Get out of your house!

Nick and I were so looking forward to going to bed last night and catching up on some lost sleep, but at 1.30 we were both awake because there was such a lot of noise on the street outside – the usual Saturday night funmakers – and it was stuffy inside. The phone rang five minutes later, and we both thought, oh dear, someone’s died. But it was Teddy phoning from the Police Station, where he works now part-time, to say that we needed to evacuate the house immediately. There was an accident up on Ladder Hill, almost directly above the Manse, where some guy was driving too fast and had to brake suddenly, and drove his Subaru into the mountain. Rescue workers were concerned that there would be a rock fall when they removed the wrecked vehicle, so they got all the houses in the near vicinity evacuated. Nick got the car out the garage, we put the back seats down for the boys, and then had to drive down into town first to turn around. It was an eye-opener to be in town at that late hour on a Saturday night, because there were simply so many people about! The shops were long since closed, but people were just walking around, window shopping, chatting to friends, and being sociable. Of course there was also plenty of drinking going on. Anyway, back up the road past the Manse to Barracks Square, which is a group of houses with a little car park in the middle, where we had been instructed to wait. We left the boys in the car and got out to enjoy the night air. Fortunately we didn’t have to hang around for too long, as we were told at about 2.10 that we could go home again, all clear. I’m thankful for two things though – firstly, that it didn’t happen on Friday night when all the girls were here, and secondly, that it wasn’t raining! There were no injuries in the accident.

Our Sunday has been quite normal then, other than the evacuation part. Nick had his usual services, and I did my usual scrapping while the boys watched their usual DVD. Lunch was a pork stir-fry which the boys plodded through with long teeth, and then we had ice-cream outside. After that we scattered to our own directions again.

Sleepover #4

Amazingly, I’m not trashed after last night’s sleepover. We had lights out at 12.35, followed by only a short period of whispering – I really didn’t have any trouble settling the girls. The evening was filled with noise, fun, excitement, dancing, music, DVDs, chatting amongst themselves, origami, pillow fights, crafts, nibbling on chips and chocolates, and washing up. We had ice-cream at about 10.30 pm. At 11 pm I put on a DVD and told them to get themselves settled and ready for bed, so that when the movie ended we could go to sleep. I was very disappointed at their choice of a movie to watch though, and I banned it – I don’t know what the actual content was, but it was rated “R” – restricted – because of sexual content and language. I got very heavy and deep on them, explaining that I was disappointed and thought it was inappropriate, and that they should examine their relationship with God if they are prepared to watch movies like this at their young age – certainly not God-honouring! It’s patently obvious though, that they have no guidance in these matters, other than their own uneducated consciences. We take it for granted that we know what’s right and wrong, but these girls simply haven’t learned. They have unchristian parents and live in a godless society. I am very burdened for them. I’ve been wanting to start a regular group for them, independent of the Good News Club, and was hoping that the sleepover would be a kickstart for it. Well, the opportunity didn’t arise last night to broach the subject, but this morning I just mentioned it rather casually to one girl (the oldest, who I particularly want to get involved as she is already attending the high school, and our only GNC person who hasn’t stopped coming since going there) and she was keen, so I took it up with the rest while they were sitting fairly quietly. I explained what my goal for the group is – that it’s to help them grow into Godly Christian women – and we’ve set Monday afternoons from 4–5 pm for the group to happen.

Boys are boys

The boys each have a spider in a bottle, which they are looking after like little pets. They open the lid a few times a day to let in fresh air, and each spider has at least one live bug for food when it gets hungry. There is also a fair selection of dead grass and dirt in the bottles now, although this latest edition has obscured the sightings of the spiders. Aaron loves his spider but the nearest he can get to showing it affection is hugging the bottle. I had my last craft group at Pillings today - we made serviette rings by cutting up toilet roll inners and then wrapping wool around them. I untangled many knots!

Nick is still busy with the outside stuff when he has time, although today was quite a busy office-work day for him. He’s cut down a lot of the bamboo to size, but has come across about six pieces so far that are unusable – either slightly too short, or too thin. These he has allowed the boys to play with, for their construction games. He fashioned a tepee frame for them, lashing them together with flax. The boys wanted to cover the whole thing with black bags, and so started today in the hope that they would be able to sleep in it tomorrow night (outdoors), but Nick informed them that sleeping outside would not be appropriate given the current weather. It’s become windy again, and we’re having a lot of rain at night. The days are still hot and sticky, but at least the wind moves the air around!

Construction site

Nick’s morning involved Steve and Teddy coming around to help him construct a framework upon which to fasten the bamboo over the braai area. They did what they needed to do, so that when Nick is ready, he just needs to drill a few holes and can then bolt the angle-iron to the walls. Don’t ask me for any more details! That was on the go from about 10.15, so the boys could watch for a while during our break, and then while the one was busy reading for me, the other could watch etc. Maureen also came for a while after her craft group, so when we had a lunch break we all had tea together outside, dodging the washing! We didn’t finish school before lunch, but just had two more books so it didn’t take long. In the early session, the boys had to write a journal entry. I had to first explain the whole concept, which Caleb caught on to, but I had to really help Aaron quite a bit, which is fine as it was a new concept. The point was for them to write down their own thoughts about life in their own writing and their own spelling, and then as the year goes on we will do them again, to see the progress in their spelling, handwriting, and hopefully, thoughts! The results were interesting, and very good.

Back to the dentist

Hooray, I didn’t have a tooth pulled today! I had an appointment for the continuing work on this silly broken tooth, which was either going to be an extraction or root canal. This new dentist, now the fourth to work on the tooth, didn’t even suggest an extraction, although he said that the tooth would probably break at some point in a few years anyway. But for now, he’s happy to salvage what he can. He started root canal today, which involved drilling out the old temporary filling (how many times has that been done??), then something else by way of cleaning all the way up to my brain just about, and then inserting some sort of filling and ‘welding’ it in (?), judging by the smoke and smell at one point. He seemed surprised that this tooth had been an ongoing problem for so long – I suspect that if the first dentist had done her stuff properly, there would have been closure months ago, but alas, her great idea of a temporary filling wasn’t a great idea at all.

Nick’s load of bamboo was delivered this morning, which he will be using to create a roof of sorts over the braai area. He finished his bible study prep early and then spent a large part of the afternoon sawing it to the right lengths. He’s extremely motivated with the outdoor stuff!

I am a child of God!

I was just busy hunting around in the workshop for an old lock face that I needed for a museum layout, when Nick came home, at about 10 am. Being a Lay Preachers’ Sunday, he wasn’t preaching, so when he dropped Nick W off at Head o’Wain, and discovered that Maisie was doing the music at that service, he didn’t need to stay. It was so nice to have him home early. Together we found what I needed, and then I made pizza while he sat in the kitchen chatting. After lunch, and pudding, and coffee, we went to the pool for a swim. It was very nice to be there, as it was cloudy but hot. I swam too – the water was so warm that I hardly felt cooled, but at least I wasn’t sticky any more! After the swim we still had a long stretch of afternoon at home, which was great.

Church this evening was excellent. The Governor preached a message on adoption, which was very well prepared and delivered, with one of the applications being that in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, we need to remind ourselves that “I am a child of God”. Financial worries? I am a child of God. Struggling with something? I am a child of God. Feeling anxious? I am a child of God – and so on. Nick thought it was good too. Jean did all the music and the Andrew led the service, so Nick could just be a regular church-goer. After church we invited our South African friends, Harry and Jennifer, around for a cup of tea, and then decided to ask Andrew and Jean as well, so we had a merry party.

Saturday stuff

A light drizzle is falling, as it has been off and on for a large part of the day. Drizzle isn’t really the right word, actually – more like a mist spitting from the sky. It’s been hot and sticky again, despite the precipitation, or perhaps due to it! It’s been the fairly usual Saturday, but not bad at all. I whipped up some invitations for the girls for the next pyjama party, which will be this coming Friday night, so finished those off quickly this morning so I could hand them out after GNC. Nick (my Nick) did the teaching this morning, about the different religions on the island, and it was really very good and informative. The warning was “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, essentially a summary of last Sunday’s sermon. After the club we went to town, primarily because the boys wanted to each buy a fly gun with their pocket money. It’s such a great little device, which works better as a toy than an actual fly-killing gadget, I’m convinced!

Fish repopulation

Terribly hot again today, and sticky, which is worse. School lately has been going really well, and I think we’re all enjoying it. I got the boys to write their words with sticks of drawing charcoal, but they didn’t really like it as it squeaked on the paper and put them on edge! So far the sugar writing has been the most popular in the “mix it up” category. In the afternoon I had my craft class, which went well as it always has with this class. The teacher in charge said that next week will be my last one with this class, and then after that I’ll switch back to the first class for a new set of crafts. Hold on, I told her, I didn’t sign up for another round! The head teacher came by a few minutes later, having been told the news that one of their valued volunteers would be falling off the list, but she didn’t try to pressure me into staying, simply thanked me very much for what I’d done. I told her I’d consider doing it again at the end of the year, but for now I need a break. After the class I had time to ice the second carrot cake, defrosted now, in time for threezees, where we all sat outside with our tea and cake, admiring Nick’s freshly mowed lawn.

It was reported on the news this week that there is a glimmer of hope for the fishing industry now, as a few hundred kgs of small tuna were caught. They were pulling in a few tons at a time, so this is not good compared, but is the first relatively big catch in about four months.

Lost and found

Between Nick and Caleb, the missing baby pigeon was found today – dead, under the cupboard in the workshop. Nick’s nose led him to it. We don’t know what the cause of death was, but I would speculate that it was malnutrition. We’ve seen another baby pigeon, quite likely the sibling of ours, in our backyard. Although it can fly, it still wanders around after the same mother bird, wanting to be fed. I thought it was only in the human race that when a child leaves the nest to fly on its own, and can fend for itself, it still comes back for meals!

Special enough day?

It’s been some hot here again. No more rain, and lots of sun. Our house isn’t bad at all downstairs, but one can’t really sit around in the lounge all day! I noticed Nick doing some reading in there in the afternoon though. He put in quite a lot of time with the building project today. His hands are really taking quite a beating from the concrete, despite that he’s using gloves – it’s eating little holes into his fingers. We had a pretty good time in school. The boys had to do a bit of creative writing, first fleshing out a sentence with adjectives and descriptions, and secondly using a simile. Caleb’s first one was, from the sentence “Jim ran to the stand”, something like “Jim ran as fast as his pitiful legs could carry him. His shoes were worn, but he had to go on.” Aaron’s simile, kicking off with “I am mad”, was “I am as mad as a crocodile whose food has been taken away from it”. I was delighted with their efforts and excellent creativity, and so they both earned a “well done” sticker.

In the afternoon Aaron was feeling sad that nothing special was happening in the day, and I felt so sorry for him as he was crying about the woeful plainness of the day, that I took the boys out for an ice-cream. We were hoping that the nice soft-serve trailer would be open, but it wasn’t. The Star had a hopeless array of frozen lollies, so we tried Tinkers which was as bad if not worse, but we settled on two lollies anyway. These they ate on the bench across the road, but such a sticky mess of dripping juice was made that we had to go to the public convenience to wash off. It wasn’t really a fun outing, but Aaron confirmed that it was special enough. Then I had a hair appointment at 3.30 at the Consulate hairdresser. I made the appt today, quite spontaneously, as I’m rather sick of my hair and needed it properly done before I took the scissors to it myself in desperation. After 40 minutes of scissor cutting and razor trimming into the edges and whatever other modern methods are used, the hairdresser produced something that is very wearable, quite a bit shorter, and feels good.

News, news, news

Three items of news from the island. The first happened a week or two ago, which is that there was an incident at Donny’s place. Apparently some guy came on to another guy’s girlfriend, so the boyfriend told the other guy to back off. Guy #2 went outside, broke a bottle, came back in with a piece, and stabbed boyfriend in the neck. Boyfriend sustained severe injuries, but is in a stable condition. Guy #2 is awaiting trial, and might well get a life-sentence as it was a pre-meditated act of violence. The second item is that one of Solomon’s trucks overturned yesterday, carrying a load of goods from the docks to their stores. It was top heavy, you see – overloaded – so going up Main Street in town it simply toppled over. A big load of milk was squashed. We wait to see whether the milk is still saleable, but if not, there will be a milk shortage quite soon, what with the ship heading up to the UK on Saturday. This would normally be the time when things run out anyway, but now there will definitely be a problem. I bought 18l of milk from Thorpes today, and will probably go back next week again for another load, to keep us in stock until the ship comes back from the Cape at the end of April. The third news item is that I can slice the bread at the Star in Jamestown again. I noticed last week that they had a slicer in the bread section, so when I bought bread today I didn’t make the trek to Half Tree Hollow. It’s great!! What a luxury. Best thing since…um…the wheel?

We were back at school today, and it was pretty good. Caleb was in an impossible mood, just being silly and sounding like an hyperactive parrot, muttering and mumbling away when he wasn’t supposed to be talking at all. But everything was fine otherwise. Before school, Caleb did a drawing of a new world he invented, complete with pictures of what the people look like (it’s a hot country so they have very thick hair (?) ), and they had their own alphabet and everything. I let him talk about it all during an ad-hoc ‘show and tell’ session.

Some forest!

We had Scilla around to lunch today. I did a pot roast yesterday in preparation, but it almost turned into a disaster – I put it on at about 5 pm, so I could keep an eye on it while I was busy in the kitchen, and then completely forgot about it when I started watching “Meet the Robinsons” with Nick. At 9 pm I suddenly remembered, so with a jump I ran into the kitchen, expecting to see smoke. Fortunately there had been enough water in the pot, and I think it was just on the point of burning. Disaster averted, I cut up the meat and put it in the fridge for today. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really the ideal cut for a roast, so even after four hours of cooking it was still pretty tough, although tasty! Scilla brought a chocolate fudge cake and I had ice-cream in the freezer, so it was a good pudding too. It was very relaxed with Scilla – she gets on very well with the boys; I think they like her because she talks to them and takes an interest in what they say. She went outside to examine the centipede larvae they are observing, and to look at the mango tree, and then after lunch we took a drive out to the Millennium Forest. She doesn’t drive on the island, and although she gets pretty far on foot, she doesn’t normally get to the Longwood side. We took a bit of a picnic tea, and it was very relaxed and nice. The vegetation on that side of the island is so different to other parts, it’s like being in a different country. I found some goats on the way, so we stopped to take necessary photos of those for a scrapbook layout. We left the “forest” at about 4 pm, and then stopped by Steve and Maureen on the way home, as Scilla had not been to their new house. Steve hasn’t been very well of late, suffering with dizziness and nausea from his blood pressure tablets. He had just got off the bed when we arrived, but our visit seemed to cheer him up, as he regaled us with stories from their visit to Russia and laughed himself better.

Tammy phoned to cancel their band practice, so Nick was home all day yesterday. It rained a lot, off and on, but that didn’t stop him from working outside on the braai place he’s making, which is really progressing nicely (temperature still pretty high, but a bit better after yesterday’s rain). He’s finished building up the height with stones, and now will be working on the table top as such, adding extra length to make a counter top. I spent some time scrapping, and also watched the boys’ DVD with them (the same one Nick watched last night). It’s Mothering Sunday here today, so I had to wrap up a bunch of little Top Deck bite size chocolates with a note, to be handed out today. We don’t really celebrate this one in our family, rather using the traditional South African Mother’s Day as our day.

The pigeon has mysteriously disappeared. We can only surmise that the ginger cat got hold of it. The parents are still hovering around looking a bit bewildered. I feel a bit sad for them, and wish I knew what had happened! It would have been nice to see our little one learn how to fly and become self-sufficient.

Week over already :-(

We had some heavy rain during the night, but surprisingly no leaks in the house. I was awake for a long time wondering when the drips were going to start falling on the bed, but none did this time. We had a pretty quiet day otherwise – went to Sally’s for lunch, but couldn’t eat outside as there was too much rain about still, off and on, so we ate while we walked down to the docks to see if Nick’s guitar pedal had arrived, but it wasn’t listed on the manifest. Nick took the boys swimming after his prison ministry (the skies had cleared a bit!), and then he went to Knollcombes for more sand.

DIY BBQ

Another good and busy day today. We started the day by doing jigsaw puzzles, something the boys haven’t done in a long time. Aaron normally battles with a 35-piece one, so I was especially pleased when he tackled, and completed with some help, a 100-piece puzzle. Caleb did a 150-piece one which is a fairly tricky one, but he usually has the spatial ability to work them out. While the boys were busy with those, I stayed in the diningroom and thoroughly cleaned and sorted the cupboard in the corner, which was not looking too good. I threw out a few incomplete games and some impossible puzzles, and vacuumed all the shelves and floor. Then at 11 we met Elza at the coffee shop. We didn’t stay for too long though as the boys tend to get bored there and can’t really enter into any conversation, but it was great to catch up with Elza. Nick wanted to start some more building today, as he fetched two buckets of building sand from Knollcombes yesterday, so we quickly went to the DIY to get some cement. He made good progress building a braai area in the upper bricked area in the back yard. He’s long been wanting to do this. Then he was off to bible study, after a supper of soup.

We still have the baby pigeon with us. Today it was very docile, not running away when we came near, so either it is sick, or has become used to us. The mother bird has been very diligent in caring for it, and even when she’s not feeding it, she is not far away. The father also seems to hang around in our yard quite a lot, strutting around in a very paternal way!

Dressing right

First thing (only thing, actually) on today’s agenda was a trip to Longwood for me and the boys, where we bought some snacks at the shop and had our tenzees at the playground. We were anticipating colder weather there, so the boys took their super-strength arctic jackets, but fortunately they got left in the car. It was windy and a bit chilly, but not really long-sleeve weather after all. The shop was quite empty – not even a single packet of chips on the shelves!

Too young to shave

Today was D-Day…Dentist Day! Nick went at 8.30 to have his stitches removed, and came back looking reasonably unpained, with an antiseptic paste that had been applied to the wound – I couldn’t see anything of the hole because of that. There are bits of bone sticking out of the side of the gum, and Steve said it’s where the jaw was splintered when the tooth was pulled – those will wear off in time. Then it was my turn at 11.30. I needed more work done on the broken tooth on the top left, which had started getting sensitive again. I was convinced that the tooth had already been root-filled, but the dentist said no. This is the unfortunate part of island dentistry – he is the third dentist to work on this tooth in almost as many months, and he leaves on Sunday!

Aaron managed to cut his lip on Nick’s razor – he was experimenting with it, I suppose, and dragged the very sharp triple-blade over his lip, giving himself three very clean cuts, which started bleeding quite quickly. Nick stuck toilet paper over the wound, and then we let the boys watch a DVD – that’s sort of a house rule, that if there’s a wound with blood, the boys get to watch something!

Holidays begin again

First day of holidays today – and we had a pretty good time of it. The boys were eager to get going with their model helicopter and airplane which they got for Christmas, which I have been putting off until their school holidays. As soon as I was out the bath, we got started with painting the little pieces, then had a break for tenzees while the bits dried. Nick came down to help with the next bit of assembling all the wooden pieces and gluing them together. The model he was doing for Aaron was more complicated. The boys were really pleased with their efforts, and I must say, they did turn out quite nicely. That took us almost up to lunch, but I had time to give Aaron a haircut, and then I did Caleb’s after lunch. Both look much better now. I left the boys looking at books while I went to town during the afternoon for some grocery shopping. Andrew and Harry didn’t come today, I guess because of the holidays.

Mother's Milk

Our combined service today was well attended, despite the heat. Even though I was sad to miss Nick’s first sermon in his Acts series, I was also more than happy to escape the stifling heat in the chapel and get into the diningroom for Sunday School. After church, and the fellowship tea, and all the cleaning up afterward which that entailed, Nick and I sat outside in the back, enjoying the peace of the evening, watching the pigeons eat the left over sandwiches. Our fledgling seems to have finally found its mother, or perhaps a sympathetic auntie, who is feeding it. We saw this happening this morning for the first time. The fledgling sticks its beak right down far into the mothers crop, causing the mother to regurgitate something tasty for the wee’un. It’s oddly disgusting to watch, as they bob about, heads down, the baby bird almost hugging the mother with its wings spread out, beak-to-beak. But we’re glad that the baby is being fed. I did a bit of research on the internet about baby pigeons, and it seems that it’s uncommon to spot baby pigeons – you might have noticed this. The reason is that they stay carefully guarded, in their nests, until they’re actually ready to fend for themselves. I guess this is the case with the majority of birds – you hardly ever see the babies!

Blowing hot and cold

We took a break from the heat and humidity in town today, in that after GNC, we made up a picnic lunch and took it out to the George Benjamin Arboretum in Bluehill. We were anticipating a walk through the forest after our lunch, assuming that it would be a lovely day in the country, a few degrees cooler than in town. We were wrong! True, it was lovely, and it definitely was cooler, but we were essentially in a cloud! It was quite wet everywhere, so after braving our lunch in the drizzle on the damp, fungus-covered table, we decided to rather go straight home again. Nick took the boys swimming straight away – so weird to us that it takes about 15 minutes to get from one climate pattern to an entirely different one!

Yesterday we had our last day of school, much to our joint relief. It was fine, really, and we finished at about 12, so went to Sally’s for lunch, kind of as a term-end celebration. Nick only had soup, not really wanting to chew very much stuff yet; the boys shared a sausage baguette as usual, and I had my usual of a chicken-salad sandwich, and a cup of soup. Sally makes the soup herself, and it’s absolutely terrific. I said to Nick that it reminds me of coming home from school in winter, to a cup of fresh-off-the-stove soup that my mom makes.

The pigeon is still alive, but doesn’t seem to be eating much. I’m not sure if any of the other pigeons are feeding it when we’re not looking, but it is still pooing so must be getting something. Nick’s mouth is feeling a bit sore again this evening so he will be bypassing supper. I’ve had a good look at it, and it seems that the jawbone is sticking out and visible – it’s odd and gross. The gum hasn’t yet closed around the wound. When he rubs his tongue over the area where the bone is, it’s very sharp – he says it feels like he’s touching something he’s not supposed to be touching!

Updates on 'the husband' and 'the bird'

Nick is home with me again tonight, having cancelled his bible studies. He found that the talking and singing at last night’s study put some strain on his stitches, and his face is slightly more swollen this morning. He felt it best to take the night off and heal up a bit, and I agree wholeheartedly! He’s not in pain, thankfully. Our pigeon is still alive and kicking. He didn’t eat very much during the day, but I managed to give him some water at regular intervals, and then after our supper I tried some more white bread and he ate a fair bit of it. He manages to either peck it off the ground or take it from my hand, but it seems that he has to be in the mood. He spent a lot of time outdoors today, chasing after the other pigeons in the back yard, trying desperately to get one of them to feed him. It was a pathetic sight really to see him running around, wings out, whining at them and trying to get at their beaks, while they quite simply ignored him and carried on feeding. Then he would stop and stare after them as they ran off in another direction. Poor thing.

I had my craft class at Pillings today, in which we made felt finger puppets. Some of the kids just fly with the crafts, while other kids were quite helpless and couldn’t thread the needle, didn’t know how to stitch, couldn’t get the needle through the felt, couldn’t remember how to do the double stitch to begin and end, and if they had their way, I would have made the whole thing for them. Anyway, the class on the whole was really great, and they’re a lovely bunch of kids. During the late afternoon, Nick took the boys up on the mountain again to gather more broken bits of pottery, as we want to make a mosaic table top. The boys love going up, and come down with all sorts of antique junk.

Yet another pitterer-patterer

Once again we have a baby bird in our care; this time a pigeon. I saw it this afternoon when I was walking up the road to take the car out of the garage – it was sitting in front of the church door. Although a fledgling, it’s quite big and has most of its feathers in place. Its body is so fat that I had to pick it up in two hands, and it was pretty docile. I took it around to our back yard, where of course the boys were very excited to see it, and we tried feeding it with a bit of bread. It wasn’t too interested, so I tried some milky pronutro, but it didn’t like that either. I tried some more bread again later in the afternoon, and this time it took it, right out of my fingers. Seems to prefer being fed than picking off the ground, but it wasn’t doing too badly at pecking stones and dirt off the workshop floor, where we are keeping it safely. Hopefully it’s not too far off from flying – I don’t fancy another four-week stint with a baby bird, although at least this one eats basically anything – no tricky mackerel diet!

The boys and I went with Nick to Prince Andrews School this afternoon where he had a guitar lesson. I needed to take some photos for the next museum layout which is currently only swirling around in my head. It was ‘some hot’ in town and out there, but it was pretty nice being out somewhere different. I knew two girls from our Saturday mornings, although only one of them comes now.

Nick is feeling a lot better today; he says his gum feels a bit bruised, but there is no actual pain. His face is a bit swollen.

Nick in the chair

Nick had a tooth extracted this afternoon, and what should have been a fairly simple, in-the-chair extraction, turned into a two-hour long in-the-chair surgery. It was a root-filled tooth that was no good, so was very brittle and kept breaking when the dentist tried to yank on it, and then it had two roots as well, so was extra difficult to get out. He had to cut the gums on both sides of the tooth to be able to get a grip. Nick is feeling the pain now as the anaesthetic is wearing off – we’ve even cancelled the bible studies!

I finished two more pages for the museum scrapbook, so took them to show Lucy, the curator. I may have a bit of an issue developing with one page though, in that I took out the wording from the text which said that the island is 14 million years old, and that the volcanic eruptions which created the island ended 7 million years ago. I simply don’t believe in an old earth. The Bible gives credibility to the fact that the earth is only about 6 thousand years old, particularly according to the genealogies, and considering the radical changes in the earth during and after the flood. Because of that, I can’t lie and put in a statement to the effect of an old earth in the book – I don’t want to be associated with that! I ran it by Lucy though, who has taken it to the heritage society for approval. Hopefully they will okay the fact that the age has been excluded, because if they insist on it being included, I’m going to have to pull out of the project. Although it’s not an issue to die for, and doesn’t conflict with any salvivic issues or doctrines, it’s still my conviction. I have to go with my conscience!

Chicken recipe

Today has been so hot again, although thankfully it was overcast for most of the day, so it wasn’t the same scorching heat. Yesterday was hot HOT hot, so much so that when Nick took the boys swimming at 3.30, I went too and even swam. The water was about 32. We had the usual day yesterday, so nothing particular to say about it, except that I made a sort of chicken casserole cum stew for lunch – for those with a sweet tooth, here’s the recipe (not completely my invention – the soup and coke are an old favourite): fry a chopped onion in a pot, brown approx 500g cubed chicken breast fillets slightly, added about four sliced carrots and three cubed potatoes, then sprinkled a packet of dry brown onion soup over and added a can of coke. Let it simmer in the pot like a stew. I added a bit of extra water because it was getting quite thick, and then simmered it for just over an hour, I think. Of course, probably not a very healthy meal, considering all that sugar in the coke, but oh well. Church last night was excellent – Nick did a topical sermon on “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing”, which was very relevant for our people, who can be taken in by every wind of doctrine.

We are into our last week of school now before a week of holidays. It was a bit tedious this morning, but we finished before 12. We’ve started a book called “Homer Price”, about a boy who likes to make radios and tinker about with inventions, so it’s right up Caleb’s alley. It’s definitely a boy’s book!

In a rut

Our Saturdays are becoming very much like our Sundays – boring and predictable! GNC this morning, which is always quite well attended, and then after that I went to town with Aaron to collect the DVD of “Charlotte’s Web”, which I had booked yesterday. We watched that after lunch, and then Nick went to Tammy for the afternoon.

About the boys

It’s Friday night, and unlike our usual Friday night, we are not watching a DVD! Nick has been roped into helping out with the Friday night youth group that Anthony and Elaine are running in the schoolroom, specifically to play guitar, which he is doing as I type. I can hear them singing through my window.

School this morning was really good. I started by administering a spelling test, although of course didn’t tell the boys it was that until afterwards. I just dictated each of their week’s words, one at a time, and they wrote them. Then we did a few other bits and pieces, and when it came to their handwriting, Aaron finished his in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t quite as neat as usual, but all the letters were facing the right way and were the right size. So, I was beaming. Then, in Maths, Aaron was never more than about a sum or two behind Caleb – normally Caleb has finished his whole worksheet while Aaron is on about the second problem! During the reading, again Aaron surprised me by enthusiastically tackling the story, and even saying that he would read the whole thing on his own, thanks, and didn’t want me to help him. His recognition of sight words is growing in leaps and bounds, so that his reading is going a lot faster. I think he was very much encouraged after today. Caleb, as usual, works like a star. He is extremely diligent, and never needs a second prompt to get on with what he’s doing. His reading also is coming on so very well – he often gets words that I think he will struggle with, words that I know he hasn’t read before. He’s also getting better at deciphering a longer word, sounding it out from left to right, instead of staring at the word as a whole and guessing it.

Valentines' Camp-out

It’s steamy and quite hot, although we had quite a heavy shower of rain for about half an hour at 1 pm. It was wonderful, but didn’t drop the temperature at all. Luvvy, I swea’in’ (sweating)!! I’ve just come back from a very nice craft class where the kids painted the clay creations they made last week. They were so quiet and well behaved, and would you believe it, my sleepover girls asked me to tell them the story of Maree and Ronald again. Most of the class, not being GNC kids, hadn’t heard it, and they were quiet throughout and loved the story. I ended by saying that Maree took up a craft class where she really wanted to tell the kids about God, and that if anyone wanted to know more, they should speak to her. It was fun, and I wove in the gospel and whatever else I could think of by way of teaching! I thank God for the opportunity to minister to the kids in that way – sometimes things come about in strange ways.

I was pleased to find onions in the Star at last. There were only a handful left, and not very nice ones, but I selected four of the better looking, non-mouldy ones. I went on to look at nectarines, and then a fresh trolley load of onions came by, so I picked out another three, better looking ones this time. Very happy to have such a good stash of them in the fridge now.

We dropped the boys off with Steve and Maureen for babysitting last night - it was great to leave the boys there and be on our own! The first stop was the Orange Tree Oriental Restaurant to pick up our pre-ordered take-aways, of spring rolls and pork chop suey, and then we drove down to the docks and parked outside Donny’s place. We walked along the rest of the way to the level space where the sand is dredged from the sea, and set up our camp chairs and ate there, right at the water’s edge. We saw a school of fish skipping over the water as something was obviously behind them, although we could only see a bigger splash working through the water, and we watched the glorious sunset. We both felt that this was certainly a memorable Valentine’s Day date, and ranked as one of the best!

High Knoll out of bounds

We had quite a long school today – I don’t know why it went on so long, really, other than that there seemed to be a lot of work to get through! By 12.20 we weren’t finished yet, but took a break for lunch, and then continued with science – both an experiment and the usual reading, and Charlotte’s Web after lunch, finishing off completely by about 1.30. Then I had to brush Caleb’s teeth and take him to the dental hygienist, where he was supposed to have a fissure sealant done. However, when she looked in his mouth, she saw that the back molars aren’t actually through the gum all the way yet, so it couldn’t be done today. She just polished his teeth, and we left and went to town, still to look for onions, and still couldn’t find any. Home for 20 minutes, had a quick rest, and then Nick and I needed to go to the oriental restaurant so that we could decide what we want to eat tomorrow night, as we can’t celebrate Valentine’s Day on Thursday night. The food at the Orange Tree Restaurant is delicious, but takeaways have to be ordered in advance.

Another big section of High Knoll Fort has crumbled away, quite unexpectedly. The area had fortunately already been closed off since the wind took out a 12 foot chunk some months ago, so there was no loss of life or injury, but the timing was quite strange, as they were a couple of days away from reopening most of the fort, once they had gotten some safety nets or something erected over the danger spot. The whole area surrounding High Knoll has been closed off now, and obviously it’s quite dangerous. It’s a pity that such an historical building is falling into disrepair.

Show and tell what?

Today came and went very quickly. School was fine, with a bit of catching up to do from last week. I’m glad it was Caleb that had to fit in a bit of extra work and not Aaron, as that could have taken a very long time! Steve and Maureen were in the schoolroom for a large part of the morning, marking out chalk lines on the floor where the new kitchenette needs to be installed. Steve is going to be ordering the flat-pack stuff from the UK quite soon so that it can get on the ship when it goes up there in April. Things are happening, just slowly. After beading, I had to go to town quickly, mainly looking for onions, which are already sold out in most places. The Star hasn’t had theirs yet, so I’ll have to keep checking back. Supper was pork chops, mashed potato and carrots, which was a surprisingly non-torturous affair as far as the boys were concerned.

Tomorrow in school we have ‘show and tell’. This is a new concept for us, so I explained it today, and tomorrow they have to produce something to show the class (i.e. me and the other brother), and then discuss it. I’m not sure what they’ve come up with, but I have a fairly good idea that it’s going to be obscure and completely irrelevant to anything that they actually do, and they’re not going to have anything to say about it! Perhaps it’s a bit tricky at the moment as they don’t have any particular hobbies.

Out for tea for a change

We had a really good day today, slightly unlike our usual Sundays. I spent the first part of the morning, after Nick left, doing some crafty things, and then after tenzees I played a shop game with the boys which Caleb invented, which involved spending marbles as money at an imaginary shop, and drawing more marbles from the imaginary bank when we ran out. It was quite ridiculous but rather fun, and they got a kick out of me just simply doing something with them. Then I read two chapters of the Fabuland book to them, as they have missed the last three nights of it due to hospitalisation and messy room. Since their room was tidy, I thought it would be nice to do that. We only have one chapter left, which will wrap up all the loose ends. At 3 pm we were due at the house of some Port Elizabethans who are relatively new to the island – he is the new Adult Education manager. We have been wanting to get together with them, but the opportunity fell through last Sunday, so we made this arrangement early in the week. We had a really good time with them. We had a very relaxed afternoon and quite good conversation. I had to get used to the good old South African sarcasm again – I’m so out of touch that that particular brand of humour that I fail to recognize when someone is joking! Church tonight was Nick’s second part on the Eternal Destiny, about what happens after the Second Coming and Judgment. Again, a very good sermon, which makes me feel disinclined ever to sin again and to want to shake people and convince them that Hell is real!

Medically discharged

Caleb was back home before 10 am this morning, and very much improved. His breathing is pretty much normal again, but he still has a bit of a cough and is slightly wheezy. I have to nebulize him every evening at home for the next few days, and during the day if he needs it. Aaron and I got to the hospital just before 8 this morning, and Caleb was up and watching TV – still wearing the same clothes he was in yesterday, having bypassed pyjamas completely! I got him changed into fresh clothes, gave him his vitamins, and then he had breakfast of soggy cornflakes with hot milk and toast. Aaron had a cup of tea, since it was on offer. Then they both watched cartoons for about an hour, after which I switched off the ward TV (only Caleb and the old man were there), and we did some school – I read two chapters of Charlotte’s Web, and Aaron did his reading. All the hospital staff were very impressed that Caleb had so willingly spent the night in hospital on his own, and all thought he was very brave. I thought it was pretty normal for Caleb as he’s so independent. Caleb said he spoke to the girl in the bed next to him, who came in late yesterday afternoon, and found out that she lives in Longwood. She didn’t spend the night. At about 9.40 the doctor from Cape Town came to check on him, and listened to his chest and declared him fit to be discharged. She wrote out a prescription which was taken to the dispensary, but I didn’t want to wait for a very long time so called back for the meds later in the day – quite a lot of them! She prescribed a course of steroids to get his chest opened up properly, as well as an antibiotic, and another syrup for coughs and chesty things, AND a bottle of paracetemol (I have so much of that in stock now, it’s standard issue), as well as two sets of nebulising solutions. I didn’t want to start school again when we got home, so we cancelled the rest of it and will catch up next week. The bulk of the work of the last two days is done, and other bits can be easily caught up or slotted in.

Hospital visit and ministry opportunities

Caleb developed a tight chest during the night, and when the asthma pump wasn’t helping anymore, I nebulized him at 3 am, and then Nick did him again at 6 am. By 8 am we were at the hospital, because it was really quite severe. They nebulized him again, this time using steroids as well to try to quickly open up his chest. Shame, he was quite pale. He looked slightly better after that neb, and the doctor had a quick look at him and said I should come back later, as she wanted to see if his chest had opened. We were home again shortly after 9, and I sent Caleb upstairs to rest, as neither of us had very much sleep last night, and Aaron and I started school. By tenzees, Nick insisted that I take him back to the hospital because his breathing was so laboured again, and I managed to see the doctor again, who is a new lady and from Cape Town. She decided that it would be best to admit him so they can monitor him and nebulize him every four hours, so that is where he was for the rest of the day, and he is spending the night there too. Apparently there is a virus on the island causing this bad chest infection – when I was at the hospital this morning, about three or four other people came in early, young and old, with “the tightness”. Anyway, after leaving Caleb at the hospital, Aaron and I went to town to see what we could find by way of suitable hospital toys, and bought a stretchy frog with flashing lights inside it, and two books. Then I dropped Aaron at home, collected some clothes, pyjamas, and other requested toys and books for Caleb, and went back to the hospital. By then they were serving lunch, so I helped him cut up his chicken and mix in some rice and a few carrots (very nice food, actually). He couldn’t manage much of it, with very little appetite and coughing spasms. I didn’t stay long as I needed to get home to see to our lunch, and then I had the craft class, which was making door name-plates and sculptures. At 2.45 Nick, Aaron and I went back to visit Caleb, and stayed for about 20 minutes, just hanging around on the outside veranda, as Caleb’s ward opens out onto that section. When we were getting ready to leave again just after three, Caleb looked quite down, and actually followed me all the way out the hospital and sat on the steps. Poor guy. I had to send him back inside to be sure that he was safe and wasn’t going to try walk home! I sent Nick back up before he went on the rest of the way to bible study, with a little card Aaron and I made, and a soft toy, and two little sweets. Hopefully by now he will be settling down for the night. As you can imagine, school didn’t really happen very much today, although we got through little bits and pieces here and there.

Nick started a new Bible Study last night, in the Half Tree Hollow area at the Guide Hall, largely aimed at those who don’t come to our church (yet). Eventually they will be fed into the Knollcombes Chapel. The first night kicked off with a great start, with 14 people in attendance. I think that Wendy was the only person there who actually comes to our church and is a believer. Nick preached a very basic message, mostly gospel orientated, as those in attendance seemed to be very unknowledgeable regarding the wonderful truths of the Bible. Nick says that they really seemed to be listening, so perhaps this is the start of something! I had opportunity during the craft class this afternoon to share the gospel with the kids, who were actually quiet for 5 minutes and listened, until someone needed help making a flower. I quickly explained that we all sin and can’t get to heaven on our own, and that Jesus died to pay for our sins, so by repenting (which means turning your back on your sins) and asking for forgiveness, they can become Christians. This came about as one girl announced that she is my “sister in Christ”, so I asked if she knew what it meant to be a Christian – to which she answered, ‘no’!

Granny's stew

We had a rather long morning in school, only finishing at 12.35, but I think it was because Aaron took so long to read his little one page of reading. Probably it’s just too much reading for him, and perhaps I’ll start sharing the load with him! Caleb is still reading from the bedtime story book, and reads pages and pages before I tell him it’s enough, and even then he wants to continue. I’m very encouraged with his progress and constantly surprised at words that he copes with. Supper was a long-awaited and much anticipated mince stew, which they last had in South Africa when Granny made it. The boys were very excited that I was making it – aren’t they peculiar?! When it was finally ready, I asked if it was as good as yours, and they said it was. Aaron said, “it is Granny’s”! Caleb said, “thanks for making me sad again because you made me think of Granny”. Actually the stew was rather good though, although I only had two carrots in the fridge and couldn’t buy any today, so it worked out to approximately two pieces of carrot per helping.

We had a very good Bible study tonight on the portion in 1 Peter 3 where it appears that Jesus went to preach to the lost souls in hell, although in fact a more accurate interpretation of that passage is that Christ was preaching, through the Spirit, to those in Noah’s day who were about to perish, whose souls are now in prison. Jesus never went to hell at all – what would be the point anyway since the chasm is fixed? It was a very interesting study, with some debate and discussion.

I thought there were plenty of fish in the sea?

Nick has just arrived home from taking a lady home after the service. He was supposed to fetch her and another of our ladies for church, but we both completely forgot about it!! Oh dear, that’s terrible. I don’t know how she got to church, but Nick took her home anyway. The service was very good – Nick preached on “The Intermediate State”, i.e. what happens between death and the resurrection and judgment. He felt that this was a necessary message, as so many in our midst believe the wrong thing or are confused.

We took the boys across to Pillings to ride their bikes for a while after lunch, and then a bit later we all went to the pool. I took some beadwork with me, otherwise it can get a bit boring. The boys are wanting to help Nick with getting things ready for church, so at 6.30 they went with him to church to put the bulletins into the songbooks. We’ve introduced pocket money for the boys, with yesterday being the first of their weekly payments of 50p. They have to earn the money though, and their daily responsibilities include making their beds and tidying their rooms at the end of the day, and then they are also required to help in any other ways we deem fit, like helping Nick with mowing the lawn (sweeping the grass up afterwards) and washing the car. So far they are taking their duties very seriously, but are not satisfied with the mundane housework type stuff!

Another thing we can’t get on the island now is fresh fish. There is a fish shortage in the seas! It’s quite bad, actually, and the fisherman are struggling now to make a living. There seems to be a general lack of fish in our surrounds, which is very unusual. We haven’t had tuna steaks once since we’ve been back.

Coke diet

It was my turn to do the GNC teaching today, so went over my notes again this morning while Nick was at prayer meeting. I’m using a book now which I bought at the Augustine Bookroom, which is a huge help – I don’t actually have to do much groundwork preparation now, simply familiarise myself with the teaching! It’s set in the first four chapters of Luke, and very nice and easy to understand. I bought it in quite a hurry, so hadn’t really looked at it properly, but I can see now that it will work well for GNC. The club itself was okay, although all the boys are just so rambunctious and boisterous, so Nick has to keep threatening them with “no games” during the worship part to get them to behave. I questioned one of the boys as to his eating patterns before he comes to the club, as he is completely hyperactive and bouncing off the walls, and he said he had no breakfast, and nothing to eat, just a coke! Go figure!! I wonder if his parents realize what the effect of this is, apart from his black, misshapen teeth? I told him next week to have breakfast and no fizzy juice and he said “okay”. We’ll see. I took Caleb up to the hospital in the afternoon, for an annual checkup – apparently all the bespectacled children have a yearly appointment with the optometrist, although the hospital slipped up in letting me know of this fact, so good thing Scilla phoned to swap the time! Caleb’s eyes have not worsened during the year – his current glasses are still right for him.

< and >

I had the boys do their spelling words with a stick in a tray of sugar, and although I had my doubts about the feasibility of this little exercise, it actually worked very well. They loved the activity and did it properly. Aaron kept leaning forward with his nose almost touching the sugar, as he wanted to smell it. I was fairly certain that his tongue was actually finding its way into the tray, which would not have been very good as I had to pour the sugar back into the canister when we were finished. Maths was good today. We’ve done our first new concept now, which is the greater than / less than symbols (<>). I thought the boys might struggle a little as I remember finding this confusing in school, but either they are very bright or I explained it very well, because they got it the first time. Aaron kept getting confused how to write it though – I could see he understood it but couldn’t work out which side to start it on to get it facing the right direction, so I worked out that if he starts writing on the greater side, then it will automatically face the right way (that’s a tip for any homeschoolers reading the blog!). The boys wanted to make a mask after school, that they had seen in the “Peoples of the World” book we are working through, so I cut out mask templates which they decorated with feathers, pompoms and bits of foam. While supervising and assisting with that, I also had to prepare for the craft class at Pillings. They’ve shuffled the time of the class so it’s 1.30 to 2.30 now instead of 2 to 3, which really suits me very well – more time between getting home and Nick leaving for bible study. Anyway, I waited until about 1.50 for my kids to arrive, as they were having some or other meeting sort of thing, but the class still only ran until 2.30. Fortunately it was an origami craft and we didn’t really need the full hour. The kids were very good and mostly got the hang of what I was showing them.

Boys' new pet

I found a spider in a box in my craft room today, so carefully took the box downstairs with the spider hanging on to a corner. The spider, seeing no way of escape, let itself down by running a thread from its spinnerets (that’s a word we learned today in school, reading “Charlotte’s Web”). By now the boys had caught on to what I was doing, so were all for catching the spider for observation. This we did with great care, even enlisting Nick’s help. It is a wolf spider, or some sort of hunter spider, with great big fangs. Nick helped the boys find a few bugs to put in the bottle for the spider’s supper, but so far all it has done is run away from them. Our supper was fish fingers, chips and beans, which was slightly delayed due to the Great Capture!

Nick has been out this evening, doing recording at Tammy’s. He is going to be getting her vocals recorded for one or two songs. His hand is much improved and he has better mobility in it, but it’s looking slightly swollen.

Fresh olive oil?

This morning Nick took a bit of a tumble, coming back from Jacob’s Ladder via the mountain path. He was gathering too much speed apparently, and tripped, falling onto his hands and rolling onto his side and back. His hand was quite badly skinned in one small spot, and a few more grazes on a finger, but his other hand is a problem, where he says it feels like the bones of his ring finger and pinkie squashed into each other and are pinching everything in between now. He can’t play guitar, and battled with the typing today for his bible study. I hope it heals up quickly. School was quite okay today, and Nick took over the Maths for a while so I could make coffee for him. I think I’d far rather have coffee duty! At least now he can see the frustration of sitting watching Aaron go off on a daydream instead of filling in a worksheet. Nothing else to report about the morning, except to say that it rained quite a lot today, and for most of the day. Bible study was very good tonight – we had a full house, including the Governor and his wife. People seemed a bit taken aback when they walked in the door and saw the Governor seated in our lounge, but I don’t think they were too inhibited on the whole. I had to play guitar all on my own which was quite daunting, especially as I usually play mandolin and am rusty on guitar, but seemed to have gone okay.

Yesterday Aaron and I wandered around town looking for olive oil and tomato sauce, neither of which is in any of the shops at the moment. I found a little bottle of olive oil at the shop under Wellingtons, but it was reduced as it was outdated – I asked how outdated it was, and when I saw it was February 2006 I thought better of it!

Not a Haven for Caleb!

At the moment of writing, 18h41, it’s pouring with rain. It started at about 5 pm, and has been pretty wet since then. The day has been very good – it was a combined service today, so Nick has been home with us all day! The morning was extremely relaxed and pleasant, since we weren’t doing a tea today, so there was no extensive setting up to be done – just the bulletins and getting the songs ready. I made a new dish for lunch today, as I had the right ingredients available for a Hawaiian chicken but couldn’t find any one recipe that suited me, so I concocted my own using a combination of recipes – the end result was delicious and very easy. Church itself was good, I think – lots of people, and a lot of visitors too. I went out for Sunday School so can’t comment on the message, except to say that it was Nick’s last one in his series in John. After church there was a brief interlude during which people stood in the street and chatted – actually a much more sociable event than having tea in the schoolroom – and then we were due at the Haven at 3.30 for a short service for the old people. During this time, Caleb, Aaron and Kieran were playing outside on their own, and Caleb ran into the sharp corner of a window frame, so his head opened up and blood issued forth. It was quite a small hole, actually, but we could only see the size of it once the nurses had cleaned him up. Caleb was not happy about being nursed – not that he was crying, but I think he didn’t like all the fuss, and also kept trying to dodge the nurse who had to apply the wet cotton wool quite firmly.

Odd Friday and unusual Saturday

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day…we finished school at 1 pm! We also started off a little unusually, by watching a video of St Helena which Wilson has either lent or given us, I’m not sure which. It’s quite an old one, so some things have changed, but it was very interesting to watch. This happened straight after breakfast as Nick happened to put it on so we all watched. Then I helped Caleb build some Lego, and only then got to my bath. We still started school on time though. The first part of school was normal, with actually less work to get through as it was a Friday – there seems to be less stuff scheduled. I got the boys to finish off a Maths worksheet before tenzees, and Aaron actually beat Caleb!!! I was thrilled that he managed to work so quickly, and fairly neatly too. During our post-tenzees school session, we had three interruptions, although pleasant ones – firstly, we were blessed with a big amount of groceries from one of our generous and caring church ladies, then our salary was delivered, which meant making a cup of coffee for the bearer and having a social visit before I had to politely throw him out so we could continue with school, and finally a lady to collect some dishes left here from our arrival lunch. The boys were hanging around during this time waiting for school to continue so it could get finished – it felt so wrong to finish so late!

This morning Caleb wanted a ring made, as he found an old metal spring which he was wearing on his finger, but wanted it decorated. So out came the wooden beads again, and some invisible thread, and the thing was done. Then Aaron came in, and of course also wanted one, so I threaded up a little elasticated one for him. Good News Club was quite fine, with a teaching on Mary and Martha. After the club, Keisha, one of the girls, came home with me while Nick took the boys swimming again. Keisha usually has to wait for some time while Enid goes to town for a bit of shopping, and then she gives her a lift home, picking her up from the schoolroom on the way up. It was fun to have Keisha here as she’s a keen crafter, so enjoys spending time in my room.

During the late afternoon we had tea at Plantation House, as well as a tour of the rambling, old mansion. It was a super afternoon of good Christian fellowship.

There's a friendly Star?

Our first activity in school this morning was to go outside and write with chalk on the concrete, as a fun way of going over the week’s spelling words. Then we had another little activity of definitions, where they had to define objects properly – so for “cat”, instead of saying, “it’s something that is furry and says meow”, they should say “it’s an animal which is furry and says meow”. Then I described an object to them, which they had to write down – eg “for baseball you need a ball and ….”. All the answers were, of course, also our week’s spelling words. Then we had the phonics workbooks, handwriting workbooks, some essay dictation, and some retelling of a story told to them. After tenzees we did maths, which was still easy, then the reading, history and Charlotte’s Web. We finished at 11.40 today, a good 20 minutes earlier than any other day. I hurried out to town after lunch, as I needed to go to the police station to renew my drivers’ license, but got there while they were on lunch so couldn’t do it, and to the Archives department in the Castle, but they were also on lunch. Took a quick walk up to the Emporium for a few school goodies, and walked past “The Star” – Solomon’s grocery shop in Jamestown (otherwise known as “The Spar”) has been renamed, in keeping with the Jamestown heritage and something something. Yesterday the signage still said Spar, and today there is already a new sign up. Quick work, since it was only announced last night! I was home again by 1, and then had to get stuck in with the preparations for today’s craft class, which took me the better part of the hour – I had to score fold lines for their paper bags, to make them easier to fold. At 2 I went for the class, and it was really such a good one today. The kids are well behaved for the most part, and managed fine with the craft. We all did one together, as I showed them step by step what to do, and then they made another one, two, or three by themselves, depending on how quickly they worked. I was so pleased that they got on with them though, without needing too much help after that. They seemed to enjoy it! Home shortly after 3, then had to quickly get the prayer meeting notes ready for Nick to take, as he left early this evening – instead of leaving at 5 for bible study, he left at 4 to be able to do a visit beforehand. His supper was a snackwich.

Giving God the glory

School this morning was again better than yesterday. We’re opening each day with a bible reading and prayer, which really helps with my patience, as I’m reminded that God is present and I need to work on those bad attitudes! So, instead of freaking out when the boys forget things, I just explain them again. Also, I keep on reading the same thing in all my coursework reading, that repetition is the key – and if you child doesn’t get it until the 100th repetition, then so be it! I guess that’s helping me relax about things a little too. The good news of the day though, is that I have acquired a second desk for the boys. The original intent of another desk was so that they could each sit at their own, but this new one is quite a lot bigger, so they can still sit together with a lot more space around them. I will now be able to have my schedule in front of me as I’m teaching, instead of popping up and down to check it on the diningroom table.

Saving scheme

School was slightly better today than yesterday, although took three hours! We started promptly after the nine am news, then worked until about 10.15, and only took a break long enough to hang up the washing plus five minutes, so about 20 minutes, then started again and only finished at 12. Granted, we took a bit of extra time studying the calendar and sticking on little stickers to mark out our birthdays and so on – Caleb asked how much time that had wasted, but I said nothing was wasted when it came to learning! He’s much too clever. The first writing we did this morning was on huge pieces of paper, with coloured kokies. The curriculum suggests that we vary the writing, as the point of this section is to get the spellings into their heads – so instead of writing on the same boring paper every day with the same boring pencil, we do fun stuff as well. Tuesdays therefore is the day for writing it big. The maths was fairly straightforward – no new concepts yet, and they’re enjoying the novelty of each having their own books to write in. After lunch I went to town for a couple of things, with Aaron with me as usual. I was pleased to be able to buy cremora again, at long last! Aaron saw a plastic piggy bank at the Emporium which he wanted to buy for Caleb, as thinks that Caleb always has money which needs saving. Also, we had read a story about a girl who had emptied her piggy bank to buy bibles for the people in Africa, so it seemed appropriate! We bought the piggy bank for Aaron to give to him for his birthday, but I don’t know how long he’ll be able to keep the secret – although I think he’s already forgotten about it!

Clevely Academy opens for 2008

First day of school today was not at all bad. We opened with a bible reading and prayer, and then launched into the language arts. It seemed a bit disjointed though, with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and a lot of the boys sitting around waiting while I figured out what the next thing was to happen. But it was fine on the whole, and the boys said it was better than they thought it would be. After tenzees we continued with the history, reading, and read-alouds – we’ve kicked off with Charlotte’s Web which the boys are really pleased about. For memory work we’re learning Psalm 1 over the next six weeks, so just verse one for this week. The plan is to get some people together, like Steve and Maureen perhaps, and then get the boys to recite their portion in front of them – as a public speaking assignment. School finished shortly before 12, by which time I was fairly exhausted from the effort of being nice and patient, so I was glad to get out for a while to go to Lorna for beading! From Lorna I went directly to Tammy to collect the recording equipment which Nick is borrowing, and then briefly to town, before coming home at about 3.30.

Getting ready

Yesterday morning was back to normal with the Good News Club. Quite a few kids were missing, although hopefully they’ll start coming again over the next few weeks. I guess a staggered start isn’t altogether a bad thing! Nick W did the teaching, about reflecting God’s character and being like Him. The games were the usual variety of dodgeball, twister, or for the less active, drawing. I played a sort of game with some of the kids called “tell me something about yourself that I don’t know”. I’m going to keep it up with them – at first they were stumped, but as the facts started flowing I found out all manner of things about their siblings and parents and home life. After the club we headed to town for the afternoon’s DVD and some lunch – Spar had some fresh pies, which we bought and ate at home. After lunch and the DVD, which was an old Walt Disney movie about a boy who was shipwrecked and hunted by pirates, Nick left for his afternoon of music at Tammy. They made good progress, and since Tammy now has all her sound equipment, they can record each week. They’ve finished two songs now of the 13 for the next album. While he was out I spent the afternoon finishing the mini-album, which is now completely and absolutely done, including a little title page to go in the window on the cover and a schedule of all our arrangements on the back page. That took most of the afternoon, but I had a little time left over before Nick came home to start with sorting out school books, putting last year’s books onto the downstairs bookshelf.

This morning was time to sort out the diningroom in earnest. I unpacked, cleaned, and rearranged cupboards, dusted windowsills, vacuumed, and brought out the books we will be needing for tomorrow. The boys watched their DVD again after tenzees, and then I got some of the reading done for tomorrow, so I know more or less what to expect.

Thief

This morning I found a curious thing in the kitchen, as I was putting the dishes away – for Bible Study on Tuesday, Jean had brought a selection of Roses’ chocolates, and of course there were several left over, which we put into a little container and then forgot to put away in the cupboard last night. So, this morning, there was a still-wrapped chocolate in the draining rack. I puzzled over this a while, until I took a closer look and saw the tell-tale nibbled corners, and shredded foil wrapper also lying about. Evidently during the night, a sneaky little mouse had chosen one out the open tub, then run with it all along two lengths of the kitchen counter, before settling comfortably in the draining rack behind a dinner plate, where it had most probably delighted in its unexpected find. Sadly, it was one of our favourites!!

My priority for the morning was to get my craft prepared, as today I was back at the school. Fortunately I still had the necessary supplies left over from the first group’s card making session, so I just had to cut the cardboard in half, score fold lines, cut out some other bits of paper, and punch out various shapes in a variety of colours. The boys were hovering while I was busy, and then asked if they could also make cards, so I gave them some board and whatever other supplies they needed, and let them loose. They had a marvellous time cutting up miniscule bits of paper and gluing and stapling them together in a most unusual arrangement! We were due at the coffee shop at 10.45 to meet with Maureen and Elza. Although the boys were bored mostly, I enjoyed chatting with the ladies. In sympathy for the boys we didn’t stay too long, but left again at about 12ish. I dropped both of them off at home on my way to Half Tree Hollow for bread and a few goodies – at last got hold of some onions, as well as more chicken breast fillets, and some rolls and 35p (reduced) caramel aeros. Then it was home and lunch, after which the boys wanted to make new necklaces, so that kept us busy until I had to go to the school. We finished both necklaces – a masculine combination of antique gold findings, and bone beads, on brown cord. The craft class was really not too bad today. I have a new group of children for the next 10 weeks, so of course I can just repeat the crafts I did with the last lot, saving in planning if not preparation. The boys went to play outside while supper was in the oven, amusing themselves by throwing sand at the tree where all the bees live. Why on earth they decided to do that is beyond me, but they came in for their bath absolutely filthy, but thankfully unharmed, and in very high spirits.

Appliances make nice homes

I started the morning, after what I would call my usual walk except that it hasn’t been very regular since being back, and a bath, by cleaning the kettles. I thought this was a necessary and urgent action because I found a cockroach, belly-up, in the less-used kettle, the one that has been standing in the cupboard for the last 8 weeks while we haven’t been having bible study. Unfortunately I found the cockroach after we had served tea, which means that I gave our guests cockroach soup. I noticed an off smell, but wouldn’t have thought it was coming from the kettle! So, post-haste I vinegared it and cleaned it all out. After lunch, which was sandwiches for Caleb and me, leftover pies for Nick, and the remains of a package of 2-minute noodles for Aaron (the rest of the packet was sprinkled liberally on the lounge carpet by Aaron, who had been carrying the closed packet around with him since we bought them yesterday, and had finally managed to accidentally open them, spewing out much of the very crushed contents), I played a few rounds of hide-and-seek with Caleb, as he is complaining that he never sees me – all this because they spent three days at the holiday bible club last week, so now need to make up for lost time. Then I thought that it would be a good time to see if we could get Caleb’s laptop working using a South African adapter rather than the American one we have, which restricts him to using it in Nick’s office where he can plug it into the transformer. Very cautiously, Nick and I plugged it in and switched it on, ready to turn it off at the first sound of any crackling or evidence of fired, and it actually works. This is really great, because now both boys can use their laptops anywhere in the house. I bought a two-point multi-plug in SA, so they both plug their adapter into that, then that goes into a British/SA adapter, and finally into the wall. While I was busy with the final supper preparations which involved frying parboiled potatoes on the stove and supervising the boiling of vegetables, Scilla came by. She arrived back here with the ship this morning, for her three-month optometrical stint. She will be here until 11 April. It’s great to have her back – this is the third time she has been since we’ve been here. She stayed and chatted in the kitchen right up until supper was ready, although declined an invitation to stay to dinner as she had a lot of unpacking to do, to get her equipment sorted out and set up.

You break it, you buy it

After a morning of tidying, sorting and scrapping, and then beading at Lorna, I scooted off to town in the afternoon to look for some drinking glasses as we only have about four decent ones. After some walking about from shop to shop, I found nice ones at Queen Mary’s, but they didn’t have any price. I waited a long time while they ambled about looking for a price and eventually forgetting about me, so took the glasses to the till to try pay anyway, and hopefully speed up the process – but while I was holding the box, one of the glasses fell out and shattered on the floor. Oops! I took the rest of them to the till and explained that I would buy the set of five anyway, but they still couldn’t find a price so I said I would return tomorrow.

Sunday Blues are Back

Today has been back to the usual blah Sundays – all the worse after the holiday and happy memories of braais and lunches! I made a cheesy mince and potato dish for lunch, along with fresh green beans in my new steamer. I also boiled (steamed) some eggs while the beans were going. My non-vegetable-eating boys were dreadfully unhappy about having to down the beans, but Nick stood by me in insisting that they eat all of them. I told them a funny story about an old friend who once stuffed his mouth full of beans, not wanting to first bother with cutting them up, after first making sure that his mom and I were looking in the other direction! They thought that was quite funny. Anyway, all the beans were eaten and no smacks were administered. In the afternoon we did our own thing – Nick rested, the boys played, I crafted, and then Nick took the boys for a swim later on.

Back to Wrangham's

It’s been a hot day again today, with mostly clear skies. To take advantage of the weather and the fact that Good News Club hasn’t started yet, we went out to Wrangham’s Forest again today, this time armed with a camera. We needed to stop in town first for a few things, and then we had to pay a quick visit to one of our elderly Baptist ladies, whose son died yesterday or today – he is unknown to us, but was 58. We didn’t stay too long, just chatted a little and then Nick prayed. From there it was onto Wrangham’s. We walked through to the backyard, and then on into the forest part, which was quite extensive. After walking a downhill path for a while, we stopped and had chips and juice, and took a family photo, and then decided to head back since the path seemed to just go on pretty much the way it was – we had seen enough! I like circular routes, not ones that keep going in one direction.

Still getting sorted

While the boys were out at HBC this morning, I met up with Maureen and Elza (and Steve) at the coffee shop, where I had an iced coffee and chocolate cake. They still have their Thursday morning coffee every week, so when I’m on school holiday I like to go as well. It was great to catch up and chat. During the afternoon the boys rode bikes for a while, and then came home and played, while I did some more tidying and sorting, and then together we tackled their room and their toys. I asked for their input as to how to arrange things, so together we sorted things into different categories and got them all packed away neatly. That’s a fairly big job off the list. Wilson came by during the morning, to say hello and deliver two items we had ordered from the States last year, which he brought with him when he left Ascension – one of them being “The Last Sin Eater” DVD, based on the novel by Francine Rivers. A very moving and powerful story!

Homecoming

We sighted the island around 10 am yesterday morning, as a landmass through the fog. It was already quite high and wide by the time it came into view – surprising, as one would think it might start off as a dot on the horizon. Took another two hours to actually navigate around the island and then finally into James’ Bay. We anchored officially at 12.15 pm, four hours later than originally scheduled. We were anticipating that families with young children would be given priority in disembarkation, so we didn’t bother trying to get to the front of the queue to see the customs officials, but unfortunately this was not the case, so we ended up being on the last boat off. The boys were dreadfully bored, as were we all, so it wasn’t really a fun wait. Finally we donned lifejackets, walked carefully down the gangplank onto the pontoon (there was a bit of a swell, so we had to wait until the platform rose to meet the stairs again before hopping on), and then into the Gannett Three. The run from the ship to the wharf steps was actually surprisingly long – the RMS really anchors far out! Stripped of our lifejackets, we found space on a mini-bus and were driven the short distance to the customs hall. We were surprised to see a major project on the go at the docks, such that the place where people congregate to welcome passengers has been moved quite far back, even beyond the swimming pool, and there were containers lined up as far as that. Apparently this is the rock-stabilisation project, so instead of the containers being offloaded further down towards the wharf steps, they are now coming right up into the parking area, thus making it unsafe for the general public. Anyway, once we had been through customs and put our hand-luggage through the x-ray machine, we walked along to where people were waiting, to see if anyone had come to welcome us. Steve and Maureen were waiting, along with Elza and her son who is visiting, and Vincent, Joyce and Enid. It was lovely to see them again, of course. We didn’t tarry long, as Maureen asked whether we had had lunch (which we had, an hour previously), and informed us that lunch had been prepared at the manse. They had brought our car down to the docks, so we drove home in our beloved 942, where a large number of our congregation were waiting for us – not just town folk, but some from Sandy Bay as well. They had gone full out with a lunch, the usual way – lots of food and lots of variety. We didn’t eat much, but hopefully looked very grateful anyway! Thankfully the leftovers were plenty, and will serve as our lunches and suppers for the next few days. A great effort had been done with cleaning the manse, so everything had been dusted and vacuumed, and even all the windows had been washed!

Today has just been a lot of unpacking and sorting. The boys are at a Holiday Bible Club being run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which they will attend tomorrow and Friday too. It’s probably the only time of the year that I am at home without the boys for any length of time! I had to go to town for a few goodies, and it was a pleasure to walk down the road and be greeted and welcomed home by so many Saints. I can honestly say that we are pleased to be back! The old familiar sights and sounds of the island are much beloved – silly, everyday things like watching the Fairy Terns swoop and glide in their pairs; having a sea view all day; the traffic on the main road outside our window and people talking as they walk by – and even the DJs on Saint FM!

More from the ship

Last night the ship started rocking, and the weather changed to grey skies. The rocking was worse during the night, and this morning I was feeling a bit green. Nick and the boys were fine, mostly, although Caleb also said he thought he might vomit. We decided to bypass breakfast in the diningroom, and headed instead to the sun lounge, so that if need be we could dash outside with our puke bags. Fortunately we were fine, and managed to get some cheese scones, yoghurt, and juice into us. I did a load of washing and tumbledrying during the day, but for the most part I was on my bed. The boys are having a marvellous time playing with the kids onboard, mostly in the playroom. Caleb told me the other day that the best moisturiser is Dove. He says he can tell me lots of things because he watched a lot of TV ads in SA. During the morning, we discovered the reason for the ship’s sudden instability – the stabilisers had been lifted out the water yesterday! Apparently this helps with the speed, as they are trying to make up a bit of time. Presently we are scheduled to arrive in James’ Bay on Tuesday noon. However, the stabilisers were put down again during the morning, and so it was a lot smoother again. During the afternoon we actually sat outside on the sundeck – there was hardly a breath of wind other than a mild occasional breeze, and it was warm and delicious. We took our tea outside and read. I’m reading an excellent book by Ginger Plowman, “Don’t make me count to three” – which deals with discipline, and training the hearts of our children. I was wondering what had happened to my two lovely, compliant boys over the course of the holiday, but realized that Nick and I were the actual culprits – we have let our hands-on parenting slide! Apart from neglecting devotions, we have also not been exercising proper biblical reproof and correction, so it’s no wonder that they were getting more and more out of hand. This is currently being remedied.

On we go!

So far we’ve been faring very well on the ship. It’s been an extremely smooth sail, with a very steady horizon and very little pitching. We haven’t felt in the least bit seasick, although Caleb claims to have a headache and a bit of nausea. Our cabin is roomy and comfortable, and has an en-suite bathroom – definitely more luxurious than the c-deck accommodations we had on our outbound voyage. The ship’s water, because it goes through a desalination process, is inclined to draw the iron from the pipes as it goes along, simply to try getting some minerals back into itself, so it comes out the taps looking orange. After a shower the towels are orange. The food is as good as always, although last night we had the Captain’s Cocktail party beforehand, so weren’t much inclined to a large meal afterward. Nick only had soup and dessert, while I still did my best to finish a grouper fillet. We have two ladies with us at our table, who certainly make very interesting dinner companions.

Let me get back to Thursday, our departure day. It wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be, although I think the rush at the airport which cut short the goodbyes helped with that – we were severely overweight with our extra luggage, so had to request an extra allowance at the airport, which was awarded us with not too much trouble. After retrieving all our luggage in Cape Town, we had to wait a few minutes for Nick’s friend Greg to arrive. Then we went to hire a car, a Getz – very nice to drive. I got landed with the driving, as the credit card is mine and so I had to present my own drivers’ licence. Greg had all three boys (ours plus his own, Caleb’s age), and we had all the luggage. Amazingly it fitted in the Getz with the back seats down. We went straight to Greg’s house in Observatory, offloaded all the luggage, had a cup of tea, and by about 10.15 we were ready to go to the Waterfront for some final shopping. We decided to reload all the luggage and take it with us, as Greg said it would be safe in the covered parking at the Waterfront. We had to just take his word on this – not something we would have done in Joburg! I did the shopping while Nick and Greg supervised the boys in a play area. It was a lot of walking to find a vacuum cleaner, pillows, and some shoes for the boys. Back in the parking lot, we quickly boxed up the bulk of our purchases, then found our way to the Mission to Seafarers, our meeting point for embarkation. It was now 1 pm, and our hire car was due for return at 1 pm. However, all the luggage was in the car, and the Andrew Weir people weren’t on hand for luggage receiving – what to do! The trailers and kombis were waiting for the hold baggage, but it hadn’t been tagged yet. No problem, we just amended details on our original cabin tickets, crossing out “Cabin” and writing “hold”, and changing the cabin number. That apparently was fine. Then offloaded the rest of the luggage to a spot in the shade, where Nick was left in charge, and Greg and I sorted out getting the car back. Once that was done, we waited for about half an hour before getting on a kombi that took us right to the gangplank of the RMS St Helena. Finally we were on the ship! All the stresses over, we could relax at last. We sailed at about 18h10. Our usual supper arrangements hold, with the boys eating at 17h30 and us at 18h45. This works so well. By the time we get back to the cabin after our dinner, the boys are soundly asleep, even though the sun hasn’t yet set. Last night we watched the sunset, which was at about 20h10. Will be getting earlier as we head further north.

2008 greetings!

A very happy new year to you all! For those of you who know God as your Father, may His blessings rest on you this year. For those who don’t yet call him Father, perhaps this will be the year that He calls you into a relationship with Him!

Our holiday has drawn to an end now, as we leave early tomorrow morning for Cape Town, and then board the ship later in the day. Lord willing, we arrive back on our beautiful island next Tuesday, the 8th. This is assuming that the engines don’t fail us, or bad weather delay us. We have had an awesome holiday here, with so many occasions to see friends and family, and a healthy dose of laughter. Our new years’ eve was a memorable evening, with the same crowd of friends that gathered three years ago at the Martins’ home. Those three years have seen three of the six couples move to different parts of the world, and three children born. It was wonderful to be together again, perhaps for the last time as more emigrations are pending!

The obvious question now is, how are we feeling about leaving here and returning to the island? Well, we’re actually quite excited about getting back. The holiday has come to the yucky part of packing up and getting a million little things into suitcases – on the ship we have a large luggage allocation, but we are restricted by the kulula flight. Therefore, we are keen to get back home and get settled in our own home with our own routines again. I know that my parents especially are relieved that we are feeling upbeat about our return – it would have been a pathetic little figure saying goodbye to her parents tomorrow morning if she were unhappy at the thought of another stint on St Helena! Until next Tuesday then, I bid you all goodnight – I’ll be back blogging regularly soon...