I find it hard to believe we have only been here for one week! The UK feels so far away. We have had no access to TV or Internet. While we were in Cape Town we vaguely picked up on the fact that Barack Obama had been re-elected, and that was the last we heard from the outside world!
So I am sat typing this offline on Monday evening, in the hope that I will get an hour's Internet connection at a cafe in Jamestown tomorrow morning so I can send this and pick up on 10 days worth of emails.
So much to tell you about this place, who I've met, what's been happening etc etc. where to start?! Arriving on the boat was amazing! We got up early (6 ish) on the Tuesday morning and went up on deck for our first glimpse of the island. After 5 days of seeing nothing but sea, that lump of rock was such a welcome sight! We sailed round the island to Jamestown, and it felt amazing to see for real what had become such a familiar view from all the pictures we looked at on the Internet. A team from Immigration boarded the boat, and once cleared we donned life Jackets and walked down some rickety steps on to a pontoon and were bundled aboard small motor boats, about 20 of us at a time, before being ferried in to the port. It was a bit like arriving at an airport, but an open air one, with a large garage serving as Customs! we were met by a woman from SHG'S HR department who was holding up a sign saying 'The David Family'. Once through the baggage check we walked up to a barrier where about 100 people from the island were waiting to welcome friends and family. Debbie Whale (The island's defence lawyer who was really helpful via email before we left) and her daughter Mia were there. We recognised them straight away from their Internet photos. It was about 10am by this time and they were taking time off from school and work to meet us! debbie handed us some home made bolognaise and spaghetti, and arranged to call in and see us after work.
I was smiling so much I thought my face would burst! I could hardly speak to Debbie I was so choked with emotion. As I'd watched the island get closer during the morning, it felt like I was falling in love with it! No photo can do it justice. Experiencing the real thing, the smells, the warmth and light of the sun, the warm, welcoming smiles and 'hello's from everyone at the port (not just those we knew or who were there to meet us) just reinforced what I already knew, that it is right for us to be here, we have a small part to play in the life of this island, we can 'belong' here for 2 years.
From the port we walked through a huge gate into Jamestown and immediately noticed the wind drop and the increased temperature on the other side of the sheltering wall. Within this courtyard area is the prison building, with iron gates right on the street front it looks like something from a Western. The imposing St James' Church is immediately next door to the prison, and has recently been painted a dark charcoal grey, an odd, somber choice of colour. Some amazing, pure white birds really stood out against the charcoal. I since found out they are called 'fairy terns'. Aptly named, and stunningly beautiful to watch in flight. Pure white birds with feathers like fairy wings, they look like they belong in a Disney animation.
We stopped for a coffee at the St Helena Coffee Shop. by the town wall, it's a coffee van, and picnic tables with cream umbrellas, that serves latte, and wonderful cakes. One of the girls treats has tended to be caramel shortbread from Costa. We discovered that this coffee shop sells an amazing caramel shortbread, 100 times better than Costa, and half the price! various prison colleagues and expat friends of friends milled around and welcomed us at the coffee shop. Then the girls and I were bundled in a police car, and Martin was driven up with the luggage in a second car.
we drove up to the top end of Jamestown, then along the cliff road that is ladder hill. As you look at photos of Jamestown from the sea, Ladder Hill is on the right with the 699 steps of Jacob's Ladder going steeply to the top. The road climbs slightly less steeply(!), it's cut into the cliff wall, and in places is only wide enough for one car, with passing places. Looking back down on Jamestown is vertigo inducing, there is some vague sense of protection from a 3ft high stone wall running the length of the outside of the road. Thankfully, most road users here seem to be both slow (no-one hurries here, ever!) and courteous.
From the top of Ladder hill we continued the climb through Half tree Hollow, a sprawling suburb of a few hundred detatched bungalows. Hot, dry and scrubby. Orange dust, coarse, bleached grasses, rocks, and prickly pear cactus everywhere. Dotted with rubble, rubbish, rusting oil barrels, car parts, lumps of scrap metal, breeze blocks, tyres, derelict, falling down outhouses, lines flapping with laundry, worn out furniture, dogs, hens, mynah birds. You could so easily believe you were in Africa (not that surprising, The african coast is the nearest land mass). Despite the surroundings many of the houses are recent builds, in a good state of repair, and a handful are pristine oases, with vivid green lawns and exotic flower borders.
Somewhere in the middle of this suburb, we found our house. 50 yards of off road driving to get to our driveway, so steep you can't see the road in front of the car bonnet, makes our unmade road in Cannon Grove seem extremely tame! having nearly ripped the chassis from the police car, we were relieved to be there.
The house is much as we expected from the pictures we received from Peter Coll, though we quickly realised that photos can hide a lot of snags! On the plus side, it feels very spacious, the kitchen, lounge and dining areas are large and open plan, with 4 bedrooms off the main living area. All the rooms are a good size, and Lottie's bedroom is bigger than her room at home. The tiled floor makes the house feel cool (we are told we will be very glad of that in a few months time), but also means the house is very echoey. When the girls are shouting and playing it is hard to hear ourselves think!
It took us a while to take in the fact that the house has not been lived in before. It was so grubby that it was not obvious at first. By UK standards it's a really shoddy build. We can tell the floor was laid before the walls were done, as it is covered in paint splats. There were still little piles of brick dust and sawdust where holes have been drilled and the dust not cleaned up. Water pipes installed and the holes around them not filled, pipes unpainted. Taps not working. The brand new kitchen(!) is very basic. The cupboards are made of unpainted pine, with flimsy plywood panels and balsa wood shelves! Ooh the irony! I know!
The best bit are the curtain rails. They are actually bits of plastic covered wire, hooked on to nails at each end. I think they are usually used for net curtains, (or the curtains in the girls' Wendy house at home!) they do the job for now though, the curtains are so thin it doesn't take much to hold them up!
The house is set in a completely un-landscaped pile of rubble. We have no garden to speak of anyway, a strip of about 10 feet depth along in front of the house before it slopes sharply away to a patch of waste ground. another 10 or 15 feet of sloping land to the side of the house. Decorated with an old blue flipper, a discarded crate, some scrap metal and breeze blocks, and a few fag ends. Our decision over the next few weeks will be whether to stay put and invest a bit of time and money in the place, or to try and find something a bit smarter. I think we are likely to stay. For one thing, there is not much else available. This is a good location, only a mile or so from Jamestown, the view out to sea is incredible, and once our container full of stuff is here we can make it feel a lot more homely. Also, I like the fact that we are in the heart of the Saints' community. Some of the other houses we have seen are stunning, but are in ex-pat heavy areas.
We have hired a car, a giant clunky Toyota 4x4, it's a beast of a thing but we have got used to the car and the steep, rough terrain surprisingly quickly. Driving down Ladder hill for the first time was a terrifying prospect, but it has become second nature already.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday getting settled in, finding provisions, getting our bearings, and visiting the school. On Thursday, Martin started at the prison and the girls started school.
Pilling is an adorable little primary school about half a mile from the prison in upper Jamestown. It's on the site of an old barracks, a two storey colonial building, with a first floor balcony. Lots of dark wooden panelling and creaky wooden stairs, high ceilings and reasonable size classrooms. Two year groups are together in each class, so Lottie is in year 1/2 class, and phoebe in year 5/6 class. The class numbers have traditionally been small but are currently quite large with close to 30 in each. I was surprised to see they have a suite of about 15 computers in an IT classroom, Lottie got to use them in her letters and sounds lesson on her first day. The playground is literally just a square of ground, a few picnic tables, and football goals. No play equipment at all, except for the pre-schoolers. Both girls are making friends. Lottie's new best friend is Fatima, and Phoebe seems to be getting on well with Mia, who was her pen pal before she arrived. Mia is here this afternoon for a play date. She's 10, and very tiny, not much taller than Lottie. She loves to wear boys clothes and plays lots of football, she's full of fun and affection and clearly likes to be an individual. Today she wore one of her dad's ties with a polo shirt and track suit trousers to school. In many ways she is very different to Phoebe, but I really hope they become good friends, they could be really good for each other.

From their second day the girls have been taking the bus in to school. The mini bus picks them up from the Three Tanks, a five minute walk down the hill from here. I walk them down in the mornings and am back home by 8.30am! After school it drops them 50 yards from the house at 3.15, which means I don't have to do an afternoon school run at all! The only down side of course is that there is no meeting of other parents at the school gates, so I will need to find other ways to link in with parents.