Stuff Arrives

It feels like Christmas! – Well not in the weather sense – way too hot for that. Some MONTHS ago, I did a Tesco on-line shop as well as getting a few bits from Amazon and Argos. I failed to make a note of which ship the said shopping was likely to arrive on though. Anyway, my Saint colleagues took me to the Catalogue Shop where, once the ship has left Cape Town, you can check to see if your name is on the manifest. Hooray – 12 boxes of ‘stuff’ were listed as on the ship 
When the ship arrives it is a bit of a free-for-all approach to collecting ‘stuff’ from the shipping agents and I am (wisely) advised to wait a few days until the containers have been opened and the packages sorted. Andy and I decide on Tuesday as collection day. I have already been told by Tessa that she’s seen boxes with my name on!
Tuesday comes and we drive to the Wharf. Having found John (one of the shipping agents on St Helena) in a shed, he checks the manifest and leads us to a hot airless container still stacked with goods. In the far corner we find a range of boxes named ‘Standen St Helena’. Some of the workers carry the boxes outside to the quay area and we are allocated a Custom Officer. Another worker ask if our name is ‘Standen’ and when I say it is, he walks over to another open cage (air-freight) and starts hunting through the packages – ‘I am sure I’ve seen your name in here’ he tells me as he hunts through a hundred or some smaller packets. Low and behold, 2 packets are found and handed over. Meanwhile back at the boxes, there’s only one Patio Set box when there should be two. ‘Don’t worry’ I am told,’ the other box is in the shed’. Someone else appears from the shed carrying the other box. The Customs Officer hands me a knife and asks for the invoices. Fortunately I knew I needed invoices so had printed them off to hand over, but I did not have one for the online shopping at Tesco (it seems to change depending on today’s stock availability) The Tesco packing schedule was found on the side of one of the boxes and we went through the content of each box with the Customs Officer. Once everything was accounted for we were about to go to pay the duty, when John overheard us saying the webcam hadn’t arrived. ‘I think that’s in my shed’ he pipes up, so off we go to the shed to hunt for the missing parcel. Eventually it is located. We have to pay just under £100 in duty to get our ‘stuff’ but it was just like Christmas opening up boxes, not knowing what exactly would be inside. Andy has already taken advantage of the delivery, by making loads of cakes.

On my return from work that evening, we ticked off the items to make sure we got what we thought! Who would have believed that the late night on-line shop I did at Tesco in August, would be delivered in November to the remotest place on earth!
Another Tesco shop is due to be delivered the week before Christmas, the last contact with the outside world until January 2014. Just in case there’s any doubt – Christmas Day will be spent at home with family with lots of Skyping back to the UK and cold beers on the patio – it is forecast to be 26 c or above! Boxing Day will be spent with neighbours’ Hazel, David and Deanna, where we are having a Piccolo Hill BBQ, in the sunshine of course. I am sure we will get used to this topsy turvy weather. It’s set to last now through to May so many walks and picnics to come.
Patio set put together can only mean cake and bisquits on the veranda :-)

Concerts and Karaoke!

A couple of weeks ago the St Helena SPCA hosted a Last Night at the Proms event in aid of the charity – as members (now on the Committee too) we were quite involved. Various ‘acts’ were recruited. The evening began with some lovely harp playing from the Bishop’s wife Jane and we followed by singers, players and reciters! Henry played the Caribbean version of ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ on his Ukulele and 2 girls Lisa and Lisa Marie accompanied him singing.

They all did very well, no mistakes (not that we heard!)

The second half of the evening had the actual Last Night at the Proms 2013 streamed onto a screen and we all joined in with Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory etc. etc. It was a very patriotic evening – held at Plantation House and a sell-out – Fabulous and congratulations to all the acts who performed.

And so to Karaoke..

This weekend saw the wedding anniversary of our neighbours (and friends) Hazel and David. Other Piccolo residents and friends Paula and Bob’s daughter Pip will also be celebrating her 6th birthday on Tuesday. To celebrate, we all went out to the local Chinese restaurant (the Orange Tree) Hazel had bought Pip a helium balloon and lots of ‘pink’ things. Pip was delighted as you will see in the photos.

We had a lovely meal. Henry and Deanna left us as they went off into ‘town’ to do young person things which left us, the six parents and Pip. We were about to leave when our waiter insisted on singing to Pip on the Karaoke machine. Well before you knew it we were all having a bit of a singsong and several hours passed before we actually left for home. But a great night was had by all – Thank you Orange Tree and Piccolc 'Friends' for a fab evening

Our first Hot Remembrance Day

It’s been a busy few weeks on St Helena Island, what with the arrival of the dogs and much improved weather, time has been short!
Today – Sunday 10th November 2013 – we drove into Jamestown early. The ‘main’ road to town is still closed, so we have to detour across the Island. We wanted to be sure of a good spot on the seafront to participate in Remembrance Sunday activities. We arrived in plenty of time and took up our places in prime position to watch the parade and ceremony.

The various uniformed groups marched from the Canister down Main Street, under the bridge to the cenotaph to the tune of a marching band. Pomp and ceremony followed, which reminded me of my youth, when as a young Brownie, I had taken part in the Remembrance Sunday Parade. How very strange it felt, then, to be transported back in time. Despite the very hot sun (we were all a little scorched by the time we got home!) hundreds turned out in their Sunday best and watched the parade. A service with hymns followed the Last Post, played beautifully by 3 buglers. The whole event was truly heart-warming and an ‘individual’ declaration of peace to the people around you completed the ceremony.
Many people we now regard as good friends attended (should also have mentioned - spot those taking part in 'Movember' LOL :-)

The participants marched off back up Main Street and the crowds dispersed. Our first ‘Hot’ Remembrance Sunday

D-Day Arrives at Last

We woke up early in anticipation of meeting the dogs again and had left Piccolo by 7.45 for the drive down to the wharf. On St Helena there are only two road into Jamestown – one on each side of the steep valley in which Jamestown nestles; Side Path and Ladder Hill. Due to urgent road works being undertaken further up ‘Side Path’ from the Briars to Gordon’s Post, The route into ‘town’ closed on Monday for 10 weeks! This means an additional round trip of 8 miles or so to get from our side of the Island to ‘town’ and closing 3 days before the ship arrived meant a much longer journey for us and the dogs! I’d already go accustomed to the new route to work, so we knew we would be down at the Wharf by around 8.15. I’d been down to Customs to check about being allowed ‘airside/shipside’ to meet the dogs and permission had been given, so we ended up doing a backwards route through Customs and Immigration before being allowed to walk down to the end of the Wharf where cargo (and dogs) get landed. We knew they would be pretty much last off, so we waited with much trepidation. We watched 4 cars be craned off the RMS and floated across on a pontoon before being craned off onto the wharf within a couple of metres of us. It was quite an amazing sight and a slick operation by the St Helenian staff – impressive.

Aboard the pontoon, being air-lifted to land and arrival on St Helena Island

We had seen the ‘air taxi’ waiting a little out to sea until the pontoon cleared – it then came alongside the RMS and we knew this was the moment of truth. Through the zoom on his camera, Andy could see movement on deck and knew the dogs had been loaded. They were then lifted clear of the ship and lowered onto the waiting pontoon. Soon they were travelling towards us. We knew that the vet, Joe, had gone out to the ship earlier to check the condition of the dogs prior to them being permitted to be landed, but we hadn’t seen him come back. As the air taxi was lifted onto the wharf we could clearly hear Pippy barking madly!

Joe handing Smudge to me
As the door to the ‘cage’ opened there was Joe the vet sitting with the dogs who were just on leads and not ‘crated up’. Smudges face was a picture when she realised it was us! She quickly went into ‘sulk’ mode though and refused to make eye contact or acknowledge any of us for a good few hours. Pippy had gone a bit ‘native’ and was spinning around madly – something we had trained out of her over the last couple of years. But they were both fit and well – if not a bit orange and a little smelly!
I walked Pippy all the way to the Castle (where I work) so that Annie could meet her before we began the journey home. The girls were so excited, but we forgot that a car horn being sounded send Pippy mental – On the Island you can’t travel more than a couple of hundred yards without there being a necessity to hoot your horn to avoid a head-on collision on one of the ‘too many to mention’ blind hair-pin bends.
Andy drove back trying not to use the horn and we eventually arrived at Piccolo Hill and let the dogs into the house for the first time.
Immediate priority – into the bath with both of them. As it was a nice day they were soon clean and dry and familiarising themselves with the large garden. Pippy almost immediately found an escape route through a slightly wider than everywhere else gate panel! Fortunately her intentions were spotted and the escape route swiftly blocked!
Over the next few days the girls have settled in nicely and enjoyed the walk through Plantation with the Governor’s dog Wellington. In fact he and Smudge had a lovely time running in and out of the trees and got on really well too.
It been a long arduous not to mention expensive experience but everyone is together now and happy in their new home!