The hurricane season has been kind to us as all the storms turned north before they got too active. We have had an exceptionally wet rainy season though and the Island has seen quite a few landslides. Our garden has remained in place and our planting is now well established and things are growing quickly. We are about to pick our first bananas,about100 of them!

We have just finished off tiling the side path and covered area by the kennels. It looks much smarter and more comfortable as this is an area we use more and more for barbequing and sitting out.

The dogs now sleep out at night and do their job of barking at anything untoward. Foxy is a little brave heart and will face up to anything whilst Obie does a good bark but stands back a bit. No doubt he will become more confident as he gets older. A family of mice have moved into the house, to get out of the rain. We noticed the signs about a week ago and saw a few scuttle across the floor in the evening. Foxy was delighted at this and has spent her evenings scouring the ground floor for signs of life. Last week she caught one and gently carried it outside where it promptly escaped and made its way back in. Last night she caught another but this time she was not so gentle and both dogs got a go at killing it. We have also caught and despatched four more by using traps. Hopefully we have got them all but shall keep the traps going for a little longer until all droppings have disappeared.

Jeff is keeping himself busy with overseeing construction on a friend’s site down the road and also having some input into the hotel with its charter boat operation. We have just had his brother, Mark, and Helen, his wife out for 12 days, which was great fun. We get to do all the fun stuff when we have visitors. We aren’t expecting any visitors now until the New Year unless John and Fi can make it for Christmas. We are meeting an old friend off a cruise ship that is coming into Castries in December so hopefully we can take him sailing and show him a bit of the Island.

The next big happening for us is to return to UK in November for a fortnight. It will be good to catch up with friends and family but as we have seen most since we have been here we are not going back with any great excitement. This really does seem like home now especially with the responsibilities of dogs and property and the arrangements to have them looked after whilst we are gone can be difficult. Also its getting cold in UK and we don’t have any clothes or shoes for that anymore.