Yippee, Ruperts!

A last-minute arrangement today saw us at Ruperts’ at 2.30; by the time we had applied sunblock, flippers, goggles and snorkels, Pam, Geoff and Maddy had arrived. The Ruperts snorkelling was even better than at James’ Bay. There is a larger ‘reef’ area before the seabed dips down deep and although the water was murky, we still had reasonable visibility. At first there were just a few fish, but as we got further out we beheld a school. It was breathtaking swimming above them and looking down at the layers and layers of fish – perhaps a few hundred of them. Swimming off in another direction we saw two more schools of different fish. I have no idea what the names are but will work on that. Caleb said that from his perspective it looked like the fish were only half a metre below me, but I stretched out my arms and couldn’t touch them. A couple of braver fellows came up to have a look, staring with their unblinking eyes, but quickly swam off. Probably a good thing as I might not have liked to be nibbled by their fleshy little mouths. Pam joined us in snorkelling for the first time too, but between seasickness and shortsightedness she was less awestruck! We left Ruperts around 5.15 and relaxed at Pam’s place while the supper cooked. It was a lovely way to end an excellent afternoon.

Terribly blah day

I sold necklaces in town but only made ₤44 before I had to pack up at 12.20 because it started raining again. I wasn’t at all sure that I would even be able to set up outside the canister as it was so drippy in town, but by 10 am the sun was shining and I could proceed. I got a bit of grocery shopping done after the selling, and by the time I got home at 1.30 Nick was ready to leave for his prison ministry. He also had a band practice in town and had time for a quick swim before coming home for our pizza supper (without pineapple though as there’s none of that in the shops – in fact, the shelves are very badly stocked at present. The ship returned from Cape Town yesterday so let’s hope things sort themselves out). During the afternoon the kids played here for a while, but I’m certain the weather made them a bit cuckoo as they were all very silly.

Thursday in detail

8.30 am Leave home to take Nick to town; meet up with Geoff at his house. Nick, Geoff and Maddy buy more flippers, goggles etc at Rose & Crown. The boys and I go home. Nick and Geoff proceed to New Horizons where they hire a kayak and set off for Lemon Valley.
9.30 am Arrive home, hang up washing, do a bit of scrapping.
10.40 am Ready to leave home again for town; Aaron burns his thumb on the cigarette lighter in the car. Both boys come rushing inside accompanied by the smell of burning flesh. Run Aaron’s thumb under cold water for a while before wrapping it up in a package of frozen cauliflower. Since Nick is not around I have to handle the emergency on my own. I’m no good in emergencies.
11.00 am Aaron sufficiently calm for us to go to town.
11.20 am Meet up with ladies at the Coffee Shop – Maureen, Elza, Pam, Cindy and I chat while the kids play. Very nice. Aaron grosses all the girls out with viewings of his thumb. Speak to a nurse at the Coffee Shop who advises that we get the burn attended to. 12.20 pm Think we see Nick and Geoff in the sea – drive to the landing steps for a closer look but didn’t see them after all. By then a large container ship has anchored for a crew member needing medical attention. Chat briefly to Dr Bloem who was waiting to embark. (Photo below taken from outside the Manse).
12.30 pm Drop Pam off in town and continue up with boys to the hospital. Find a nurse who dresses Aaron’s wound with Flameze, gauze and bandage. Thumb already feeling much better. Defrosted cauliflower later discarded.
1.00 pm Have lunch at Pam.
2.00 pm Drive back to town to look for Nick and Geoff. Find them returning the kayak to New Horizons. Reported a good morning despite Nick losing a flipper when the kayak tipped. Some debate as to our next step.
2.10 pm Caleb and Maddison go for a swim in the pool. Nick, Geoff, Pam, Aaron and I return to the coffee shop for a while. Big waves coming up over the waterfront – poor little government car thoroughly salted.
2.30 pm Nick, Aaron and I drive up to Rose & Crown for Nick to try buy, discounted, a broken pair of flippers to replace the lost one. He is given the flippers.
3.00 pm We retrieve Caleb from the pool and come home.
4.30 pm Supper – Tuesday night’s bean hash reheated.
5.00 pm Nick leaves for Bible Study.

The return of the Longwood Fog

The PotD best sums up the day…rainy! It rained and rained and rained. At about 4 pm the sun came out for a little while and that was the end of the rain although it clouded over again shortly after that. Definitely not a day for washing.
The boys spent the day at home (actually they were grounded but we won’t go into that). I played two rounds of Uno with them in the afternoon, but otherwise I spent most of the day beading (apart from a half-hour burst of housework which resulted in the misleading appearance of a clean house) – I prepared pendants by gluing bell caps to semi-precious stones, and in the afternoon I made some of the pendants into necklaces. I got superglue on my fingers but fortunately avoided the finger which I slit open last night on pliers, otherwise I’m sure it would have been really unpleasant.
Elza phoned during the morning to ask if I could retrieve her camera from Longwood House where she had accidentally left it yesterday, so I took a walk thinking it might be nice to have some fresh air, albeit in the rain. Anyone else ever had an umbrella turn inside out on them? It’s not that it was particularly windy this morning, but there was enough draft to render the umbrella fairly useless. I’ve always wondered what happens when the umbrella bends upwards like you see in Mary Poppins, but I discovered that it’s an easy matter to flip it over again just by turning it into the wind...mystery solved.

Lynn: Mennonite Cook and Snorkel Girl

I had no particular plans for the day and didn’t know how it would pan out - I certainly didn’t have snorkeling on the to-do list, but somehow it got on! After a quiet morning at home (I did some beading), we went to town for an early lunch, and to pick up a few things at the manse. Nick said he wanted to shop around for sea gear…he came and found me at the Star and asked if I would also like a snorkel and goggles, as a present. I wasn’t sure about it – not knowing if I’d ever get much use out of them, having only recently braved swimming in the ocean. The colour of the proposed set tipped my vote though…

...so while I went to Sally’s to order lunch, Nick and the boys went back to Rose & Crown to buy everything – a pair of flippers (the boys already had flippers and there were two pairs at the manse, one in my size), four snorkels and four pairs of goggles. Lunch was superb - Sally's take-aways at Castle Gardens will be one of those things we will reminisce about long after leaving the island.

After lunch we went home – Nick to do some more sermon prep and me to carry on with beading – and then headed back into town around 3.30. The tide was the highest I’ve seen it…washing in right over the landing steps and flooding the whole section below the second flight of stairs. Anyone disembarking the RMS would have been soaked. Because of the tide, Caleb and I were scared to go in – I thought perhaps the current might wash me back against the rocks or steps and I’d crack my head open. Eventually Nick helped me in, and there it was – my new love of snorkelling. It was amazing to swim along, watching the fish and not getting a face full of sea water. There weren’t many fish about, and the seabed dips quite suddenly so there wasn’t a lot of reef, but there was certainly enough to see to keep it interesting – a few small fish of varying species, parts of wrecks, a fanta can, rocks. We all noticed a clicking sound under the water but couldn’t ascertain the source – perhaps rocks tumbling against each other as the tide washed over the shore.

Last night Nick was given a packet of white beans – the mature inners of string beans, I think. I wasn’t sure what to do with them until I read bits of the Mennonite cookbook from Genevieve which utilizes a lot of beans. I first soaked them which turned them purple, and then left them in the pot all day until I was ready to properly cook after we got home from the snorkelling. All I did was add a can of chopped tomatoes, a can of cream-style sweetcorn, a can of baked beans, some fried onion and some diced cooked beef. It was really simple and tasted pretty good. I served it with pasta. While in town earlier, I bought some more varieties of legumes with which to experiment – soya beans, split peas (aka lentils?) and pearl barley. Aaron has been keen to try Jacob's red lentil stew for which Esau sold his birthright. I’ll try my hand at it.

New look blog again

I’ve been swatting mosquitoes all evening. Lately they have become a real problem – we are kept awake at night not with just one or two mozzies, but with ten or more. Nick went around all the cupboards and curtains this morning with a towel, hunting them down in true male fashion, but even so they seem to multiply during the day again.

Today, the first day of the holidays, was quite good. I spent quite a few hours working on the blog – one of the few times where you, my readers, can actually see the fruits of my labours! Then I had to put in washing, wash dishes, tidy up and pop out to the shops for Claire who needed emergency supplies for Milly’s party (I needed bread anyway). Cindy and the girls arrived at 1.25, and we walked across to Claire. The party was great for the kids, who ranged in age from 8 months to 9 years. The older kids did a treasure hunt outside while the little ones ate sesame bread sticks and waddled about.

Oaklands picnic

The plan for the afternoon was to go to Rosemary Plain with friends, but weather rearranged the plans a bit so we ended up picnicking at John and Cindy’s place with Geoff, Pam and Maddy. It was a great afternoon – the grounds are expansive, so while the kids ran around, jumped on the trampoline, spied on cows and played cricket, we sat on the veranda and nibbled on bounteous provisions – mostly thanks to Pam who is a picnic caterer par excellance.

Lemon Valley revisited

Saturday was a full day for us all in one way or another. Nick was at the Sandy Bay Chapel at 9 am to join with several church folk for a morning of prayer and fasting. They prayed for many aspects of the church life and island including the Ascension outreach, the people in and out of our church, the restoration of the buildings, the youth etc. Meanwhile the boys and I caught a lift into town with Claire, as Tom was wanting to join the Good News Club kids at the pool – since Nick, Nick and Enid would all be praying, we decided to organize swimming for the kids instead of having me trying to run a meeting single-handedly. This was a satisfactory arrangement all round!

By noon, Nick was back from the country and we were ready to meet up at the landing steps at the wharf with the Jessons and Spiers (I’ve finally figured out everyone’s surnames). Claire had arranged, as an extension of Rob’s 40th birthday party, for a small group of us to be ferried to Lemon Valley for the afternoon. The sea was a little rough, but getting on to the ferry from the landing steps was uncomplicated. The 20+ minute ride across was excellent. We spotted a few dolphins in the distance, straining our eyes at the horizon until they hurt to see the antics of these supple mammals. Getting off the ferry at the other end was tricky. There is no pier or nice smooth wall to come alongside, simply a metal ladder leading off a small metal platform where the rocks are the most even. When we went to Lemon Valley with Sarel and Elza we had no trouble disembarking from the dinghy as the sea was smooth, and so of course we were anticipating a similar scenario. However, strong rip and metre-high swells meant that the ferrymen had to make several attempts to get us off. We had to wait for a lull before being able to get close, and even then we could only offload three or four people at a time before they had to pull away and wait again. We were all nervous about getting little Arthur off, but one of the men simply jumped off the boat onto the rocks holding him. Once we, and all the bags and bags of food, towels, swimming gear, flippers and goggles were offloaded, we could relax and enjoy the afternoon, which we all did thoroughly – apart from Tom falling on some rocks and slicing his knee open, and Phil cutting his elbow on a slippery bit of an exploratory walk later in the afternoon. For the most part we had a very relaxed afternoon. The sea was too rough for swimming (although Nick, Claire and Rob braved it), but we found an awesome rockpool which was perfect, and I really mean perfect, for the kids (and me). It was protected on all sides but the shallow water is constantly renewed with sea water which stays in long enough to be thoroughly warmed up before evaporating.
At 4 pm we packed up all our stuff in anticipation of the returning ferry. Reversing the procedure to get out of Lemon Valley was even harder than landing – again, the waiting for a lull and loading up only a few people at a time. We had to just literally grab a hand and jump from the steps onto the ferry with slippery feet – again, we waited nervously for Arthur and Milly to be handed aboard, but it was all good.
We navigated right over the wreck in James’ Bay – I suspect the ship was the Witte Leeuw but I can’t say any more about it with any confidence or certainty.

Holidays start

Last day of school…and just in time too. We could all use the break from spelling and maths! Nick had prison ministry in the afternoon which he said was fantastic, as he had complete liberty to share with three of the prisoners who attended the service. He is also teaching guitar to one of the men. Just time for a quick snooze…

…before heading back to town late afternoon for a swim in the ocean – James’ Bay is a popular swimming spot and there were a number of people cooling down after a day in the office. I made snackwiches to go so that we didn’t need to worry about rushing home for supper. In the evening we had Paul’s birthday party – I think this is the last birthday for February. (Photos below by Nick)

February is a popular birthday month, apparently

School this morning plodded along – it was not really one of our better days and I didn’t feel like doing it, but there wasn’t much point in giving up so we pressed on. Not that it was particularly bad either; I simply didn’t enjoy it today! I was also fed up with washing, vacuuming, and housework in general, because it seems that I clean up and everyone else messes. I very much doubt that I’m the only housewife who feels this way, and I suppose it’s comforting to know, but it still doesn’t help the clutter to evaporate! Anyway. I took the canary back to its homeland, ie the fields below Piccolo, and set it on a branch. Apart from it having an annoyingly piercing and over-utilized chirp, it just didn’t seem like a good idea to keep it as it wasn’t eating anything. We thought it would have a better chance in the wild. I saw two canaries on the reservoir fence close by, and I have no doubt that they would have heard the cry of the baby – even if it isn’t theirs. I went back to check on it a bit later and it had hopped its way deeper into the tree, looking very comfortable in its surrounds. Thus ends yet another bird story.
In the afternoon the boys and I (and Nick too, I guess, though he declined, not wishing to be the only male present) were invited to a small party for Milly, who turned 3 today. Her proper party will be on Monday coming, but Claire just had a few of us over for cupcakes and tea. It was great – the kids tried to play “Happy Birthday” on violin and two recorders and despite being greatly out of tune with each other, or tuneless in general, did a good job.

Bird and band

When Nick came home from his walk this morning with a “come and see what I found”, I groaned and said, “I hope it’s not another bird”…I wasn’t particularly surprised that it was, as we seem to have a proclivity for finding birds in distress. This time it was a baby canary which he found on the fields behind Piccolo – it was on the ground, flapping, but not getting anywhere. It’s a dear little thing, about 8cm beak to tail, with a shrill cheap which it obviously enjoys the sound of. We do not. Feeding it today has been relatively unsuccessful. It flies a little bit but its wing and tail feathers are miniature. It likes to be on our heads or shoulders, or best of all in one of the pot plants, where it adds nitrates to the soil. So that is our new acquisition, yet to be named.

We had a good laugh in school this morning in science, where we learned that a mother cuckoo will oust one of the eggs of a small bird like a Reed Warbler, lay her own egg in its nest, then fly away. The cuckoo egg is similar in colour to that of the host bird’s eggs, although slightly larger, but the foster mother doesn’t notice. She incubates the egg which hatches before her own do, and while the baby cuckoo is still naked and blind it expels the remaining eggs out of the nest too. Meanwhile, the foster mother continues to feed “her” baby which grows rapidly, until he has outgrown both the nest and his adoptive mom. The mom, being a good bird, continues to feed the chick, having to sit on top of the overgrown baby to feed him! The picture in the book, although very accurate, was hilarious, and the boys and I were thoroughly tickled.

The boys came with me to the shops when I went for bread…Aaron to have a swing in the playground, and Caleb to walk across to Maisie’s Shop to buy a wooden recorder he had seen here. It’s rubbish quality, but he is so pleased with it anyway. We bought a book some time ago on playing the recorder, and already he has learned a few of the notes. Because of this purchase, the Piccolo kids banded together to form a music group. They initially called themselves the Three Boy Band but then remembered that Sappho plays the violin and should be included, so they are now called the Four Kid Group, aka C.A.T.S. A bit of practicing and lots of bossing about from all quarters produced an impromptu concert to which all the adults were invited. They set chairs out in front of Rob and Claire’s unit, then amidst much giggling and silliness, they played a few pieces. Aaron disappeared completely during the concert, overcome by shyness, but Caleb, Sappho and Tom each had a go on the ‘stage’ with their instruments (Aaron lent Caleb’s former harmonica to Tom, sold to Aaron by Caleb to afford the recorder). It was highly entertaining and a good effort on their part, even though it was completely disorganized. Tom was the MC and was a natural at it. I was needing to get back home to make supper, but no-one minded that it ran about 40 minutes late.

The appreciative audience: Jenna, Phil, Rob and Nick (above) and DT, Claire and Milly (below).

Some energy involved

Apart from school and some scrapping in the afternoon, we had a quiet day, except that I had been asked to be at the Girl Guides meeting in town at 5 pm to give my opinion on their recipe book. The recipe book is a project in which, as I understand it, all the groups over the island are participating. Each group produces a book which will then be judged and a winner declared. The Jamestown group wanted to do a scrapbook version, and having heard that I do scrapbooking, asked for my help. I put together a page as a sample a few weeks ago and then didn’t hear from them again until yesterday. They seemed to be doing well with their collection of pages, and I offered to do the cover. It was great to be there because most of the girls were from the GNC. I told them they were all doing a wonderful job, shared a few tips, and then left again after 20 minutes.

Pressies from Pennsylvania

It was raining this morning when we got up, and carried on raining until about 9.30, after which the clouds lifted and the sun came out. School was all fine, until I got to the last bit of reading and couldn’t carry on as my voice was taking strain! I asked Nick to do the reading as he had a lull. Four days left of this term, then a week of holiday.

In the afternoon Nick had an appointment in town, then went to the post office. He came home with two parcels from the Williamsons – one for the boys and one for us, resulting in much excitement all round. The boys were given Playmobil cars and colouring books of a high and educational standard, and Nick and I were spoiled with a CD, some scrapbooky goodies (well, not so much Nick's thing), and a very interesting Mennonite cookbook. Genevieve also included a hand painted (by her) Christmas card which is so special and lovely that I’ll have to frame and display it.

Swimming in the South Atlantic, tum de dum

This afternoon we took ourselves off to James’ Bay, where Nick was quite keen for a swim. This time I talked myself into swimming as well, and I surprised myself by really enjoying it. We had two tubes and a pair of armbands between the four of us, and made our way across the bay from the landing steps to some rocks not too far away, then back again. The water was disgustingly salty as seawater tends to be, but not very cold. Extremely clear – I could see my shadow on the rocky seabed. Fortunately I didn’t see any fish otherwise I might have exited with haste! Nick swam back to the rocks again to join some kids who were jumping off some dizzying heights into the water. He did three jumps, consecutively higher – the last being about 24 feet as we calculated it. He says it was scary. We were back home by about 4.30, I think, and then it was back to town a short while later for church. I invited Jessina, one of the teenage girls who lives close to Piccolo. She was very keen to come, more to relieve her boredom than to hear Nick preaching, I’m sure, but I think she enjoyed it.

Oh yes, and happy Valentine's Day!

This morning was the usual start to a Saturday – Good News Club, and a few errands in town. I didn’t have any bread in the freezer for lunch so we went to “The Pink Flamingo”, which is a new place built behind the Coffee Shop. It opened a couple of weeks ago but this was the first time we’d been. They do take-outs and sit-ins, serving from a trailer to a large covered deck housing several picnic tables. We just had hot dogs, then went home.
Nick was back in town during the early afternoon for a swim in the ocean with Richard and Geoff, and then at 4 pm we walked across the lawn to our evening engagement which was a barbeque for Rob’s 40th. Nick helped to cook the mounds of sausages and chicken legs while the guests mingled and chatted. We were about 30 people, I think. The advantage of having a do like this on the island is that all the guests already know each other, even if they don’t know each other well – so there was no need for introductions or ice-breakers or anything. It was lovely to talk to people that we wouldn’t normally see or socialize with, including Sharon, whose little Charlotte we babysat a while back. Charlotte is just the dearest little thing. Every time the camera was on her she started laughing.
The food was ready by about 5, I guess, and it was delicious and plentiful, with a few different contributors. I had made a tuna curry noodle salad, and there was a bowl of tomato and cucumber, a potato salad, another green/tomato/bean salad and rolls, along with the meat. The boys had been playing outside with the other kids – and there were lots of kids, apart from the three babies. It was a really great party.

At home

Just a normal school day today and the afternoon was spent quietly at home. I made a couple of necklaces, and Nick had his prison ministry in the afternoon, with three men in attendance, I think.

CD release

Nick officially released his “Like a Child” CD at Saint FM…about time, as it’s been slowly trickling onto the market, but the general populace doesn’t know much about it. All proceeds of the album go to the rockfall fund, which I think is the only reason that Nick was willing to discuss the album on the radio – he hates promoting himself. He was able to go on Tammy’s afternoon show which was great, as it meant not being asked inane questions about the CD, or the meaning of the lyrics etc. Tammy could give him a sensitive interview and allow him to liberally discuss matters! Along with the CD, they also chatted about island issues, like the lack of discipline among the kids in the high school etc.

We were no sooner home than Claire phoned, wanting to know if the boys were going to “Beavers”. This is the youngest age of the Scouts – Beavers, then Cubs, then Scouts. Until a few weeks ago I had no idea that such a group existed – we had been told that boys could join when they are 8, so perhaps Beavers is new. Anyway, Tom is now a Beaver, and since Claire is going to town anyway to take him, she graciously gives Caleb and Aaron a lift as well. This evening they had a swim-meet, doing relay races across the width of the pool. The boys came home enthusiastically describing what had gone on, and it sounds like they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. My little Beavers!

More blessings

This morning the fish man came by during our tenzees. Margaret and DT were already out there, but before chatting to them I bought some fish. The fish man knows me and seems to know what my fish preferences will be, I guess judging by which of his previous offerings I screwed up my face at. Sometimes he shows me strange fish and usually prefaces the opening of the cooler box with “I don’t think you’ll like this, but…”. He’s usually right – fish with many small bones are a waste of time. Today he thought I might like to try Cavalley, which I’ve never heard of. It is a white fish similar to Wahoo with no little bones. I thought I’d give it a bash, so we had it for supper tonight. I couldn’t really taste the fish through the garlic cheese sauce and spaghetti, but the texture was very nice.

Nick picked up a proof of the book he is getting published from Printech today. It looks really great in its draft form and will be better in the final copy with a thicker cover etc. It’s quite exciting to have taken it this far! He’s getting 500 copies printed, and we’re hoping to send some to South Africa for the various supporting churches to sell – all the proceeds are going to our rockfall relief fund.

After Nick was home and I could use the car again, I drove to the other side of the island to collect some parcels from my parents which they sent in Cindy’s crate – very convenient! I had a cup of tea with Cindy and caught up on the year before she needed to fetch the girls from school. I had requested just a few beads and findings – my parents lovingly managed to fill FOUR shoe boxes with raisins, biscuits, socks, beads, glue and tape for scrapping, chocolates, games, tea and clothing, and even their very own set of Mexican Train Dominoes (they couldn't purchase another set in the shops, as it's out of stock, so sacrificed their own - and have been restricted to Rummikub as an alternative!). It was that Christmas feeling all over again.

Fresh produce - planted and purchased

Today my voice was almost recovered but I am still taking it easy, so although we had almost regular school, I didn’t catch up on everything and asked Nick to do some of the reading. I also had to take a few breaks between the readings which I think was a bit exasperating for the boys – they would have preferred just to get school over with. I made a few pairs of earrings while I was ‘breaking’. During the afternoon I ironed the few things that I had before it piled up into the monster again, and vacuumed some bits of the house. The boys were given a lot of seeds some weeks ago by Louise here at Piccolo, and today was the day for planting them. The diggers have mostly finished digging up trenches and they are now being covered over again, so it was easy work just to poke holes in the dirt out back of our house and drop in the seeds. Caleb marked off the area with sticks and string, then he made a little sign which I laminated, advertising the buried treasures.

Claire came by at some point – Tom has hurt his arm and she had taken him to the hospital to establish whether it is actually broken or not. They still have no clarity as were advised to wait a few days and see how it is. Meanwhile he is wearing a sling. Anyway, Tom came over to play as soon as they were home, which suited Caleb and Aaron nicely as they didn’t need to then wait until after 3 when their friends usually get out of school. Claire brought Milly over to let her play with the boys a bit too – also wanting a bit of peace while she unpacked the groceries. She had managed to procure a lot of fresh fruit off the ship as she has put in an order with one of the small shops. This is a good idea as it means she doesn’t need to try time her town visits to co-ordinate with the mysterious and irregular unpacking times the shops have in order to get fresh produce. She said she had a bit too much and offered to let me have some off her, which I happily accepted – wow, she came back with a huge bag loaded with apples, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, grapes, kumquats , tomatoes and even a pineapple. I have NEVER had this much fresh stuff all at one go in the nearly three and a half years we’ve been living here. What a treat!
At the deacons’ meeting last night the Ascension trip that Nick has been thinking about was discussed…Nick has been wanting to go there to do an outreach, preaching for several consecutive Sundays and doing mid-week bible studies. The funding has become available and the deacons gave the green light, so today we phoned shipping and made a provisional booking for him, departing St Helena 16th June and returning 16th July. How do I feel about him being away for a month? Well, it could be worse…it could have been six or seven weeks! I’m not ecstatic and am dreading the time but it will be enlightening to see what single mothers have to deal with. I’m so dependant on Nick for his company, friendship and parenting input, as well as the many cups of tea and coffee he makes me, that it will be quite horrible to be without him. However, as this is the Lord’s work I have to let him go willingly, not grudgingly, and not sulk about it! So that is on the calendar.