June - October 2009

These blogposts are getting further and further apart. The last one was for a three month period, this one for five months. At this rate the next one will be about our final year on St Helena. I don't know how some people manage to keep these things going every day.

I suppose one of the reasons why the posts are getting further and further apart is that the longer we are here the more we get into a routine and the less exciting it sometimes seems. We have to keep remembering not to take this experience for granted. As I sit eating my breakfast looking out over the ocean with no other houses in between, I have to keep telling myself that unless I win the lottery this is likely to be the only place we live with this sort of view.

So anyway, this is what we've been up to over the past five months.

Being Honourable
My boss went on leave for a couple of months, so I became the Honourable Financial Secretary. Queue lots of piss taking from our friends who quite rightly made sure that being the Honourable Rob Jesson didn't go to my head and was treated with the disrespect I deserve! It was a good experience work-wise attending all the Council meetings and being involved in the political arena (the Financial Secretary is a voting member of the Government, or at least was until a new constitution was brought in while I was in post). However, it was also hard work as I was still doing my normal job at the same time, so trying to do two jobs while spending over half my week in meetings was quite testing. So weekends and evenings were always spent catching up on work and I think Clare and the kids (and me!) were relieved to see my boss eventually return. She has now handed in her notice, but that's another story.


Moving House
In June we moved house. We still live in Piccolo Hill, but we moved from No 10 to No 3. All the bungalows are the same but the reason we moved was because the house we have moved to is right at the front, so has uninterrupted views across the landscape down to the ocean.



Friends Leaving and New Friends Arriving
One thing you have to get used to on St Helena is that as lots of people are here on contracts, some people you've made friends with reach the end of their contracts and so leave. However, amongst the new crop of arrivals you often find other similar people who you can make friends with. We do feel quite fortunate that we've made a number of close friends here who I'm sure will stay friends for a long time because of the experience we've shared together here.

Beaver Patrol
Unless you were into Pop Will Eat Itself in the late 80s, that probably means nothing to you!

Anyway, Tom got officially enrolled as a Beaver, so got his official patches and scarf. At the same meeting I got roped into becoming the Scouts treasurer (nominated by my wife!). Clare now also helps out with the Cubs and Beavers each week.


Milly Starts School
Milly started school in September - half days. Because they have vertical groupings here (2 years in each class), the Nursery (equivalent of pre-school) and Reception kids are in the same class. Milly has done really well - after a wobbly start she now loves it and comes home singing the new songs she's learnt.



Christmas in August
Apparently this is a tradition in Australia. So our Aussie neighbours hosted a Christmas day at their house. We had the full Christmas meal, put up decorations and had pressies for the kids. The only thing missing was Christmas Top of the Pops on tele.


Tree Houses and Rope Ladders
One of the best things about living here is that the kids have lots of freedom to be playing out all the time. Here at Piccolo there's lots of other kids and there's lots of trees around so they're quite often doing proper kid stuff like climbing trees and making dens. There's a few makeshift tree houses around and Tom and I decided to make a rope ladder for one of them.



Still Exploring the Island
Even though the island is less than half the size of the Isle of Wight, because of the terrain, we still haven't explored the whole island. There's lots of places that are quite difficult to get to. So we've been on a few more walks and there's still plenty of places to try and see in our next year.