5 Go on holiday

Hi Everyone, it’s been a while since we last blogged, the reason being that we went on holiday for 7 weeks! Matt has never had a holiday that long before, and other than having maternity leave (which I think doesn’t count) neither have I!
We flew from St Helena to Johannesburg where we stayed in a hotel overnight. Having been on St Helena with no fruit or eggs for the last month, to see the salad bar and selection of fruit available was the best thing we’d ever seen and we piled our plates high!!
We then flew on to Cape town, an amazing place, where we spent 10 days; we saw Table Mountain, Cape Point, Cape of good hope, Clifton Beach, Boulders beach (where the penguins live) the Waterfront and Bo Kaap. We had lots of lovely food and good wine, we went shopping with no complaining from the kids (unheard of!) We also went on safari to a place called Inverdoorn for 2 days which was brilliant, we saw giraffes, lions, zebras, elephants, buffalo, wildebeest, springboks, rhino, cheetah, hippo’s ostrich……. and more! I would really recommend Cape Town as a holiday destination.
We then went on the second leg of our trip back to the UK where we caught up with as many people as we possibly could, we were wined and dined by friends, eating out, eating in, parties, weekends away (without the kids), boys trip to Beer, cinema trips, trips to London, Chichester and Brighton. Matt even got to play a game of Hockey!! We felt like we needed to get back to the sunshine and chilled out pace of life in St Helena by the end of it all! If we missed you then hopefully we will be able to catch up when we come back in August.
The children had an amazing time catching up with all their friends and were a little reluctant to leave the UK, luckily, Cooper was waiting for us though and we had all missed him soooo much that they were excited to see him.
Our trip back to St Helena was slightly lengthened by 2 cancelled flights, the weather in St Helena prevented the flight from landing and so we had to spend 2 days in Johannesburg, however, the weather was warm, the food was plentiful, and the hotel had a pool, so it wasn’t much of a hardship!
Now we are back in St Helena and the weather has been good so far, it feels strange that we only have a couple of months left living on St Helena. We are busy trying to sell all our worldly belongings, we brought far too much out with us, I look at some things and wonder what we were thinking bringing out power tools and a shredder! The good thing is that because it can be hard to buy things and have them shipped to the island, most things are wanted by someone somewhere. We are going to try and sell our car too, but if we can’t we will ship it back to the UK.
We have had a visitor for the last week, Matt’s work colleague Wendy, she was delivering training for the Safeguarding team. In between training we tried to show her round the island, and when Matt wasn’t trying to kill her in the hire car I think she had a good time. The lack of internet was a bit of an eye opener for her, but in many ways can be a good thing…?!
We have started dog training with Cooper to try and stop him jumping up and pulling on his lead, he is a bit bossy with the other dogs in the class and has been throwing his weight around a bit, but he is learning fast and is so adorable we forgive him!
I have now resigned from work, so I can enjoy my last few weeks as a lady of leisure before heading back to the UK and full-time work, however, Matt and I are both currently jobless when we return to UK, something that has never happened before and is slightly unsettling, we are hoping it won’t be for long though.
We plan to make the most of St Helena for our last few weeks on the island and have a bucket list of things we need to do before we go, including a 4 x 4 trip and family fishing. There are a few post-box walks we haven’t tried that we would like to as well.
Coming back has reminded us all the differences between the modern world of the UK and life in St Helena. We have decided there is no right or wrong, it is just very different way of life and culture on St Helena from the UK, which given how remote it is, the limitations of internet the lack of commercial marketing and shops it’s no wonder and is the unique charm that this small Island has. It will certainly remain a part of us and has been quite an adventure so far…..
We are hoping to have a holiday on our way back home to visit my brother & sister in law in Australia and have a break in the Sun before facing reality, we will fill you in on that as our plans take shape.
Everyone here is well and looking forwards to see what the next few months will bring.
Lots of love from Jo Matt, Isaac, Ruby and Archie xxxxx

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