Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Happy Birthday St Helena


It is the 505th birthday of the island today…discovered on 21st May 1502 by the Portuguese explorer. In honour of the event, today was a public holiday, and there were festivities planned at Francis Plain (Prince Andrews High School). During the morning, Nick and I got some house painting done, after a very late morning though and a late start, only getting to the painting at 10.30. We worked for about two hours, and did the lower half of the house wall, a good accomplishment we thought. It’s looking really lovely, although the windows (not the glass) and pipes look so conspicuous now and need a fresh coat of paint too. The colour we are using, the peppermint, is working so well, giving a fresh appearance, like minty toothpaste. The boys were playing outside with a very long pipe which Nick found for them, which they decided to sand and clean, so that occupied them for some time. We headed off to the Plain after a small lunch. There was a good attendance! I’m sure at least a third of the island turned out for the occasion, it was really quite festive and lively. Some activities had been planned, like tug-of-war and custard-eating, but the teams were made up of government departments, not a free-for-all. There was a marquee set up with a BBQ going, and a jumping castle, but we were disappointed that there were no boot sales going – you can usually pick up some good bargains! We stood in a very long queue for chips, sausage, burger and ribs, then sat on the field on our picnic blanket and enjoyed the meal. The boys had already had a good jump on the castle, so after that there wasn’t much left to do. We were out for a good hour at least, maybe more. The weather is changing though – yesterday we had heavy rains during the night, for which we are grateful as it hasn’t rained in a long time, and there’s been a very slight chill in the air, particularly in the country.

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