I have fallen in love with this island. The beauty and the brokenness, it's stunning vistas and its vulnerability. A mere spec in the South Atlantic, this island doesn't yet know its true worth, it hasn't yet realised its potential. an island damaged and altered by outside influences. Imperfect, yet hopeful, and so full of promise. This island, which makes me gasp in surprise, belly laugh at its absurdities, and stops me in my tracks in awe of its beauty. This island is not paradise, and yet there is so much to love about it. It's the kind of love that breaks your heart.

I see beauty and I want to learn to capture it in photos. I marvel at the landscapes, indigenous flora has been ravaged by goats, which has left some of the once lush hillsides dry and parched. The flax and the arum lilies, the bright, weedy nasturtiums and the elegant allium, they don't belong here, and yet they work together to create a stunning roadside landscape. A rainbow of colours in the dry, parched rocks and sands, the swirling, curving layers that make up the the giant shore cliffs, that must once have been molten and malleable. I want to study geology to make sense of it all. The history that brought traders and slaves, sailors and adventurers here and created the melting pot of those that remain and gave them their ancestry. I want to read all about their past, and get to know and understand those who live here now. I want to scuba dive and explore the marine depths, a whole new landscape in itself. I want to absorb every detail of this place, drink it in, soak it up, experience it, live it.

I am so glad I am living here, not just visiting. There's more to this island than I can possibly see and know in 2 years, but I am going to give it all I've got.