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.
Showing posts with label Standen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Standen. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 November 2014
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 :-)
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’
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’
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Posh Frocks and Medals
Garden Party at Plantation House
It was an honour to be invited to the Garden Party held in honour of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.
It was an afternoon of elegance. Dress: lounge suit or uniform, medals and decorations. Hats may be worn. So looking around the marquee where around 150 people mingled, it was full of style and class, everyone dressed perfectly for this grand event.
Photos courtesy of South Atlantic Media Services
Governor Mark Capes gave a short address honouring achievements by local people, followed by a toast to the Queen (who sadly was not present) Afternoon tea followed and all in all it was a lovely event to be invited too and a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon making new acquaintances with a fantastic backdrop of Plantation House on one side and Jonathan, the world’s oldest living creature on the other! Jonathan is now 182 years old!
A quick trip across the Island back to Longwood was now required in order to get changed, feed the dogs and prepare for the next party!
It’s probably hard to argue that it’s not Party Central here, given my recent posts! Since the middle of March we have had Andy Crowe’s ‘Piccolobury’ followed by Deanna Woosey’s 18th and our Silver Wedding celebrations. I think we had a week off somewhere before Rachel Armstrong’s 25th birthday bash at Bertram’s Cottage. We’ve been out to dinner several times too at the Sunflower café and with friends at Martin and Julie David’s for a great BBQ to name but a few. The final event to round April off was Tim Troman’s 50th birthday celebrations at Guinea Grass after the Garden Party.
So we headed back across the Island with neighbours Hazel and David Woosey for the birthday bash. We had a great evening and pretty much on form, we danced the evening away and were some of the last to leave!
Arriving home at Piccolo Hill, the house was in darkness – strange seeing as we had left the outside light on (its pitch black without it!) So we approached the house cautiously to find the doors all locked up and lights off. Suddenly the lights came on! Henry had gone into town with his friends and had beaten us home. He had assumed that his 'elderly' parents would be tucked up in bed asleep and had locked up! Luckily we arrived back before he had gone to bed.
We were up early on Sunday morning and took the opportunity to go for a morning walk through Plantation Forest with Smudge and Pippy. It was lovely and peaceful. Fortunately we had chosen to go in the morning as the afternoon turned out to be quite wet. We had a lazy afternoon and a beautiful Roast Pork dinner to finish off the weekend in style.
Our neighbour Mr Andy Crowe painted this wonderful picture of St Helena Island, which will be used to decorate the rooms where victims of crime are counselled - Fab Andy :-)
It was an honour to be invited to the Garden Party held in honour of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.
It was an afternoon of elegance. Dress: lounge suit or uniform, medals and decorations. Hats may be worn. So looking around the marquee where around 150 people mingled, it was full of style and class, everyone dressed perfectly for this grand event.
Photos courtesy of South Atlantic Media Services
A quick trip across the Island back to Longwood was now required in order to get changed, feed the dogs and prepare for the next party!
It’s probably hard to argue that it’s not Party Central here, given my recent posts! Since the middle of March we have had Andy Crowe’s ‘Piccolobury’ followed by Deanna Woosey’s 18th and our Silver Wedding celebrations. I think we had a week off somewhere before Rachel Armstrong’s 25th birthday bash at Bertram’s Cottage. We’ve been out to dinner several times too at the Sunflower café and with friends at Martin and Julie David’s for a great BBQ to name but a few. The final event to round April off was Tim Troman’s 50th birthday celebrations at Guinea Grass after the Garden Party.
So we headed back across the Island with neighbours Hazel and David Woosey for the birthday bash. We had a great evening and pretty much on form, we danced the evening away and were some of the last to leave!
Arriving home at Piccolo Hill, the house was in darkness – strange seeing as we had left the outside light on (its pitch black without it!) So we approached the house cautiously to find the doors all locked up and lights off. Suddenly the lights came on! Henry had gone into town with his friends and had beaten us home. He had assumed that his 'elderly' parents would be tucked up in bed asleep and had locked up! Luckily we arrived back before he had gone to bed.
We were up early on Sunday morning and took the opportunity to go for a morning walk through Plantation Forest with Smudge and Pippy. It was lovely and peaceful. Fortunately we had chosen to go in the morning as the afternoon turned out to be quite wet. We had a lazy afternoon and a beautiful Roast Pork dinner to finish off the weekend in style.
Our neighbour Mr Andy Crowe painted this wonderful picture of St Helena Island, which will be used to decorate the rooms where victims of crime are counselled - Fab Andy :-)
Monday, 28 April 2014
Easter and More
We’ve just finished a wonderful Easter break. Four days off with friends and family. Unlike Saints, I am not used to working almost an entire year without a break nor had I realised how much I needed a few days off! Due to the traveling logistics of getting away from St Helena, most Saints save their leave and it is not uncommon for some to have up to 100 days carried forward, although this is being addressed now with the advent of the airport construction. Currently to get to the UK, it is pretty much a week’s travel each way. Once the airport is functional, that should reduce to a day or two maximum. There will also (hopefully) be more than one opportunity to leave every few weeks!
Picture courtesy of the French Navy
So as leave is generally not taken, apart from the Christmas break, I have not had any leave, so it came as somewhat of a shock when I realised how much I needed to stop, if only for a few days – and had we been in the UK there would have been at least one holiday somewhere during the last 12 months. In fact the last short break we had was a couple of weeks before I left the UK in early May – France with Mandy and Dave.
On the Island a high proportion of Saints go camping for the 4 day Easter break and luckily for them, the weather was just right for camping. Henry had arranged to meet some friends at the Wharf steps on Good Friday and they were going to swim in the sea, before returning to our house in Piccolo Hill for a BBQ. I drove Henry down into Jamestown and although I knew most places closed on Good Friday, I wasn’t prepared for the total closure of the town. Not one business was open and a cruise ship was due in later – Main Street was like tumbleweed.
Although Henry had arranged to meet friends at 12, they all run on St Helena time, meaning the first of his friends didn’t arrive until after 12:30! Another arrived a few minutes later and after exchanging pleasantries with the other parents, I returned to Longwood for an afternoon of reading (something I haven’t done in a long time) I had arranged to pick Henry up at 15:30 and on arriving at the Wharf, the cruise ship was disembarking some of its passengers, although you have to question what exactly they were going to do in a deserted town.
Henry and friends duly deposited home and soon the house was filled with teenagers, music and the smell of BBQ’d food. It’s odd isn’t it that teenagers tell all their friends that they are having a BBQ, but it was Andy and I doing all the cooking then struggling to make out the sound on the TV above the loud bass music being played on the balcony. Everyone had a good time dancing, singing and eating during the evening, as well as a bit of dart playing.
Saturday is usually diving day for Andy and Henry, but as Anthony who owns Sub-Tropic Adventures was away camping with his young family, it was an opportunity to venture into town to do a spot of shopping! Luckily I didn’t need anything in particular as not much had opened and neither was there much to buy.
Monday started out a little drizzly, but cleared up quite quickly and a walk in Plantation Forest was needed, so we headed over with two very excited dogs for a lovely time walking in the forest under the cool canopy of trees and bamboo. The perfect end to a lovely Easter Weekend
So as leave is generally not taken, apart from the Christmas break, I have not had any leave, so it came as somewhat of a shock when I realised how much I needed to stop, if only for a few days – and had we been in the UK there would have been at least one holiday somewhere during the last 12 months. In fact the last short break we had was a couple of weeks before I left the UK in early May – France with Mandy and Dave.
On the Island a high proportion of Saints go camping for the 4 day Easter break and luckily for them, the weather was just right for camping. Henry had arranged to meet some friends at the Wharf steps on Good Friday and they were going to swim in the sea, before returning to our house in Piccolo Hill for a BBQ. I drove Henry down into Jamestown and although I knew most places closed on Good Friday, I wasn’t prepared for the total closure of the town. Not one business was open and a cruise ship was due in later – Main Street was like tumbleweed.
Although Henry had arranged to meet friends at 12, they all run on St Helena time, meaning the first of his friends didn’t arrive until after 12:30! Another arrived a few minutes later and after exchanging pleasantries with the other parents, I returned to Longwood for an afternoon of reading (something I haven’t done in a long time) I had arranged to pick Henry up at 15:30 and on arriving at the Wharf, the cruise ship was disembarking some of its passengers, although you have to question what exactly they were going to do in a deserted town.
Henry and friends duly deposited home and soon the house was filled with teenagers, music and the smell of BBQ’d food. It’s odd isn’t it that teenagers tell all their friends that they are having a BBQ, but it was Andy and I doing all the cooking then struggling to make out the sound on the TV above the loud bass music being played on the balcony. Everyone had a good time dancing, singing and eating during the evening, as well as a bit of dart playing.
Saturday is usually diving day for Andy and Henry, but as Anthony who owns Sub-Tropic Adventures was away camping with his young family, it was an opportunity to venture into town to do a spot of shopping! Luckily I didn’t need anything in particular as not much had opened and neither was there much to buy.
Monday started out a little drizzly, but cleared up quite quickly and a walk in Plantation Forest was needed, so we headed over with two very excited dogs for a lovely time walking in the forest under the cool canopy of trees and bamboo. The perfect end to a lovely Easter Weekend
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Only on St Helena!!
This is a phrase that you will often hear ex-pats muttering. The most recent events causing this reaction are:
· 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.
· 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.
Monday, 30 December 2013
Coffee Picking on St Helena Island
St Helena coffee is renowned as the third most expensive coffee in the world. It is of extremely high quality and totally organic!
We needed to get out and about after all the Christmas festivities so had volunteered to go up to Bill and Jill’s House and coffee plantation near to Rosemary Plain.
We collect a bucket and commence picking of the red coffee cherries that are starting to ripen on the trees. It’s a late harvest Jill tells us – They would have normally finished harvesting by Xmas Eve, but due to late flowering this year, the crop is only just ready for the first pick. Fortunately the sun isn’t at full strength, so the picking is not too hot! There are over 2500 trees planted on the Plantation here which was only established in the 1990’s. The coffee is grown from one of the purest Arabica coffee plants. Due to the isolated nature of the island, the plants have remained pure, which produces the finest coffee almost anywhere in the world.
We’ve been picking for an hour or so when Jill calls us up to the house to indulge in a St Helena Coffee on the Veranda. We have a pleasant chat with Jill who is an excellent hostess and makes us very welcome! Coffee finished, we make our way back to the trees and continue picking. It’s not long before all ripe fruit has been harvested.
Bill now takes us on a tour of the coffee production side which is fascinating.
The cherries are picked.
The (hand) pulping machine removes the ‘beans’ from the shell and is left to ferment for 48 hours.
The beans are allowed to dry to 13⁰ moisture before being stored.
Bill sorts the beans into sizes before it is roasted to perfection and ground.
Bill also grows his own pure plants to keep the authenticity and rare nature.
The coffee is served in the Coffee Shop on the Waterfront and can be purchased locally too. You can also buy it on-line at £20.00 for 125g bag. The coffee won a premier award in the Great Exhibition way back in 1851!
All in all a great morning out helping the producers and where else in the world would you pick St Helena coffee and then drink it!
We needed to get out and about after all the Christmas festivities so had volunteered to go up to Bill and Jill’s House and coffee plantation near to Rosemary Plain.
We collect a bucket and commence picking of the red coffee cherries that are starting to ripen on the trees. It’s a late harvest Jill tells us – They would have normally finished harvesting by Xmas Eve, but due to late flowering this year, the crop is only just ready for the first pick. Fortunately the sun isn’t at full strength, so the picking is not too hot! There are over 2500 trees planted on the Plantation here which was only established in the 1990’s. The coffee is grown from one of the purest Arabica coffee plants. Due to the isolated nature of the island, the plants have remained pure, which produces the finest coffee almost anywhere in the world.
Bill now takes us on a tour of the coffee production side which is fascinating.
All in all a great morning out helping the producers and where else in the world would you pick St Helena coffee and then drink it!
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