First red tomato!

Look what we have created! Well, not really, just what we've planted and taken care of!

From this on 25 March:

To this today, 5 months later:

The tomatoes have suddenly shot up and I've had to tie them to canes this past week to support them as they get heavier carrying their fruit. The one above is our very first ripe tomato. I hope it's ripe, I think we might pick it tomorrow to try.

Here are some pictures of the plants through the months:

10 June (2 1/2 months in)

Today, 29 August

Today, 29 August

The chillies and peppers are coming along very nicely too.

And to end off with, here's a picture of our colourful corner:

Neighbourhood cat

You've met our part-time cat before. He's still very much around. I wish we knew his name. We just call him Cat.

 

He favours Andre who has always told me he's allergic to cats so we can't have our own...

The two of them have long conversations and then Cat has a cat-nap before leaving us for the night.

It was a bit cold yesterday evening so I closed the door when it appeared Cat wasn't in a hurry to leave. I'd forgotten about him and when I went upstairs this is where I found him.

He knows he's not allowed upstairs or in the lounge. Only in the kitchen area where we can keep and eye on him. We don't want him getting too comfortable in our house. It's as though he knew he shouldn't go into the rooms upstairs but still trying to push his luck a bit further!

4th of July on Madiba

We can always trust Simone to go all out with celebrations! Not only did she decorate the boat for the occasion but she even supplied red, blue and silver beads for everyone to wear, a red, white and blue hair band with stars for myself and a stars and stripes bikini which she wore on the day! We had a great Independence day although we were not very sure what America gained independence from as we didn't think it did actually belong to England. After some investigation on the internet now it was indeed from our British Queen. (more info here if you're really interested) Seems like England used to own the world...

The divers did a dive at Coral Gardens on the 4th while Colleen and I snorkeled along. There is a plane wreck which crashed after take off from Tortola.

Some more info about this plane crash: 

A recent addition to the dive site is the remains of Atlantic Air BVI's Shorts 360 airplane. In 1993, after making an abortive take off, their one and only aircraft landed in the water about 200 feet off the end of the runway. No one was hurt, but after the airplane was refloated from 30 feet of water it languished hidden in a hangar for many months before being used as a movie prop in a BBC film. It eventually found its way out to Great Dog where it was sunk as part of the BVI's continual artificial reef program. The plane, without wings or tail, sits in the sand patch in about 40 feet of water.

(source)

*watch videos in HD fullscreen - it's much better :)

Coral Gardens, Great Dogs, BVI from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

I showed the video to some children and they were very very intrigued by this airplane underwater. I actually made this cute little video with kiddie music and all specially for them. 

Under the Caribbean Sea from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

When they asked to see more videos I showed them the two diving ones I made which they actually enjoyed more and wanted to see over and over again. They would either ask for the one "where I float on the top" (this one) or "the plane one". In the end we had to pause the video to discuss this plane wreck as they had too many questions. A few were: How did it get there? How did the engines fail? Why did the engines fail? Did the people get wet? Were they wearing their swimming costumes? But how did it happen? (asked repeatedly) Where are the seats? Where is the pilot? Why did they take the seats out? Why?

I grabbed a Pritt glue stick lying on the table and demonstrated how the airplane took off from the runway, with sound effects, and then how the engines go silent as they stopped working (not that I know why it really crashed but I had to give them some answer). Asked them what they think would happen next (pritt suspended above table) and they said it would crash into the sea. Then had a sink vs float discussion as well as airplane safety devices like inflatable rafts etc. After this they were fairly satisfied and carried on watching only to ask where I was, not quite grasping my excuse of a poorly ear. I might have to make them a snorkeling video in which I feature too!

Playing vets

Today at the nursery I set up a role play area for the children to pretend to be at the vets surgery. There was a reception area and everyone had to check in and make appointments first. The receptionist would then send them to wait in the waiting area where they would sit very quietly waiting until their name is called to see the vet with whatever stuffed animal they found around the nursery. We even had a large toy caterpillar who needed to see the vet. All went well and everyone was having fun until one got hurt and before the child could start crying I said "Go to the vet he'll make you better." To which the 'vet' replied in panic, "But I'm only a vet!"

Leverick Bay Dinghy Poker Run

While in the BVI we took part in the Leverick Bay Dinghy Poker Run. It is a charity event with the money going towards a charity for animals. We all dressed up as pirates and sped off in the dinghy ready for some pirate water fights. The guys each bought a poker hand and you the collect a card at each stop (including a drink each time and perhaps a bite to eat!) Andre managed to come in 6th place with his poker hand and even won the prize for best dressed male after taking over my pirate hair-do when we arrived back at Leverick Bay.


Here is a really fun video I made to show you what a great day we had as pirates as well as some photos. As always you can click on the first picture to enlarge it and then flick through them all, and you can watch the video in HD on vimeo by clicking here. (It makes a difference!)


Leverick Bay Dinghy Poker Run 2012 from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.