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!)