December 2014 on St Helena Island

The Island gets quite excited about Christmas. Decorations have been in the shops for a few weeks and people are talking about getting their decorations up in readiness for the festivities. We still can’t quite get our heads around the heat coupled with ‘Santa Baby’ blasting out on the radio. The shops are festooned in colourful shiny things and most play the radio in the background. Plenty of opportunity then to hear a festive tune or three, whilst dashing up Main Street, in my lunch break.
The swimming pool has re-opened this week following its winter refurbishment. I’ve spotted a fair few people wandering around with damp hair. After Christmas I am sure Annie and I will resume our lunchtime swim a couple of times a week. It is lovely to get out of the oppressive heat that will be here soon. There’s no air conditioning here, so there is little escape from the intensity that summer brings.

Our eldest son is visiting for Christmas. It will be lovely to see him. I’m not sure how Smudge (who is essentially George’s dog) will react. She hasn’t seen him not for almost 18 months. Henry is also very much looking forward to having his brother here with us. The distance apart has made them grow so much closer and this has become more and more evident. They are always chatting via the internet and seek each other’s opinions. Such a change to when we left the UK!
Back to Christmas preparations!
There’s not lots to buy here so many ex-pats (particularly those with children) shop on-line in the UK (or mother country) during September to ensure its arrival in time for Christmas. We decided quite early on not to buy much for each other at Christmas, preferring to do something nice when on holiday instead. This year we are arranging a Water Sports Day whilst George is here. It’s proving very popular and lots of people want to come. Getting there involves a boat trip so numbers are limited to the size of the boat. There’s also been talk of the Whale Sharks being around by then too, so if we are very lucky, we might see some en-route to our destination.
Our Christmas tree will go up in the next week or so and hopefully my turkey will arrive on the next ship in from Cape Town. I’ve been buying snacks and treats as they have appeared on the shelves so have a little stash! Current Island shortage appears to be egg noodles! I usually keep a fairly healthy supply but as I was running low, I’ve been asking around. Apparently they are extinct here! Even those shops where you can get stuff when no-one else has it are out of stock. And another blow to my shopping routine is the closure before Xmas of Y and T, where various things can be purchased.
By way of an update, we went to put up the Xmas tree, but soon discovered that the top half is still in storage in the UK - never mind, Andy has improvised successfully and our furniture is here - very happy and looking forward to George's arrival tomorrow morning

Blind Dog In Trouble

We finally moved house at the weekend and despite the set-back of being unable to retrieve our big furniture from the Wharf, the move went relatively smoothly. We enlisted the services of a ‘man with a van’ AKA Larry ‘Nails’ Thomas, who arrived promptly at Piccolo Hill, loaded up and started the slow journey from one side of the Island to the other with our goods loaded up on the back of his truck! We left the dogs at Piccolo with Henry, returning to collect them along with the last minute items we’d forgotten an hour or so later.
So for a week or so we have been without any sofas or chairs, dining table, bedroom furniture and curtains, all of which I’ve had shipped from the UK. We were going to go for cheap but functional, but somehow that got lost in translation once I started shopping!
So to the title of this post. Back in our three storey house in the UK, we had stair gates fitted at every point of danger. As almost all properties here are single storey, we hadn’t had to bother with such things and Pippy quickly learnt her way around and had no points of danger either inside the house or in the garden.


It was quite amazing to watch her count the steps down to the garden from the new veranda and work out where the rooms were in the house. For the first few days we used the clothes airer as a barrier at the bottom of our new steep stairs. We quickly realised that both blind and sighted doggies had worked out how to squeeze through the bars and get upstairs. This was soon replaced by a more substantial barrier.
This morning as I come out of the bedroom, I spotted Pippy at the top of the stairs. By the time I had said ‘careful’ and ‘stop’ she had taken a step to the left and began tumbling down the stairs, barrel rolling all the way until she reached the bottom. Andy ran down to pick her up and even after this terrifying experience her little tail was still wagging. Andy sat with her for a few minutes before putting her down and checking her all over. Thankfully there was no sign of any injury, but I am sure she will be a bit stiff tomorrow.
It reminded me of the moment when your baby rolls off the bed and there’s nothing you can do to stop it happening (and yes, that happened twice –once for each son!)

All Change

That’s one of the things about Island life – It changes in the blink of an eye. Dynamics change, friendships change, things you were comfortable with change. Good job I am a Change Manager then!
On a more serious note though, you do need to be adaptable and willing to compromise and able to accept rapid changes in your environment.
Even though I am a seasoned accepter of change, my environment changed rapidly this week when my Island buddy, Hazel and her husband David left suddenly (just 36 hours’ notice).David is undertaking some work in London for a few weeks/months – return date unknown. You tend very much to gravitate towards people in similar circumstances and we were very alike – older children, one here on Island and an older one back in the UK – same taste in music, lifestyle etc. Hazel and I would often shop on Saturdays whilst the other family members went scuba diving and we would have dinner together often, sharing a couple of bottles of wine. We never ran out of conversation and life was comfortable. So it was with a heavy heart that we said Bon Voyage on Wednesday and our lives changed again.







Our now ex-neighbour Andy is also leaving shortly after Christmas at the end of his contract. There are others planning to depart over the next few months and quite a few people that we have become friends with will leave. But in their place, new people will arrive and new friendships will be made. The environment will change again and we will get comfortable once more.
So whilst I am still a little sad at Hazel’s departure – not least because we were going to hers for Boxing Day and now I’ll have to cook! LOL – I know that it just creates more opportunity in life and I am looking forward to embracing more changes and making new friends. I am already in touch with a few people who will be arriving in January and February, so who knows what changes their presence will bring!

What to Bring

I’ve been speaking this week to someone who has just been offered a job on the Island. She got in touch with me through this Blog – Fantastic as that is exactly the purpose of me wittering on giving an ex-pats honest overview of life on St Helena.
It made me review the ‘Country Notes’ which are sent to new recruits to see if anything had changed. In fact, it had been a year since I last reviewed them and changes had happened – some of them quite significant and worthy of a mention for people thinking about employment here.
There are now 15 TV channels. Please don’t get too excited, unless you love sport as half the channels are sport channels. Others are National Geographic, BBC Lifestyle, Discovery Channel, MNet (South African rebroadcast) MNet Movies – Premiere, Drama and Romance, Action. Cartoon network and Disney also feature. You can download a TV guide here http://www.sure.co.sh/page16.html
The first thing you will notice is that programmes are on at bizarre times of day and night. For example if you wanted to watch X-Factor UK (just being screened here for the first time) you would have to watch it at 8am on Saturday morning, EastEnders (3 or so weeks behind) is on at 3am and 3 pm, so you start to appreciate the importance of bringing a VCR or DVD recorder to the Island - we also brought a Media Streamer (ACRyan) on which we pre-loaded all our DVD movies before leaving the UK – we now have around 2 TB worth. The TV programmes are mercilessly repeated and are generally quite dated, with a few more up-to-date programmes interspersed. It is quite expensive too in comparison to what you can get for your pound elsewhere. As at November 2014 we pay £36.30 per month. This amount is beyond the reach of many locals who hire DVD’s cheaply from shops in town as an alternative to the TV package.
This brings us nicely on to Communications in general. Telephone line rental is cheap at £5 a month. Local calls are reasonable too. Calls to the UK are expensive, currently £0.86 per minute (£0.99 Rest of the World) Skype and FaceTime etc are possible, but do eat into your data allowance, as does the use of anything wireless.
So to internet. If you think you ever had a slow/bad connection in the UK/Rest of the World – think again! St Helena Island is reliant on one tiny satellite link for her bandwidth and at peak times it can be dire, almost resembling dial-up! You pay through the nose here too. Most ex-pats struggle to stay within the download limit of the Gold package (£97 per month for 6.5Gb max download at a maximum connection speed of 1.5Mb) and opt for Gold Plus (£190 per month for 13.25Gb max download at 1.5Mb connection) Beware of going over though. Someone recently went over their allowance on Gold by 5GB and it cost £450. Even on the top package, we have sometimes gone over a little. We tend to save our data for talking to friends and relatives, but if you have teenage children (as we have) using wireless applications on mobile phones can kill your allowance – we also turned off all automatic updates so we can control when they happen. More recently SURE has introduced unlimited downloads between 12 midnight and 6am, which helps.
Things we brought that we wouldn’t be without : Goes without saying – our dogs, but materially – I am very pleased we brought our super-king sized bed – not because I don’t like sleeping close to Andy, but because we are used to the comfort of it. And at £3,000 new it was an investment that needed to travel. We didn’t bring white goods, but I have since bought on Island a chest freezer and have shipped a tall fridge out too. Depending on the size of your household, you will refrigerate and freeze so much more than in the UK, particularly fruit and vegetables. We bought dog food with us (Bakers Complete type large sacks) You can get dog food on the Island, but it’s probably not what your dog is used to! We brought out Advocate (which ran out fast!) and is not available here although a lesser version (Fiprotec) is. We also brought things like rugs - framed pictures and things that make your home comfy too!

Other things go without saying but:
Crockery,Cutlery,Knife Block,Kitchen utensils,Saucepans,Frying pan,Baking tins and trays, microwave, slow cooker, toaster, kettle, mixer,deep fat fryer, steamer, duvet, bedding, pillows, throws, vacuum, dustpan and brush, DIY tools, etc
Other than that, I ‘Tesco shop’ on line once a quarter approximately for the things I really need (to be honest there’s not much that I can’t live without and in fact have done so quite admirably so far)
So what have I ordered? Nothing earth shattering – my favourite fabric softener, Tesco own yeast extract which I find much nicer than Marmite! Quavers, Xmas chocolates, Xmas pudding, a few bottles of wine (expensive to import, BUT you get what you like to drink.) Dog treats and a couple of breakfast cereals that we don’t see here often. It was delivered for shipping on 9th October. I am expecting it to arrive on or around 8th December with any luck. Hopefully most will still be within its sell by date! If it missed that ship, it won’t get here until sometime in January so fingers crossed.

Remembrance Sunday 2014

The spring weather has been late to arrive this year and I wondered if Remembrance Sunday would be a damp squib, but on the morning the sun was shining as we made our way into Jamestown to be part of the service at the Cenotaph on the quayside.
We arrived early (required in order to find a parking space!) We were delighted to find the Coffee Shop open and sat in the sun drinking St Helena coffee and chatting with friends.
The parade started early and we were soon bustling through the crowds to get a good vantage point for the ceremony. Various uniformed groups marched down to the Cenotaph and soon the Acting Governor Mr Sean Burns and his wife Marina arrived to start the service.
As before, the service was respectful and moving, culminating in a parade past dignitaries who received the salute on the Court House steps! All in keeping with local tradition.


Speaking to some locals afterwards, they told me that the weather is ALWAYS perfect for Remembrance Sunday and so it was.
The most entertaining part though was the colour of ex-pat faces on Monday morning, where they had not used a strong enough factor sun cream. I advocate using Factor 30 as a minimum and I am not someone who readily burns. The sun is exceptionally strong here even when it isn’t very hot. It got to around 28◦C here on Sunday, which is not hot in comparison to summer here, but you really can’t underestimate the strength of the sun.
Anyway, lots of sunburnt faces on Monday did make me smile :-)

Moving House

It’s been a long time coming. We have been looking for somewhere quiet and suitable for two dogs, including a blind one, for a while. Most ex-pats with animals tend to stay in Chief Secretary Housing (owned and operated by SHG) as they allow pets. Unfortunately there are very few private landlords that permit animals and those that do; the property is not always suitable for disabled ones!


We had pretty much decided to stay at Piccolo Hill where we are settled, have an uninterrupted view of the Barn and Flagstaff and a safe garden for the dogs, but literally a couple of days after our return to the Island in September, the local person in the ‘know’ AKA as ‘Small Change’ got in touch to say he had the perfect place for us. No harm in going to look, we decided and the next day we were introduced to ‘Spring Knoll’, a fairly large imposing house on the opposite side of the Island, located in Scotland! Luckily it’s not as cold as the UK counterpart, but it does rain more than in Longwood. The difference is it rains properly. Longwood spends more of the winter month in cloud, making it damper in that respect.


We love the house and the location and it’s relatively dog friendly (and the landlord is happy with our dogs) Nothing in our world is ever that simple though. The house is pretty much unfurnished – not even a cooker, so having just left our furniture in storage in the UK, we now need it out here. We’d shipped some items from the UK during our holiday, arriving at the end of October, but nothing like we’ll need at the house!
A shopping frenzy ensued with items now en-route from the UK including a 4 piece lounge suite, bedroom and dining furniture, not to mention a cooker, washing machine and curtains! Expensive, but worth it we hope.
I wasn’t going to write about our move yet, but the car-share drive in this morning made me laugh out loud! We often have some hilarious moments on the drive in, recounting events and stories. This time it came from Martin. We were discussing using parental controls on the set-top box (I use that phrase with caution – it’s nothing like TV anywhere else and is very limited)
‘I’ve tried that’ he declared ‘Did you not here about my problems?’ He then started to tell us how he was trying to access the parental control menu, when he accidentally press the wrong button and ended up with Arabic subtitles! That wouldn’t have been too bad, but because he didn’t know how he’d done it, he couldn’t undo it! Having already had to recently call ‘Sure’ out for another TV related issue, he was reluctant to do so again. It took almost a week to remove the subtitles!
This for some strange reason, reminded me of a conversation Andy and I had had the previous evening.
He had been at Spring Knoll, building my new utility room and had been clearing the gutters of debris with Small Change. He brushed against the plumbing waste pipes on the exterior wall, serving the bathroom and toilet. The pipes were not actually fixed to anything – not even each other, so they collapsed like a pack of cards! (Luckily Andy is one of the people who can only see how to make good, so was actually pleased to find it, so it can be sorted!) It makes us laugh how such bodged things actually work quite well until you touch them.
Following Small Change’s inspection of Andy’s plumbing work, both in the utility room and externally, he has declared Andy ‘a qualified St Helenian plumber’

Back to Basics Part 3

Slightly delayed version so a number of reasons – not least because we are moving house!
Remembrance Sunday was a moving occasion, my second in the extreme heat of November on St Helena. A year on, it still felt odd to not be wrapped up warm. Although I don’t think there were quite as many in attendance this year, it is still a pretty impressive turn out – proportional to the population and the ceremony was moving and fitting for the 100th anniversary.
We had a lovely meal out on Saturday night at Tasty Bites, a fairly new venture situated at the top of Ladder Hill to celebrate friends and neighbours 29th wedding anniversary – Congratulations Hazel and David.

Back to shopping on St Helena

Bank of St Helena

We stopped at Tinkers going up the street. Next door is
· The London Gift Shop with a range of odds and sods, but including old magazines, some musical instruments, cards etc. Carrying on up towards the hospital on the left you’ll find Options.
· Options stock some clothing, make-up and toiletries – worth a look!
There are one or two more little shops up the street.
· Romans is worthy of a mention. It is about half way between the market and the hospital. A fairly long slog on foot. Romans has St Helena T-shirts and other souvenirs such as tea towels, peg bags. I also found a bow tie here amongst other things. They have a reasonable range of printed balloons (we got our silver wedding and 18th birthday ones here)
Coming back down the street towards the market, there’s a steep street on the left hand side. This is where you will find
· ‘Victoria’s’ – sister shop to the Queen Mary Store. Best place on the island (in my opinion) for cheese. You will also find a range of fresh produce when the ship comes in and some of the more unusual items (for the Island that is, not in mainstream world!!) such as mushrooms, blueberries, strawberries and yoghurt. I am a regular visitor here.

Coming back down the street now towards the market, you will find
· The Rose and Crown (which has sister shops in Longwood – Longwood Supermarket and Maisie’s Hardware and DIY) Here you might find a range of packet goods, cereal, toiletries, frozen goods, corner shop type range, but in addition you might find some white goods and also the best place for coin type batteries.
Next door is
· The Hive – also part of the Rose and Crown group. The Hive sells a good range of gift ideas, cards, some diving equipment and stationary.
· The Inkwell is next - a small coffee shop and bookstore – lovely for coffee and cake
Now you come to
· Thorpe’s, owners of Tinkers (opposite) and the Emporium around the corner. This is a slightly bigger store with a full range of groceries and occasionally the place to buy seasonal vegetables like corn on the cob – but you have to be quick!
They also have a Wholesale shop next door where you can order in bulk and get you turkey order in for Christmas! We bought a bulk load of dog food when we went on leave, which was useful.

You will then come to the White Horse pub which is a favourite of the teenagers on a night out as there is a pool table upstairs!
Now we come to the Market.

Inside you will find
· Steven’s the butchers. You need to order your meat the week before, so place your order on a Friday and collect the following Friday (They are usually only open one day a week) The meat is lovely, but don’t be lulled into a false sense of security! You will get meat, but not always what you order as availability varies! The minced beef is fab and incredibly lean and you can ask for sausages/burgers, which may or may not appear. Steak is good too. You can pretty much get most things apart from chicken.
Next to the butchers is
· The fish monger. Here you can buy fresh fish – whatever has been caught cheaply and it is open every day. It’s mainly tuna fillets, but incredible value. Wahoo is my favourite fish, but it’s not always available.
Also on the ground floor of the Market is the
· St Helena Growers, where you can buy whatever the seasonal vegetables are directly from the people who grow it! I like to support local produce so I go in nearly every day just to see what they have in.
Upstairs there are a couple of clothing stores (more cupboard size than actual shops) and
· G-Unique Jewellery. I have a fair bit now of the jewellery locally made and very pretty. You can also commission one off pieces too.
Heading back down the street towards the seafront you will find
· Little Gems – newly opened (located from a smaller shop) They sell a range of children’s bits and pieces, including fresh popcorn, candyfloss and other sweets (AKA Fowlers Candy) They also stock some shoes and gifts too – Always something interesting to find.
Now for the final run of shops!
· Brown’s DVD and Video Hire shop, cheap hire here
· The Star – one of the Solomon outlets. It’s a reasonable size ‘supermarket’ similar to a Tesco Express – size-wise. They have meat and veg on Thursdays and a day or so after the ship comes in from Cape Town. They also stock a range of ASDA goods as well as Iceland frozen items (approximately 100% mark-up and a bit) They also have fresh bread on several days a week.

Next along is the Customer Service Centre and Post Office. This is where you need to apply for your driving licence/dog licence/MOT etc etc.

· Solomon’s DIY shop is next with a car parts department upstairs. The DIY store stocks a wide range of garden and DIY goods as well as limited furniture and white goods
· Warren’s – also part of the Solomon’s group is next door and describes itself as a department store, which it might be if it was 20 times larger, but it is useful for pharmacy items, a small selection of clothes and Avon make-up
· Wellington’s is next which has a fascinating range of herbs and spices as well as a few odd items. I always get my spices here and it is very reasonably priced. You can also sign up to buy a fruit bag which is available a day or so after the ship arrives.
We are nearly there now with two more places to mention. The Sandwich Bar and Sally’s DVD Hire are together through a little arch.
And lastly
· Y and T – They are closing at the end of 2014 – a tragedy as far as I am concerned – best place on the Island for toilet roll!! Amongst other things – They stock things like prawn crackers, soy sauce, tahini paste – the more unusual items. It was here I found toasted sesame oil!

So that’s Jamestown as at November 2014