Hello dear things,
So this is day 5. Monday 25th of August. It has, to say the least, been a whirlwind of frantic activity so far. However, I am now sitting on the balcony of our rented cottage, which rests on the hillside above Bathway beach and at last I have a few moments to write a line or twain.
“A few fluid ounces of the hot and strengthening” (as Bertie Wooster describes a cup of tea) are resting at my elbow, daring me to wait a second longer before partaking of the same.
A large ‘Pride of the Caribbean’ tree in full bloom obscures the view of our beach houses being built on the beach below, but beyond that small islands stretch out endlessly towards the blue horizon ... they look for all the world like a child’s drawing of desert islands.
From a distance, undertaking this adventure may seem like a splendid idea and hopefully it will prove to be so but, the experience of actually emigrating bears no resemblance to being here on holiday. That may seem like my Specialist subject is ‘Stating the bleedin’ obvious’ but the shock is seismic when it is actually happening to you.
Our emotions have closely resembled some kind of manic (and occasionally) malevolent Rollercoaster, veering madly from ‘what the fcuk have we done’ to ‘No get a grip, we can do this... it will be OK’. I keep repeating, mantra like, inane, vaguely oriental philosophical truisms to myself like ‘Better to live like a tiger for a day than a sheep for a lifetime’. Yes that’s fine for David Carradine in full Grass Hopper, Kung fu mode but doesn’t help much in the real bloody world. ‘Well you only live once’ is another one that springs unbidden into my addled brain with tiresome regularity.
I know people are only trying to help but when you get bombarded with how hard it is to find an honest cleaning lady, how expensive the supermarkets are, the price of fuel, the increase in crime, how useless the government are, there is nowhere to park etc, etc it paints a rather frightening picture for the virgin émigré!. Of course it does have the advantage of making you feel at home. Fascinating how you can move to the other side of the world and the problems for everyone seem to be the same.
But then wiser council prevails and yes the fuel has gone up but it’s is still a fraction of what it is in the UK, yes crime does happen here like everywhere else but I do notice that none of you actually lock your cars. Parking is tricky on busy market days in St Georges or our local town of Grenville...you sometimes have to walk for 5 minutes... on the other hand there are no yellow lines, parking metres or bloody traffic wardens. I might just get used to this!
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