Island Living

Phew, I’m tired! Long day, but nice. Good news club, at our house again, with 16 kids, was good, just tiring! Then off to Knollcombes to go sledding down the steep slopes on cardboard boxes. Caleb has been wanting to do this for a while, so we said we’d go today. It was great, so much fun going down on our bottoms, we got a few video clips on the digital camera. It was so great out in the country. It was slightly cooler than in town, and quiet, with only the sound of birds singing. What a pleasure. I listened to the rest of a John Piper sermon while I finished putting together the chocolates and notes, and then Caleb came wandering into the lounge, so I let him listen to the sermon too. More out of interest, to see if he would listen, and he sat through about 15 minutes of it, which I was quite amazed at. Piper has a very soothing voice, and I think Caleb dozed off once or twice.

For all its disadvantages, St Helena is such a marvelous place to live. We don’t have poverty, haven’t seen a beggar on a street corner once. We don’t have crime (other than pot plant theft and obeying the call of nature in public view and that sort of thing). We have this beautiful scenery everywhere we go, and we have a community of people who all know each other. It’s a vastly different way of life to anything we’ve grown up with or ever known existed. As much as we love and miss SA, we’re going to hate it when we go back. Nick and I were chatting about it last night, and we decided the only real draw to go back there is our families and friends. We had this brief discussion in the kitchen while we were making tea and coffee for the people who came to the games evening last night, and agreed that if our dearly beloved friends and family were here, there’d be no reason to go back. Even the shops, as horrible as they are, wouldn’t be a driving factor to go back! I realized that after being here, we’re never going to really love living anywhere. Here, we complain about the shops and food shortages, and lack of take out places. Going back to SA, we’re going to complain about the crime and stressful lifestyle and the people, and anywhere else in the world would never match up to the good things we’ve experienced in other places. Only in heaven will we be fully satisfied! I’m sure it will look a lot like here, but we’ll be able to fly around and swoop into the valleys and glide over the peaks. How fabulous! The sea can be heard in different ways in different places and at different times – at the docks here, there are sometimes waves, so you hear them crashing onto the steps. Other times it’s quiet and calm and you hear a gentle lapping on the rocks. At Sandy Bay, and even at Ruperts, I think, the rocks are a lot smaller, so as the waves recede they drag pebbles back with it, so you hear them all knocking together and it’s wonderful. It’s not like when we’ve been on holidays to Ballito or Gonubie and you are constantly aware of the roar of the sea, but it definitely does speak its own language.

Nick found caramel Kit-Kat chunkies at Thorpes. They’re a limited edition here, and very delicious. Normal kit-kat, with runny caramel between the wafer and the chocolate. Very good, but at 60p each, we won’t be having them too often!