· Nursery School field trip to the local abattoir
· Restaurants that close at the weekend
· Everyone finishing work at 4pm
· Hiring the local Golf Club for a party - £25
It was our 25th (Silver) Wedding Anniversary this week – I contacted the local radio station and asked them to play a request for Andy.
There was a big build up – several early mentions of Andy at Piccolo’s 25th – I contacted them to remind them it was 25 years of marriage, not his birthday! Although I am sure he would have been very happy to be 25 again. He waited for the ‘special request’. The song dedicated to our anniversary had the following opening lyrics:
‘As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there's nothin' left’
Our actual anniversary was a few days before the party and my lovely husband had gone to the trouble of designing a necklace to incorporate all three of our sons, Lee (who is sadly no longer with us), George (who is in the UK) and Henry (who lives with us on St Helena) It was had crafted by Giselle Richards who has a small jewelry business on the island. I was delighted.
But on a lighter note
· Nobody seems to pay upfront for stuff. My Christmas tree had well and truly dropped all its needles and was long gone before I received the invoice to pay..
· Nothing is too much trouble
· The Saints are amazingly kind, trusting and friendly
· The views and scenery are like nowhere else on earth
· I can’t use a mobile phone in the way it was intended (it’s a very expensive alarm clock!)
· I can walk for miles without seeing another person
· The weather changes every few minutes
· The MOT consists of brakes, lights and tyres
· Children have incredible freedom and safety
· People I don’t know stop me for a chat in the street and are genuinely interested
· I had more than 6 people interested in buying my Jeep less than 24 hours after it arrived on Island
· The local Rock Band – The ‘Big Easy’ performed at our party...
And so to the party. Quite soon after arriving here we discovered that it was our Piccolo neighbours daughter -Deanna's - 18th birthday the same week as our 25th Anniversary so we started to plan a big party. One evening we were entertained at the Mule Yard by a local band - The Big Easy. They were fabulous, so I tracked down the 'leader' Johnny Dillon. He was quite surprised that I wanted to 'book the band', but after some persuasion, he agreed. We decided on hiring the St Helena Golf Club as the venue and enlisted the help of Kayla and Leroy Fowler (owners of waterfront cafe 'Ocean Wave' to provide the catering.
Friends at work, Annie and Tessa provided the cake and artistic decorating of the venue respectively.
When the day came Piccolo guests met at the Woosey's house for Champagne and 'Taste the Rainbow' vodka, before walking over to the club shortly before 7. We had rigged up a 'disco' with the help of Henry's Peavey Amp and a laptop. 70's and 80's music started playing early on as did the dancing. The Big Easy arrived on cue and started playing. We had been worried about the constraints of the club house, but everyone commented on how marvelous they sounded.
Mark and Tamara Capes (AKA the Governor and his wife) were in attendance as were Sean and Marina Burns (Deputy Governor and his wife)so we were delighted to be able to welcome them to our celebrations. Many, many other friends were also in attendance and the band enjoyed it so much they played right through (apart from a short break!)to the very end. WE had the best time and thank everyone who made it a truly memorable occasion! I was particularly pleased to note that our Saint friends far outweighed our ex-pat ones.
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