Hot Off The Presses.......

http://www.tampabay.com/features/travel/article1230653.ece Beat that view hey!

What's This Then?

Impressive hey. I also have kholrabi (Google it). Who'd have thought I could outshine my endless strawberry crop.....

YO

Yo, time flies. What a difference a year makes. Having fun, a lot of fun here in paradise. International cricket just came and went with ice cold Kubuli - I hate beer but there's something about cricket, peer pressure, an Emirates chiller to hold it in and beer with slivers of ice in it that turns hate to love, I think. And I also fell in love with 'Doubles' but I'm sure the description won't translate so take my word for it that bread, chickpeas, sauce and mango chutney all wrapped up together for only US$2 is the best scoff ever. Yep, I know, just take my word for it - on day two I did bring my own fork into the ground though because they are a tad sloppy. On site handbag check didn't pick it up but did moan about my lippy. Clearly wielding lippy is far more dangerous than posh pronged fork. AP photographers and Reuters journalists made the most of the Villa and couldn't believe their luck. I couldn't believe how many crates of Kubuli we had to remove at the end. Best of all they left cartons of Starbucks ice-cream in the freezer - usually I'm blessed with some mac & cheese. Next there's a wedding. Brave souls - swapping the cabana on the beach in full view of everyone in the Dominican Republic to a secluded spot in Dominica but what an amazing spot hey - look at this spectacular view.

Plus we have just hosted a wedding too and I understand the sounds of partying reached far and wide. Dominicans know how to hold a good wedding. There's more babies than weddings here mind - those swinging locks make for swinging partners for sure. Sold my favourite house in Dominica to a very nice man from Belgium. Hoping his container contains an abundant supply of Grimbergen and Neuhaus. Whatever, he is soon to be guaranteed a front seat to watch the best sunsets in the world shortly. Hollywood came and went with a lot of name dropping. Hollywood returning to complete their story. This will result in the funniest 'This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. That'll make the snorters snort.... New expat restaurant opened. Can't quite get my head round ordering spag bol in a restaurant but hey, the salad was nice and the service good. Best pizzas in town are pizza oven cooked at the French bakery. So much so, project pizza oven is commencing at home shortly. A very nice peace corps worker will supervise being an expert in such things with all proceeds going to The Cause in Portsmouth. Win win all round. Plus, he makes the best calabash bowls in history - sold before they're even made - get your order in now. And so, life goes round.

School Website & DIY Cameras

http://stlukesprimaryschool.com/

Website up & running finally - yay!

Many thanks to Ted & Lara from Florida who spent a morning with the children
giving them a photojournalism presentation and teaching them how to make pin hole cameras. Key to their success is a sunny day, funnily enough it was a great success.

Thanks to all the 'Friends of St Luke's' - you're truly a pleasure to work with!

No Snow Zone.....

Happy New Year 2012

Health, wealth and happiness.
Be honest & be nice!
Move onwards and upwards.
Happy Carnival Season. Great opening parade on Saturday.
Enjoy.

Facedom - Orevwa

It's such a tiny place and amazing that FB is so popular and in reality the whole of the population should be 'Friends' or even PF 'Pretend Friends'. That would be good, on your FB Home Page you could section it, RF (real friends) and PF....the PF's are those that befriend you because you chatted at a party briefly and they stayed friendly thinking you might be a useful on-island contact and also they want as many friends as a teenager showing up on their profile. Once you have seen through them, realised their on island business is as fake as their 'err company' profile and you won't in fact be sending any poor unsuspecting punters their way, you are suddenly but silently unfriended. This takes a while to sink in, usually when you realise you haven't seen the 'I'm so busy and stressed out (sitting at my beachside bar and lolling by the river)' posts and upon realisation there is a real urge to FR them again with both of you pretending you'd never been Friends or even BFF in the first place.


Photos, umm, now we are told at every turn and corner never ever to post our children online because in 10 years time do we really want them googled and up comes a shot from FB that might not be quite so flattering afterall, so that's a no no so what else can we post? What time we got up, where our next plate of lobster is coming from, how many bottles of Cristal we have in the fridge for the weekend, what time we went to bed, reinventing our name overnight (that's an island favourite along with seeing Mick Jagger here), the rise of peanut farms on remote mountain tops etc? Then there's the big wait for the pats on the back, wow you look like so amazingly FAB, praise for adorable, as they all are, completely of course, children, as if you're really going to say 'little Johnny actually looks very dumpy and grumpy today and quite honestly, with the pounds you've put on recently at the Dasheenfest, a one piece swimming costume, preferably corsetted, would be far more flattering', empathy at the lack of goat's cheese on island but endless goats, and the can't resist statement, definitely after several rum punches, how wonderful life is because everyone here is clearly living the dream, bien sur.

As for the Party Invites, that's nigh on impossible on island to get away with. A friend recently catered for a hotel opening party and was told by the hosts that a few friends were coming over. Another friend wasted no time telling her the next day how wonderful her food had been at the opening party and where was she....she clearly wasn't 'On The FB List'. And, what on earth does 'In a relationship with' mean.......why not be really specific and spell it out like the rest of the site seems to.....we want the juicy details!


Last but not least Livestockville, Groceryville, Breathingville, Toenailsville, just get real-ville quite frankly. Why would you want everyone to buy bananas for your monkeys when you have real ones in your back garden. Possibly a few monkeys too. And, furthermore, who wants to water your grass when it's quite clearly rainy season........umm, maybe Hurricaneville would be quite apt afterall.......