Week of the black olive discovery!

(Lucy)
So far I'm really enjoying the pace of my life. Mornings seem to have found their own routine with regards to the order of showers, breakfast, packed lunches and out the door to school. Breakfast cereal is very expensive in comparison to home. 24 Tesco Weetabix sells for around £3.50, but I've seen their cheaper 'value' ones for £1.99 and fingers crossed the boys have got passed the fact they're a slightly different shape!!

I should perhaps have mentioned that the currency is the St Helena pound, which is equivalent to sterling, the coins are the same value and identical in appearance, though some notes are larger in size. Sterling is accepted in all the shops and quite desired by the Saints. We've been told they like to post it to family living & working in the UK, as they have to pay to convert it through the bank. During my first week when I gave over a £20 note to the cashier, she remarked on how crisp it was, and hid it at the bottom of the cash drawer!

Anyway I forgot to mention that Andy and I climbed Jacob's Ladder on Sunday. I believe it's one of the "Seven Wonders of St Helena" as promoted by the tourist board. The ladder was built in 1829 as an inclined plane, which was used to haul manure up from the town and send goods down. The ladder is 600ft high and has 699 steps. It's now used by us tourists and I've just learnt that when climbed certificates can be obtained from the museum, which is near the bottom of it. We decided to use the ladder as free exercise. what else can you do, that's gets you so out of breath so fast, says Andy! It was way steeper than it looked, and I kept stopping to admire the view, but an irrational fear of heights threatened to take over, and I got to the point where I couldn't take my hands off the rails or divert my eyes anywhere other than the next step. I just had to keep going up....but there was no way I was walking down! I will try again, and hopefully I'll get used to the height, steepness and feeling that you're hanging onto the side of a cliff!

Shopping here is far more labour intensive. I've never appreciated how easy it is to be able to go to a supermarket in the UK, find everything you need, and more, and then push it out to your car! Here I find I'm shopping every day. Now this may be because I've nothing else to fill my time (time will tell), or the fact I don't have a car and have to carry everything. We are also starting from scratch, so those everyday items you can always find in the cupboard....we couldn't! There's also no large supermarkets, but a surprising number of smaller shops. Some selling just food, others just food and football boots, and others that you wonder they sell anything from one week to the next. I was over the moon to find a jar of Tesco black olives ( my pasta sauce wasn't the same without them!). Not sure if I should be worried just yet about how truly excited about that find, that I was! Can you imagine the day I found pesto, quinoa & a 6 pack of crisps! Simple things hey? I also remembered the advise that if you find something in a shop, don't assume they'll have it again. I now have several jars of olives & pesto! I also noticed last week that you can find 'new' items on the shelf on Friday, as most Saints get paid weekly....no point stocking the shelves until people have money to spend. I could go on and on about shopping, but shall try not to bore you! But lastly, happened to notice In our local shop, The Victoria, next to The Rose & Crown shop! Are selling out of date pregnancy tests, and a litre of UHT milkshake for 20p (best before Sep 2012).

Andy had an exciting weekend. Firstly walking the donkeys from the Islands 'donkey home'. The remains of a 'before days' era when they were used for work. They are now well cared for and walked every Saturday along the roads to help keep their hooves down. The walk was successful, until two frisky stallions escaped from a field almost a mile away, which took Andy and others their full strength to return and earns him the title of donkey wrestler (though a friend who was there also thought he was a bit of a donkey whisperer). Apparently it's never happened before.

On the Sunday he went tuna fishing for 7 hours. No tuna! Apparently fishermen could normally expect to catch about 100 an hour at this time of year, but for some reason this hasn't happened the last couple of years. Did catch some grouper though. Good first effort at gutting the fish, which tasted nice pan fried. Oh forgot to mention, his boat broke down and they ended up having to call out the lifeboat to tow them back in. Apparently that's never happened before either!

Toby and Lawrence had a trial scuba session in the pool, but on a very cold day! They're looking forward to their wetsuits arriving. Both would like to continue to get their Junior Open Water Diver certificates. I think it involves a theory test, several dives in the pool & in the sea. They can't go deeper than 12 metres (which seems plenty to me), but deep enough to see local wrecks etc.

Toby has also volunteered to be in the local Christmas Panto, Snow White and the seven dwarfs... He doesn't know his part yet, and rehearsals start next week.

Decided we need a garden or outside space so are tentatively beginning a house search....