September's here

Almost a month has flown by between blogging, and it's been a busy one, full of guests and whales and goings on! First of all we had the much-anticipated arrival of the Gauguin cruise ship, which turned into a fiasco as the guests were unable to get off the boat due to the rough seas and narrow pass in Avera......this was a huge disappointment to us all, particularly the tourist committee (of which I am the tresurer) as we'd spent months preparing a spectacular welcome, training guides, programming an activity-packed day and negotiating at great length with the cruise company. Fortunately, the day was saved to some extent, as some of the welcome committee were allowed to get on the boat (after much to-ing and fro-ing with the cruise staff), so thankfully we managed to get paid for the 325 flower leis that had been prepared by our craftswomen.......I was very grateful to have been absent, it happened to coincide with another tourism salon, and I don't regret it an instant, as we managed to fill the guesthouse for the next three months. The school term continues and Heimana is getting into the school rhythmn. Matotea is making leaps and bounds in the literacy race, she tells me she wants a desk and computer for her birthday, she'll be writing novels by next year!!! For my part the garden's coming on, though it's been a bit too dry lately so some of my seedlings suffered from my absence at the salon, but I'm stocked for fresh herbs, we've been eating my home-grown plum tomatoes, the odd cape gooseberry and are slowly gathering strawberries in the freezer, in the hopes of making some jam or a sauce for yogurt, before the end of the year......I also have been growing, there's a third and final bump, due in feburary......

Victims of our own success!

We're busy with guests and were in Tahiti last week for another salon du tourisme, so the poor blog is on the back-burner :-(. This salon was busier than ever, and I'm happy to report that we'll have plenty of work to do over the next few months, just a shame we seem to have lost our slow period in november somewhere along the way.......who needs a holiday anyway!!!

The soaps and monois have also been going down well, both at the salon but also locally, I have people dropping by almost every day to check out my products, I'm going to have trouble to keep the stocks going in between the jams, the guests and the girls! It's actually quite a nice place to be, for the moment........running your own business is very satisfying....albeit exhausting too....... A couple of days in Tahiti was exactly what I needed, a change of scene and a change of pace after a little bit too long on the island (I was amused at just how excited I was to see so MANY cars and houses in one place as we came in to land in Tahiti!!!).  We got a couple of almost life size shots of Viriamu on horseback and some whales printed up, just in time, I was quite pleased by the visual impact.....

The salon is also a lot of fun for us, meeting so many friends, old and new, and just generally being part of the buzz......
The down side of the salon was that we left the girls behind.....they were not too pleased, but we were only gone a few days and made up for it with a few exciting little presents - Matotea nearly swooned over her Disney Princesses coloring book! Heimana was less easily convinced by our lame attempts at bribery, though she wouls grudgingly put on her super cute Dora the Explorer backpack......on the understanding that she was allowed to get on the school truck with Matotea.....roll on next year!
 
And now it feels like we've never been away....

Growing up!

We're back in Rurutu after a week in the 'Big Smoke' (Tahiti)....we were there for the salon du tourisme, and also to do countless chores......most particularly getting spare parts for this and that machine, inner tubes for bicycles, nylon for the strimmer, joints for the leaky tap, spare flushes for the loos, you name it we've traipsed around Tahiti looking for it. The salon worked out well and we've managed to fill our books for the next few months, it's always nice to know that the bills will be paid. The jams went down a storm as usual, it's getting to be a bit of a regular feature....but I wasn't anticipating the success of my seurettes (Tahitian gooseberries), they went down a storm, sold out and even had people battling for the last pots!

This was a bit of a milestone visit to Tahiti, it's the first time we left Matotea with her cousin Meisi and set-off with just Heimana. Matotea was very brave about the whole thing, but we were all very glad to be back together on monday....the blow was cushioned by the 'kitchenette set' that she had pre-ordered from us before we left, though she was just a tiny bit disappointed that it didn't actually work! She's growing up faster than I can keep track and is sharper than a tack. Since trying the bus with her cousin Meisi, she's decided she wants to go to school on the bus too, so now she hops on the bus at the bottom of the garden, it's quite a relief not to have to trek over to Avera twice a day, and she clearly loves it.

January

It's the end of the month and now that the New Caledonia family have gone back to Tahiti, for the end of their holidays, everything seems incredibly peaceful! Here we are back to just us, and the grandparents on skype for entertainement.

 

We even have a few days peace and quiet, before the next trick, the salon du tourisme in Tahiti over the St. Valentine weekend. I've just managed to get a huge shipment of jams and monois onto the boat for sale at the salon, so I hope it's going to go well. I've also been spending a lot of time experimenting with my soaps, I'm nearly there....but not quite!

 

Heimana is coming on a storm, she's full of babble, if only you could understand the half of it! She's also getting to be quite the little menace, pinching and hitting her big sister, every time she doesn't get her way, Matotea dissolves into tears - a strange role-reversal!! So she's growing up in some ways, but not all........I'd heard about kids that breastfed 'til they were four, but I didn't think I'd have one of 'em, however, more than18 months on, Heimana still hasn't kicked the habit and seems more than a little reluctant to. She hardly fits on my lap any more and frankly, after 18 months, I'm feeling a bit tired of the whole lark, not to say leached of nutrients! Roll on february......

Where did september go?

I apologize to those of you who have been waiting for the next installment all this last month. We've been busy with the september rush, and somehow I just never got 'round to updating. So now I'll give you a bumper edition. September is always a fun month, the start of the month is full-on whale season and as it's not yet the school hols so we get an interesting variety of international guests, here especially for the whales, among them Dutch, German, Czech, Japanese and Canadian visitors, it gives me a welcome opportunity to practice my English! Not to mention the metropolitan French and Swiss contingent. We celebrated Tuati's birthday with a BBQ with Pascal the Dutch anesthesiologist and Marek the Czech mathematician. Towards the end of the month we made a quick dash to Tahiti for the salon du tourisme to meet our public (three-quarters of our guests are already based in Tahiti, so it's worth the hassle of a 48h stop-over before we get back into the half-term fray), we bust a gut trying to get some rosewood bowls ready for display. I also launched my new soaps and sold out of jam whilst there!
In between, Matotea got a chance to hang out with some other girls at the guesthouse, and even did a horse-trek with Papa.

 

Heimana is transitioning into a 'terribly cute terrible toddler' (who said anything about two years!). We have the tantrums and everything, we're pulling Matotea's hair and giving as good as we get, if not better!