Me, depressed?

The past few days have been a bit difficult for me. I seem to be constantly fighting depression – some days I win, and some days it wins. Lately it has been getting the better of me! The loneliness is something which I struggle to cope with. This morning, not wanting to sink deeper into the slough, I decided to take positive action, so I invited Steve and Maureen to lunch (with Nick’s approval of course). They were available and happy to come, so at 12.30 that is what they did. The morning wasn’t too good, but since I had a goal to work towards I could get through. I made chicken-a-la-king (what a good way to use left-over chicken) which was delicious but not quite enough really, and the sauce was a bit runny, with rice and mixed veggies.

Sock Shopping

Good News Club was good, I think there were 23 kids although they didn’t stay still long enough for me to count them. Nick preached this morning and he did the parables of the Pearl of Great Value and the Hidden Treasure. He explained the gospel very clearly. These kids will have a good grounding as to what Christianity is all about. Then we gave the option for drawing or basketball, and it was half-half – half drew, and half played. After the GNC we went to town to look for a pair of socks for Caleb, amongst other things. I haven’t done a load of washing in about three days, and he has no socks left in his drawer. I think Aaron also wears them from time to time, and he doesn’t have enough in reserve. Couldn’t find any, so I guess I’ll be washing tomorrow!

Church Progress

Nick finished his sermon prep early today, so was able to spend a large part of the day in the church. The walls and ceiling above and around the stage are finished now, so the scaffolding could be unassembled and then reassembled in the body of the church. The parts that have been done are really looking so nice. In the photo, Nick and Steve are on the scaffolding, scraping off the old paint. The entire church has to be done in this way, otherwise the new paint would just pull the old paint off the wall. It has been at least 50 years since the church was last painted.
Yesterday there was an accident along Ladder Hill road. Apparently a truck pulled to the side of the road to let a car pass, but misjudged the edge and went too far, and tumbled down the hill, landing in someone’s kitchen. The house which it trashed was unoccupied, though the houses on either side have residents. I don’t know if the driver was trying to aim for the empty one, but what a good thing! The cab of the truck came right through the kitchen wall, kind of splitting in half though so the cab roof is up against the top of the wall while the rest looks like a new appliance. The driver broke his ribs but was fortunate to walk away alive.

What the boys did next...

Did my grocery shopping today which was quite successful. Still have to find mince and tuna – I suspect there is a bit of a tuna shortage (what, in the South Atlantic Ocean?) Yes, the catches haven’t been good lately, and most of the fish gets exported. Caleb found all the toilet rolls in their individual wrapping, so of his own accord, he unwrapped them and put them in the wicker basket. He also unpacked all the rest of the bathroom goodies into their right places, finding homes for everything. Then he took all the toilet roll wrappings, put them in a packet, and took them outside for the rubbish truck (which next comes on Friday, mind you). Then he realized that the packet was very light and the wind would probably carry it away, so he tied it to the golf’s exhaust pipe. You’ve got to love that kind of thought and creativity!

Aaron still does all the wrong things, like drinking bath water and throwing toys at the TV screen. But he tries to do the right things too, so he’ll tell me that he didn’t put his hands on the walls, and he didn’t pick his nose or his lip, and he didn’t spill his juice…shame, he really does try. Sometimes his lessons just take longer to sink in, so a few smacks are necessary along the way.

Can’t find many potatoes in the shops anymore – I went to Queen Mary’s because they had been advertising them for £4 for a bag, but unfortunately they were old stock and not nice anymore, so they’re not for sale. Catherine, who runs the toddler’s group and works at Queen Mary’s, said that she had taken out the best potatoes, but since she had some at home, I could buy these. I felt bad taking them but she insisted, so I had to. How often do you find shop staff handing over their set-aside merchandise for a customer?

Fishing (not) and sleeping in church

Yesterday afternoon we drove to the docks and threw melba toast (a free offering from Victoria’s) at the fish. Some surprisingly big ones so close to shore. Probably an ideal fishing spot if you throw bread to the scavenger fish to draw them away from the real bait…although if you can’t stand the idea of cutting open a warm fish and removing its guts, and lopping of its head, then fishing is not really a good idea at all.

Church last night was a bit strange in the schoolroom. Nick was completely put off by everyone constantly looking at the clouds of steam billowing in the main church building, emanating from the urn. He wanted to say “it’s just the urn, stop looking at it”, but I guess, like me, people were wondering if perhaps something should be done about it. Caleb fell asleep in an upright position and it was quite funny. He was breathing heavily, nigh unto snoring. We laughed this morning when he complained that he couldn’t sleep in church last night because it was the wrong chair! He had absolutely no recollection of the evening.

I don’t have much to say about today. We got paid today, yippee. Grocery shopping tomorrow, sort of yippee. Let’s see, um, I cut Nick’s hair today, down to a #4 all over. Um, Caleb accidentally poked Aaron in the gum with a sharp stick and made it bleed. We made Indian hats during the afternoon (see photo). I had cheese, tomato, gherkin and mayonnaise on brown bread today for lunch and it was delicious and very healthy. I’ve been reading an Essentials magazine about the new GL diet (not GI), and it lists all the things you’re supposed to eat and not supposed to eat. The premise is that high-carb foods give you a sugar-rush and leave you feeling hungry soon after so you keep eating, whereas the proper stuff is more lasting. Pity that most of the things are not readily available here, but I’m sure I can find substitutes. White bread is definitely out (this we have known for decades), but I’m really trying to get us eating more healthily, so we’ll cut that out. We’re supposed to have baby or new potatoes, but short of growing them myself I don’t think we can get those.

Security issues?

You know you’ve been living on an island too long when your five-year-old can’t understand what a security gate is for and says “what’s security?”

23 children came to Good News Club today. Another new girl came, who also wanted to become a Christian. We are so encouraged that our young converts are active in their evangelism, and bringing their friends to the club. After the club, we went out to High Peak, in the Bluehill area. We took a picnic (ie sandwiches), and then decided to follow the footpath and see where it led. It led right up to the top of High Peak, which was a very steep and muddy climb. I, in my slip-slops, was terrified of the descent, and had to almost crawl down on my bottom. It was nice to be out in the country though (albeit by ourselves). Nick spent most of the rest of the day in the church, scraping paint off the walls.

Beware the thorns

I cut down some of the bougainvillea in the front today. There are two separate bushes there, one is a deep pinky-red, the other is the typical purple. I cut off a lot of the blossoms and put them in a vase before actually beginning pruning, and they look beautiful. They don’t last long though – the flowers were already dropping off when I was putting them in to the vase, which is so weird because they have no problem staying attached when they’re blowing around outside. I was using thick leather working gloves, but one thorn entered my thumb through the glove with much force. It was painful. I’m sure there is some sort of poison on the thorns which makes a wound really sting. But it’s just my theory.

Jamestown Chapel renovations

The process of beautifying the Jamestown Chapel has begun. Steve and Teddy started yesterday with putting up scaffolding, and then Steve started sanding the wooden boards in the front of the church. Paul, the prisoner, was allowed to come and help today, so Nick fetched him at 9.00, and he got to work also with sanding, and then scraping old paint and crumbling plaster off the walls, and poly-filling cracks and holes. It’s an enormous job which has been tackled and will take some time to finish. In the meantime, most of the pews, and all the stuff off the stage has been moved into the schoolroom where we will be having church for the next few weeks. It’s an absolute mess in the chapel, dust everywhere. Maureen has been keeping herself busy with sweeping, clearing away the intermediary mess. The painting itself will only start next week when the walls have been prepared.

Getting a head

Last night’s bible study was good – Nick did the David and Goliath story, with the emphasis being on David’s speech which showed his desire to honour God. The point of Nick’s message was that we should be as zealous for God’s glory. We all thought it quite funny how David was carrying Goliath’s head around at the end of the chapter (1 Sam 17) after having cut it off, almost like he forgot he was still holding it. At the close of the study, I commented that Nick should have entitled the message “how to get ahead in life”…

Elsa’s visit this morning was very good, other than the boys’ usual attention-seeking nonsense. They just didn’t want to be excluded but can’t sit quietly for very long, so I had to keep on telling them to be quiet. We had a great chat, she’s very talkative. It was also wonderful to discuss disciplining children with her and finally hear someone with the same opinion regarding physical punishment!

Nick finished knocking down the wall this afternoon after teaching guitar at Prince Andrew. He hasn’t taken it completely away, he will try to shape it when he does the concrete capping.

Rockfall

I finalized the logos for the competition last night and handed them in today. Nick and I are very hopeful…the winner will be announced early August.

There was a rockfall from Ladder Hill over the weekend. Apparently a rock came crashing through the ceiling of a house just down the road, at about 2 am, while the occupants were sleeping. No one was harmed, but they had to evacuate their house. Nick found a rock in our back yard the next morning, which may or may not have been rockfall-related.

What else can fit up a nose?

Caleb says I must teach him how to write everything he doesn’t know how to write yet – what a tall order. I asked for an example, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Everything I don’t know, like um, hovercraft”. And I must also teach him how to read everything. Patience, little one! Aaron tries hard and I’m pleased to see that he’s not messing around when it comes to working in his workbooks. He does have a diligent side to him after all.

Nick started knocking down a stone wall separating the mango-tree garden from the concrete space which you see as you walk out the back door. He’s been wanting to do this for some time, and recently got the deacons’ approval. There is a lot of rubble and dust outside now and I don’t know how long it’s going to be that way. Aaron stuck a raisin up his nose. He panicked when he couldn’t pick it out, which had the opposite effect, which was when he started crying, eliciting Nick’s attention, a smack and a nose-blow.

Unrehearsed muck-up

Church this evening was good. Nick did the portion on “I Am the Bread of Life”. I was a participant in one of the famous items during the worship. It was from Sankey’s, and completely embarrassing. Of course there was no rehearsal, and it was pitched too high so it went up to F#, and none of the five of us really knew the hymn well enough to sing it with gusto. The result was a wavering quavery thin rendition of what could have been quite nice. I forget the name of the hymn. Next time I will politely decline. How can you get up on stage and present a song that you’ve never actually sung before? The redeeming factor was that there were five verses, so by the last verse one could sing it reasonably confidently!

Nick's bad back (naughty back, naughty naughty back)

Nick hurt his back yesterday by clicking it funny, and was in quite a lot of pain last night. We were quite worried when he woke up this morning and was still quite sore, also because he had a restless night and was up during the night and couldn’t believe how much pain he was in. We wondered if he would have to go to SA for treatment! Anyway, it didn’t seem quite as bad this morning, but I phoned the hospital to make an appointment for him to see a doctor. The way it works though, you don’t phone for an appointment, at least not on a Saturday – you arrive at 9.30 and join the queue, and get seen by whatever doctor is available on a first-come, first-served basis. The doctor simply gave him a posterior injection, and some painkillers and anti-inflams to take home. He said that if it hasn’t settled down in five days, Nick must go back and see him again. So Nick spent the day very quietly at home. We hired a DVD for the boys, because on the weekends I consider myself off-duty as being their sole entertainer, so if Nick is unavailable then the TV it is. We got “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” for them, but they were mostly scared. I guess it was pretty unsettling to see a fat boy sucked out of a pool of chocolate and up a tube, and a girl turn into a giant blueberry, and another one thrown down a garbage chute by squirrels…

I had to lead the worship for Good News Club on my own, and then it was my turn to do the talk. Before we started singing, I had stamped anyone willing with a purple cluster of grapes on their forehead. Some didn’t want it, but I told them everyone was doing it and then they wanted it too. My talk was on peer pressure! I think it went well. I closed off with a story from a book called “Jesus Freaks”, about young martyrs, and got all choked up at the end.

It would be nice if you come to visit...

I’ve just spent the last few minutes with Caleb on my lap, as he proceeded to dictate e-mails to everyone he can remember from South Africa, to invite them to the island. If you were one of the lucky recipients, know that you were not alone!

We met three descendants of the late Hudson Janisch, the only St Helenian governor and past Baptist Minister, who is buried on the island. Because they have so much history tied up on the island, they had been planning this trip for years. As things happened, they are friends with friends of ours from Pretoria, and brought over some books for us. One of those “small world” things again! They spent some time perusing the church’s old documents and records, where a lot of information was recorded on and by Hudson.

I’m having a bit of a problem with goggos in cupboards – they have a taste for pasta, but go for anything that’s been opened and pegged shut. So a few days ago I devised a plan, to put all the half-used packets of things, in their pegged bags, into a big sealable container. Unfortunately I didn’t check to see whether all the packets were bug-free, so ended up contaminating all the things in the container! Had to toss a whole packet of pasta, some split peas, dried lentils, and carefully sifted through almost a kilogram of penne to get the dudus out. Sorely vexing! Off the subject, I was annoyed to wake up in the middle of the night to an unfamiliar sound in our bedroom, and realized after a few moments of consciousness that it was rain dripping on the duvet. We had to do a quick furniture shuffle and move the bed to a different part of the room, swap duvets with the guest room, and find a bucket. But it could have been worse, the raindrops could have been falling on my head.

Nature

This morning we were off to Plantation House for a nature walk. We meant to do it last week but never got around to it, but it seemed more appropriate today because we’re covering the subject of Nature in our science studies with Berenstain Bears. The boys are learning what exactly nature is, so today we saw, heard and smelled nature in Plantation Forest. It was really fun actually. We didn’t walk too far and it was very cold there but thankfully not raining.

I did a load of washing this morning, my bathroom towel included. Sometime during the day Aaron was flinging about handfuls of dirt, and I came outside in time to see him diligently drying his freshly-washed although still extremely muddy hands on my clean towel. I wasn’t impressed. Both boys talk about going back to Pretoria and South Africa constantly. Perhaps they need a holiday more than we do! We have to keep reminding them how lovely it is on the island, and all the things we can do here that we can’t in SA – like nature walks, and running around in the big house, and seeing the sea and fish and that sort of thing.

The bible study tonight was good – I’m enjoying Nick’s presentation of 1 Samuel more and more, and the characters are coming quite alive. They all had their flaws, hey. We are at chapter 16 now where David has been anointed as king, but has entered into Saul’s service as the harpist. Nick spent a bit of time talking about grief – as Christians, we are permitted and even instructed to grieve, but there is a line between what is healthy and what is sinful. God told Samuel to stop mourning over Saul – enough now!

Cooking Lesson

Nick volunteered to take us out to lunch today, so we left on foot (the golf having been taken away) to Queen Mary’s first of all to find out if they could bind loose carpets / offcuts, but they don’t. We would have to do it by hand if we want it edged off, which I don’t really fancy doing. Next we went to Spar and bought some little pizzas and sausages, which we took to Castle Gardens to eat. Caleb still thinks we should phone the governor to demand a MacDonalds. Despite being mid-winter, it was still pleasant out there, with a mildly warm breeze blowing. We didn’t tarry too long in the Gardens, but then took a leisurely walk home. As we got home, the garage chaps drove up with our fixed car. I finally had time to repaint the red chair during the afternoon. I gave it many more coats, and it looked like it stayed on top instead of settling in. The boys helped with supper - we wrapped potatoes in foil and stuck metal skewers through them, which also became a great science lesson (do you know that if you’re baking potatoes you should do this, because they cook quicker as the metal skewer is a good conductor, where potatoes are very bad?)

The Coin Story

This morning we had our first Lay Preacher morning service at Jamestown. It was surprisingly and encouragingly well-attended, 21 people including children. Vincent preached on Revelation 1. Nick nearly didn’t make it to church this morning because the golf has become incontinent. He tried to patch up the leaks in the radiator pipe without too much success, so I guess tomorrow it will be back at the garage. He took a bottle of water and refilled at Sandy Bay. The homebound journey was all downhill so he could freewheel most of the way.

This afternoon we took a walk down to the docks – it’s more interesting to do that when the ship is in. The boys took their “stoculars”, so we could all see some personnel on the ship, and the activity of offloading containers.

I ordered a “teach yourself mandolin” DVD from Amazon.com. Nick and I jammed the other night and it was such fun – he strummed some chords on the guitar and I did lead, which means I picked notes on various scales. I discovered that I’m not very good, but with practice I can get better. What I need now is direction and teaching, so we thought that some sort of tutor would be a good idea.

Aaron found a 1p coin on the floor somewhere in the house, so put it in his pyjama pocket to put in the offering bag. I forgot all about it, until I saw him playing with it in church, and cautioned him not to drop it, which is exactly what he did - it rolled down in a perfect line, from the back pew, through the middle of the announcements, to the very front of the church until it could go no further. On the bare wooden floor, this made not a small noise and I could just see everyone wanting to laugh.

New-look office for Nick

Not a very exciting day today, although the weather has been quite unusual…lots of rain throughout the day, and lots of sunshine too. At times the sea was veiled in mist, at other times its usual bright, sparkling blue. Sometimes the rain would fall so lightly the drops would barely reach the ground before the wind carried them away, from a seemingly blue sky. Very interesting to observe. The most exciting part of today, particularly from Nick’s perspective, is a ‘new’ carpet in his office. It was donated to the church by someone, and since it is a better carpet than the existing one in his office, he decided to swap them, and use his old one for the schoolroom. It was a major undertaking to achieve the swap though, since we had to first move all the books of his bookshelf (this he did mostly by himself), and then take all the furniture out, and there is quite a lot. Then we had to roll his carpet up, heft it downstairs and out the back door, around the back into the schoolroom, and bring the new one in, in reverse order. And may I say that carpets are heavy! Once the new one was in and vacuumed, everything had to be moved in again. Well, he is very pleased with the result, and I must say that it looks good. The next job is to paint, but this will wait until at least next month. I’m thinking along the lines of dado railing and two-tone walls, but we’ll see.

The Pastor's Study

Mice, logo competition and "how to hold a pencil"

Today has been cold(ish) and rainy and dark and gloomy. If I recall correctly, I think I might have seen evidence of the sun, but it started drizzling just before lunch and has been heavily overcast with intermittent rain since then. The temperature hasn’t gone much below 20, I think – I looked at the thermometer when I judged it to be feeling quite cool and was surprised at the result. I was feeling narfy today and didn’t have much patience. What little I started with quickly evaporated in the face of Caleb’s sudden inability to hold the pencil properly and thus produce a shoddy worksheet, where before he’s had no problem. I established that he didn’t have epilepsy or paralysis, and then proceeded to discipline him, whereafter amazingly his floppy hand seemed to work better. Caleb wanted to wash the dishes again today but we never quite got around to that.

We’ve caught three mice in three days in the pantry again. Just when I think there are surely no more, another one gets caught. I won’t describe where the trap caught the latest little chap because it’s not so nice, really. There’s a Logo Design competition on the go. It’s open to the public, and it’s for the Adult Vocational Education Services. The prize is £50 and the competition closes on the 28th July. Nick and I are going to enter a couple of designs, because we think we might have a shot at winning. I mean, how many great graphic designers can there really be on the island? Spent a long time on the computer today fiddling around in word with Word Art and text boxes and shadowing and colours, this while Aaron was pretending to sleep and Caleb wrote “speshl servs from the babtzt mans” (translated Special Services, from the Baptist Manse). I suspect he was advertising for the special services that we’ve just had. His page is filled with pictures of crosses and various logos he’s also designed.

Still learning about motherhood

Today’s been singularly unconstructive from a “work” point of view, but in terms of just being at home and spending time with the boys, it’s been fantastic. Many of my big projects are coming to an end, although I can always find something to occupy my time with and have at least three things I can think of offhand that need doing, other than housework. I’ve purposefully tried to have more interaction with the boys though and not just in school. So we’ve spent ages reading a book that was a puzzle book where you had to follow a mystery through the pictures, and playing hide and seek, and catchers, and doing dot-to-dot with Caleb, and all sorts of stuff. So it’s been good and I feel better as a mother!

Ask Dr Lynn

A lady approached me in Spar while I was selecting drumsticks, and asked if I was from the UK. I said no, then she asked if I knew about “St John’s Wharf”. “Ah yes,” said I, “St John’s Wort”. She wanted to know what it was for, so I said I would try find some information. Why on earth she should have asked me about it, I have no idea. I’ve never met her, and don’t usually have strangers wanting to pick my medical brain, for obvious reasons. It’s been proven that I have a brain (CAT scan a few years ago), but it certainly contains very little by way of medicinal practices and remedies. Anyway, I found a bit of info in an “Alternative Medicines” book, and photocopied it and let her have it. She wants to use it for depression, so I told her that depression can have many causes and different treatments. I invited her to church though.

Funeral Service

The combined and united service yesterday was very nice; the church was full – all except about one pew were occupied, with both our people and a lot of Salvation Army members. They had their brass band set up in the front, and they did all the music for the worship. The SAs enjoy clapping along, and they did a 1-2-3 rhythm on some songs with clapping and feet tapping…stomp clap clap, stomp clap clap. I enjoyed it. Nick preached a non-series message on “Bracing yourself for Change”. He used Deuteronomy 8 as his text, preaching on the dependence on God’s word, God’s Fatherly Hand, and the blessings that He bestows. The main thing I guess was that God uses trials in our lives to test and humble us.

It was Ida’s funeral today, a 90-year-old Christian lady who was a Baptist when she could attend church. Apparently it’s more or less Saint tradition to start the proceedings at the morgue, where close family and friends can view the body for the last time. A prayer is said and a scripture read, and then the coffin is driven to the chapel, in this case the Jamestown Baptist Chapel. In the meantime, everyone else has started seating themselves in the chapel, so that when the coffin and other mourners arrive, everyone is already in and seated (to stand when the coffin is carried in). It was quite emotional seeing it coming in, with Nick slowly leading the procession, and Vincent and Vilma behind the coffin and many more following. The church was absolutely packed. Nick’s message was short, and completely gospel. He used a text from Ecclesiastes:
Eccles. 7:2 (ESV)
It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
From this he preached the gospel, because a funeral is a time to consider one’s end. After the chapel service, the mourners proceeded to the graveyard (Knollcombes Baptist Cemetery), for the committal. I took the boys home straight after the chapel, as we didn’t think it would be too appropriate for them to run around over old tombs as they are wont to do.

Caleb washed the dishes for me again this morning (he begged me to let him wash them; how can I dampen such enthusiasm?). Part of the school activity was to make music with kitchen utensils. So I set out four pots on the floor and gave them four utensils and left them banging away while I went upstairs to do the hymn sheet for the funeral. Next thing we know they’ve taken out ALL the utensils as well as the pot lids and had a joyful clatter going. They got tired of the noise after a while, so Caleb constructed a machine from the pots, carefully interlacing the utensils and pot handles. A very intricate arrangement of metal, plastic and wood was the result.

A strange thing happened on my walk today. I went the usual route, up the mountain and then onto Jacob’s Ladder, and I was probably just past halfway going up, when a fist-sized rock came hurtling down the steps. I didn’t see where the trajectory started, but I think a bird must have dislodged it from the mountain on the right side, and it came down and bounced onto the steps, bouncing its way towards me and then on down to the bottom. All I could do was stare at it as it came closer, vaguely wondering how I could get out of the way and wondering if it would be quite sore if it hit me. Well, it didn’t hit me, but missed fairly closely. I was a bit unnerved, and the thought even occurred to me that someone was hiding behind a rock and had thrown this one down for some reason. I don’t think that’s the case though, more likely that you can take the girl out of South Africa but not South Africa out of the girl!

Salvation Army Band at the United Service in our Jamestown Chapel

Side Path story continues

It’s a beautiful day on sunny St Helena, with a clear sky and a slight breeze. Not the kind of weather one would expect for the beginning of July! It’s 10h32 and we’ve had our tenzees; the bulletins are busy photocopying, the blinds are up and working in Nick’s office, and the sea is dark blue. We have a combined service, and a united service with the Salvation Army at 2.30 today, with fellowship following. I think we’ll just be spending the rest of the morning at home doing what we’re doing – that is, mucking about, slowly getting done what we need to in preparation for the booktable and that sort of thing today.

Yesterday we went out to lunch at Donny’s. Nick and the boys had cheeseburgers and chips, and I had a delicious drumstick and chips. It was quite comparative with Ardees, perhaps slightly more expensive, but the food and atmosphere was much nicer. I’m sure we’ll go there more often. We didn’t really do much else yesterday other than GNC – and there are new girls coming all the time, which is so good. Nick did the talk on the parable of the sower, and it was quite a clear explanation about the state of their hearts. After lunch, we helped Jean set out the tables and cups in the schoolroom, and Nick did some more preparation for the funeral tomorrow. It was a very stay-at-home sort of day.

Side Path, which was apparently opened again on Friday, was closed again yesterday when I took Jean home. Perhaps the wall has crumbled some more and it’s unsafe, who knows? But it’s not a pleasant drive up Constitution Hill in the golf. Power steering and a working hooter are two things one really needs for island driving!

Side Path open again

Today started with school, during which I tried to get Aaron to do a puzzle. Unfortunately he’s terrible at puzzles and needed a lot of attention, while at the same time I was going over phonetics with Caleb who had forgotten most of his sounds and needed a lot of attention. It was trying. We got the golf back (already) and Nick says it started when he drove it. We wait to see how faithful it’s going to be!

News from the island is that Side Path has been reopened to cars and bikes, no heavy vehicles. The problem hasn’t gone away, but I guess they decided it was safe enough to use.