In London, my dear friend Ailsa hosted a dinner for my London Friends & I, and since she is a professional cook (regularly for David Cameron, I'll have you know) it was all very delicious. I also did lots of Extreme Shopping, mainly at Woolies - and came home with piles of island clothes, christmas wrapping paper and toys. All of this plus my 81 year old Mother, had to be lugged back over the Atlantic Ocean, and we flew out just in time to have Gatwick close behind us, due to the snow and ice.

Having been away from South Africa for 3 months, several things jump out at one, which clearly I'd been missing in the Caribbean. My strongest observation is that everyone smiles all the time - on the streets, in the shops, when they are trying to sell you stuff at traffic lights etc. It made me realise that here is not very smiley, in fact the general mien is grumpy with a dose of indifference and impatience thrown in for good measure.

I was then overwhelmed by the level of 'boutique hotel' living everyone enjoys in their own homes in Johannesburg. This included:

1. Folded pyjamas under the beautifully made bed, which was turned down at night

2. Tea - made & brought to one, on a tray with a tray cloth and a homemade biscuit

3. Suitcases unpacked, cothes hung up and/or washed, ironed and returned.

Not for nothing that my good friend says that 'they can switch the lights off round me, but I'm staying here with my bediendes'. In fact someone in Johannesburg very boldy stated that Housework Makes You Ugly. I sadly now have little choice but to get on with it as I'm no longer a SA Princess. So it's back to my jumbo bottles of Fabuloso and 'Spray & Pray' as Billy delightfully coined it.

The flight was pretty awful. We had the requisite screaming baby for 7 hours from London to Antigua, with me very loudly barking "It needs some Calpol' like Tourettes Syndrome, and then sticking my headphones on to listen to the The Suburb's 'Arcade Fire' three straight times in a row - also very loudly. We got to Antigua with relief, only to see the same family boarding the little plane to Tortola. It's a cruel world. The baby then continued to scream, falling into an exhausted sleep somewhere over St Kitts & Nevis. It is at times like these, that we are all very grateful that rum is so cheap in the Caribbean, in fact they should have given it to the baby (which was teething). Bugger the Calpol.

So I'm back in my sparkly life with my little brown boys, who are about to break up for the Christmas hols on Wednesday. Tortola really did feel like Pluto whilst I was away - it seemed so far away and so unimaginable, particulalry in the freezing sleet and slush of London. But it's real, I'm here and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. Our container is meant to be arriving this week, and I feel slightly weak at the knees about where we are going to put everything and all the unpacking, but nothing that lots of rum and a machette can't sort out.

Diving Monday + Cupcakes

Tomorrow, William turns 5 but we held his party yesterday (Sunday)  at UP's, the local Cine/Bowling/Food Court complex - which took 8 years to build, bankrupted the developer, who is now in court for fraud as the former owner of Western Union - from which he apparently used funds to build UP's....

It's all reads a bit like a Peter Mayle story -swop Caribbean for South of France, but I, for one am very grateful for his selfless community sacrifices and the kiddies 'Jimmy Jungles' play area - saviour of parents. The party was fabulous, enjoyed by William's entire class of exceptionally noisy 5 year olds and their parents - most of whom were all looking & feeling a bit fragile after a very good grown-up party the night before.  Being new to the island, and not (yet) invited - I of course was being Uber Mummy, icing cupcakes on a Saturday night, and hence was feeling Red Bull energetic on a Sunday, which is unusual really.

William and his self-declared future wife, Asia (another Saffa)

Anyway, today I'm clapped  - clearly the price for perfection but also after 8 hours of diving and being on a very choppy boat, but we did finally qualify today - and what complete fun it was. Up until now we had pretty much had private lessons, and very quiet and sedate dives in calm waters. Today was completely different. We had a boat-load of Other People, all Americans down for Thanksgiving holidays ( I found out today, to my horror, that the school CLOSES for 2 days for Thanksgiving. Most of the kids are either British or Other, and only a very small minority is American - but over 60% of the teachers are American - being an International School with the IB Programme. Damn).

But back to diving: We've also had high winds, rain and an actual cold front (a relative term) so today was really horrible weather, but this did not dampen the spirits of our dive boat and the 12 people on it.  

We had 2 DM's - a very mad Italian and an insane Brit -  who were so rackety and up for fun, that I did wonder for a minute or two. But good old PADI achtungness, never lets you down and we had excellent dives, in fairly trying conditions (panicky newbies, lost fins, broken masks, crappy O rings - and then finally -  lost toursists). We saw three sharks - the first one as I put my face into the water on getting in and still had my snorkel on and a subsequent 3 after that. It went downhill from there. When we got to the bottom (40 ft) even the DM's had to admit it was one of the biggest nursery sharks they had seen - wallowing about 10 metres in front of us, eyeing us out with their horrible little eyes. Anyway after Tyler had buddy-signed that it was probably not a good idea for me to dig holes with my nails into his arm (blood...) I calmed down a bit and remembered to breathe again. I'm now so over sharks...

A feature of here is 'Rendevous' (ie collected and dropped off from our yacht or boat). So, when it came time to drop off some of our very fun guests from Pittsburgh - they couldn't remember the name of their boat (this after several Red Stripes). So to cut a long story short, we drove (is this the right word?) around looking for their charter, which took a looooonnnng time, but provided a fascinating, albeit wet & windswept guided tour of Peter & Norman island inlets, moorings and sounds.

We finally got back at 4pm (usually back by lunch-time)  and then had to go racing off to pick up the kids from school (only an hour late). Thank heavens for after-care and a small community who "know the Dawsons always dive on a Monday" so knew we hadn't abadoned the children (tempting as this often seems).

I'm also starting to plan quite vigourously - my 10 day trip 'off-island' to London & Joburg. I can't even begin to tell you the logisitics necessary for this. Needless to say, yet another vast cast is necessary - mainly from the Phillipines, but also a few new friends and some solid back-up from a good team in the office. It all feels a little bit too soon, although I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone again. I feel like I've only just left - in fact there must even be a few people who never knew I had even left in the first place.

I leave Friday 26th - am in London on Saturday for Xmas shopping, get into Joburg on Sunday morning & am back in London again, the following Sunday. Return to the West Indies on Wednesday 8th Dec with my Mother, who is spending a month with us over Christmas.

If I feel tired now, how do you think I'll be by Friday?  When you all see me back in Joburg or London, looking so laid-back - it's actually going to pure sleep deprivation and an overdose of cupcake baking.