Snacks!

Today I painted in the red and purple room. It was hard work, my back was quite sore. I have to do another coat still but was too tired to finish today. Tonight we are having a braai at our house – supposed to be a bring and braai, but we don’t really know how that works in St Helena. Apparently everyone brings whatever and it all gets pooled and shared. We have no idea who is coming. It was arranged by two people who wanted to have it, and we thought it would just be them and their immediate families, but it seems it may have grown to their extended families and some other families and their extended families, so it will be most surprising to see who comes. Glad we have the dishwasher!

Last night Nick and I attended a Scottish Dinner and Ceillidh at the Rock Club, while Steve and Maureen came over to babysit. It was nice being out together by ourselves. The food was bountiful, we had roast beef, gammon, chicken drumsticks, roast potatoes, coleslaw, salad, tuna bake, vegetables…and for pudding there was crème caramel, jelly, custard, ice cream and apple crumble. The actual dancing part, which was similar to a barndance sort of thing, only started just before 10pm, so we left fairly shortly after it started, after trying one dance but ending up in a fit of hysterics because we couldn’t get the steps right. I had had a coke to drink as well, and I think it put me on a bit of a high! We sat at a table with Colin Forbes, the public solicitor who invited us and who we met on the ship, and his family, which was rather nice, but you had to almost shout to be heard. Ah well. It was an interesting experience.

I collected a box sent to us from Ascension from the customs hall at the docks yesterday, and we were delighted to find all sorts of lovely goodies in it – the stuff on Ascension gets shipped or flown from America, because it is closer to the Americas than to SA I think. Whatever the reason, they stock American products, so the stuff we got was all foreign – there were planters nuts, other mixed nuts, M&Ms, biscuits (Nabisco branding), juice, chocolates, and chips – Lays chips in the shape and packaging of Pringles, nothing we’ve seen before. We unpacked everything onto the diningroom table and took a photo of it all! There was also a lot of information on Ascension as well as a beautiful 2006 calendar with pictures of the island. It looks quite similar to St Helena, but they have white beaches. The turtles breed on the beaches, apparently.