Family life in the Falklands

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Winter is coming

I had intended to write a lot sooner than now – a post marking our six months here was in my mind, however it failed to make it onto the laptop. So, six months have been and gone, in fact we have been here now 10 months and so much has happened! We came with the hope of experiencing a more sedate pace of life, away from the hustle and bustle and daily grind. Well, we are still knackered, in fact we have never been busier! I guess the main difference here is the lack of commute anywhere; everything is easily within a few minutes’ drive, and so yes we are busy; our calendars have never been so jam packed, but we are spending less time driving from one place to another, and so ultimately more time is being spent together; which for the most part is pretty precious.

The girls seem to have an array of after school clubs on offer; drama, sewing, gardening and cooking have been undertaken with relish. They are also in the brownies, rainbows and guides, and eldest Barlow is part of the youth conservation watch group (#2 will be able to join in September which she can’t wait for!). All of the clubs are really proactive, there is always an event going on. The watch group meet twice a month, as well as having fundraisers and litter picking days. In February (our late summer) we had a family camp weekend with the watch group where we visited Cape Dolphin and Elephant beach, right on the northern tip of east Falkland. As well as a fabulous BBQ, we also took part in a beach clean amongst the penguins, and then habit restoration of blue grass planting. The girls are learning loads, as well as making friends from so many different backgrounds – at the camp there were a lot of families from MPC who we hadn’t met before, so was a great chance to meet other people.

Its not just the girls who have been busy; when we arrived Chris and I decided we were really going to throw ourselves into what was on offer and make the most of the experience of living here. There are tonnes of crafty things around, and so I was really spoilt for choice on what to give a go – there’s a guild of spinners that meet weekly (I have been once admittedly as it clashes with work), I’ve joined the community choir and resurrected my alto voice, netball (last played when I was 12/ 13, I’m most definitely a ‘B’ team player) and more recently have joined a watercolour class. There was a craft fair competition last weekend, and I managed to produce my first ever quilt for the competition; it didn’t get placed – there are far better quilters here than me, but I was pleased to have the date in mind to finally get a project completed!

I haven’t managed the outdoor swimming as much as I’d have liked – the weather is a definite factor in whether or not I’m willing to give it a go – although I hope that next summer ill use less excuses and just get on with it! The swimming pool is now finally open after a refurbishment, so am pleased to get swimming again. I’ve not managed to keep the level of running up that I did in the UK – a combination of strong winds, uneven ground and injury has meant I have only managed to run a few times a month unfortunately. There’s also a weekly dog walking group that do a nice 2 hour walk on a Sunday that I have managed to join a few times, who have helped to show Cookie and I the best areas to enjoy around Stanley.

Chris has tried his hand at shooting, he joined the local gun club in November and has really enjoyed it – and tells me he’s quite good, I really wouldn’t know otherwise! In February he also started his basic training with the local defence force, FIDF. So that keeps him busy two evenings a week with training, and he has been out on ‘exercise’ a couple of times, which involved him sleeping in a bivvy bag in pretty chilly temperatures amongst other activities. Rather him than me… There’s still a lot more we would like to have a go at – next summer definitely get into more water activities like kayaking etc – there is so much sea life activity so close to us it would be a shame not to enjoy it from a kayak.

So now, 10 months or so on I do really feel like we have settled into the community here. I like the fact that whenever I go out, I am likely to recognise people I know. I’ll walk into the bank and recognise people from the various classes I am part of, or some of the parents of the kids from the parties we have attended. The staff in the local shop will recognise me and say hello, and the librarian has seen us all enough now that she hides books at the back of the shelf for the girls that she knows they will love – which of course they do and think she is absolutely wonderful! A friend who left the island recently posted ‘there is no such thing as a stranger in the falklands’ and it is true, it is a very close knit community and you do get to know so many people from so many different areas and backgrounds.

Lots of treasures to be found in the rockpools

During the latter half of summer we also began to explore a bit further afield out of Stanley. I think we have become accustomed to the roads out here – so it can be easy to forget what a unique experience it could be driving out here. I think I’ve already mentioned, in Stanley itself, there is a 25mph speed limit, which basically covers all the residential areas as well as the town centre itself where the school, shops etc are. The road surface is mainly concrete, but pretty uneven. Then there is a main road which takes you out of Stanley, and into camp, as well as onto MPC – the military base. This I believe has been worked on a lot recently, and the majority of it is actually tarmacked up to MPC. As soon as you turn off it however, it turns into a variety of road types, from gravel, rocky, dirt, and then pretty much just field. As well as the watch group camp, we headed over to Port san Carlos to visit friends who were staying over there for a few nights in March. This was a pretty epic journey for us, the off roading was extreme (driving up the side of mountains, our first bogging incident) and one of the people we were with ended up coming off the road into a ditch – thankfully no people or cars were hurt. The road conditions do vary greatly out of town, as soon as you get off the MPC road, the road becomes gravel, which is actually really noisy to drive over, there’s also a section which has larger stones, the steering wheel vibrates so much that your hands hurt after a while. The speed limit on these roads is upto 40mph, but theres no way you can really get upto that speed without something probably falling off poor Ferdinand – so we had a more sedate time travelling over 😊

Yes we drove up that mountain in the distance!

Slightly delirious we made it back in one piece!

These past couple of weeks have seen a real shift in the weather; winter is on its way. The wildlife has reduced somewhat – there is definitely much less bird life around, however we have been pretty well entertained with the whales (Sei, humpback and southern right) and dolphins (Commerson and Peale) that have been seen in and around the beaches nearest to us; its crazy to think how close they are. I’ve gotten quite used now to going for my daily dog walk and seeing a group of dolphins playing about the waves, or seeing the blow of the whales on the horizon – very bizarre! Eldest Barlow was lucky enough to be part of a boat trip with the watch group that went out to look at the whales, and she had a fabulous time seeing them breeching and swimming so close to them.

Ten days ago, we had our first snow shower of the season, about 3 to 4 inches were dumped over the course of a few days, and the temperature has now only just risen above freezing (although tonight’s forecast reckons -7.5 degrees tonight – joy!). It makes me appreciate the 4 x 4 cars here so much more – they are absolute workhorses, and there has been no stopping the access for them to get in and around Stanley – after some trepidation I am also driving over the ice rink style roads! The weather has also affected the last two boats that were due in, meaning we have had a few hairy weeks of lack of certain items in the supermarkets. We actually couldn’t get milk for two weeks recently (there was some reeeeeally out of date milk in one shop but I vetoed that one – it’s bad enough I have to have UHT milk, I’m really not going to drink it out of date too! Some friends came round for dinner last weekend and brought dessert; out of date custard powder and out of date milk produced this lumpy yellow goo that none of us could touch – thankfully they brought a backup of ice cream! That really is my one bug bear of this location, but also just part of the course; it isn’t easy to get hold of things here and you are a slave to whatever is in the supermarket at the time; I have had to change my plans at a moment notice in terms of what I am cooking as there hasn’t been those ingredients in the shop, adapt and move on I guess.

I think winter is my favourite season here; the wind has calmed down substantially, and the crisp wintry days are just beautiful. The sun is rising almost at 9am now, and setting not long after 4pm, which means we do get to see the most amazing sunsets and sunrises – the horizon seems to go on for miles, and the colours are really spectacular. It is strange having winter in June/July – we are considering having a little ‘Christmas’ type celebration at midwinter, its odd not having something to look forward in the middle of the dark cold days of winter.

All being well with travel restrictions etc, it looks like we will be able to have our annual flights this holiday, and so the family will be able to travel to the UK for the August holiday; they only have 3 weeks here on account of the 6 week holiday over Christmas and new year. I am going to take the girls a couple of weeks earlier, and then Mr B will follow once the school year has actually finished – one whole year down; half way through the contract here it has gone by very quickly! Thankfully as we have all had our vaccinations now (91% of adults here are now fully vaccinated) the quarantine is lifted in the UK, and has just been announced that the return journey to the Falklands has a reduced quarantine of 8 days with 2 covid tests to release; its just the 19 hour plane journey that has a history of turning round at a moments notice to contend with…!

The totem pole just East of Stanley, showing where people have travelled from.

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A little holiday

Sealion Island

Due to the fact that the tourist season hasn’t occurred this summer (I’m told that when a cruise ship arrives in town, up to 5000 people can instantly descend on Stanley; given the total population of the Falklands is a little over 3000, this must be quite an experience) the government of the Falkland Islands (FIG) has rolled out a TRIP scheme, which gives an allowance to anyone living here to take part in tourist activities during what would have been the tourist season. This includes using the gift shops, dining out, FIGAS (the little plane taxi style service that connects the islands together), and the huge array of holiday houses.

This scheme has actually been a great opportunity, not only for us but a lot of people that have lived here for years haven’t had the chance to visit the other islands – they’re pretty expensive usually, some are exclusively for tourists only (cruise ships do deals with them for exclusive access) and in a lot of places, they are actually booked up years in advance. With the scheme, we could afford really to do one decent holiday for the whole family – and so we chose the island that offered the chance to see the most wild life – Sealion Island. It’s one of the most southerly islands, off the East part of the Falklands, and also is catered- extra plus points from our point of view! So we managed to book a few days break in early January.

Map of the Falkland Islands Sealion is one of the Southern islands

As I mentioned earlier, due to the remote nature of a lot of the other areas both around camp and the various islands, there is a Falkland Islands Government Air Service – FIGAS plane which connects everyone. The schedule is released (on facebook!) the day before for each of the planes – the first one flying out of Stanley from 8am (this isn’t where the airbridge goes to – that’s at the military base about an hours drive away). Our flight was due to leave around noon – however when we woke up in the morning there was quite a bit of fog – and so flights were delayed an hour in the end to allow the fog to lift.

The plane itself can hold up to 8 people (including the pilot) each with 14kgs of luggage. The seat formation is in 4 rows of 2 – one of the passengers gets to sit up front next to the pilot. That honour was given to eldest Barlow on the way there – who just grinned from ear to ear for the entire of the journey! The pilots are so friendly, really proud of their planes and so keen to give you a great experience – both seemed to spend a lot of our journey looking for the wildlife to show us! I’ve never been on such a small plane, and once we were in the air it seemed to take a little while to level out – at some points the plane felt like a leaf blowing in the wind, there were quite a few ‘airbumps’ as middle Barlow called them and my tummy felt like it was in a washing machine for a lot of it! Once settled, we were treated to our first birdseye view finally of Stanley. We were all excitedly pointing out all the buildings we recognised already from our time here and waved to all the people we imagined were around! As we were flying South, we skirted round most of the land, got a beautiful view of the beaches we had recently discovered, enjoyed gazing over some seals lounging on the sand and headed towards Sealion island (the pilot kindly tilted the plane to allow us a better view – I think this was the point Chris went green!). We had to drop two passengers off on the way at Bleaker island – it looked beautiful and certainly something we will be wanting to visit in the future – I think two families live there in total, with all the wildlife you come to expect here – remote paradise. Dropping off the other guests was an opportunity for us to take off again – which was a little less bumpy this time, and only a short hop to Sealion island. The total flight took us 40 minutes. The ‘runway’ at sealion was really short, which meant like it felt that the pilot pretty much pulled up in the air as much as he could, I’ve got to say landing there on the grass airfield was pretty cool.

The first view of sealion was the penguins! I don’t think I have ever seen quite so many penguins all in one place before – penguins were all congregating right next to the lodge – the only settlement on the island (made up of the main house and then two smaller houses for staff). The lodge had a chalet feel to it; you are welcomed at the conservatory style door, where everyone leaves their shoes and coats, and then free to move about the building. There were two lounges (one was equipped with a tv and various games, we tended to keep the kids in there) and then another lounge which had a bar attached (honesty bar – you just kept your own tab). Tea and coffee were available all day, and most importantly to the girls – smoko was available in the afternoons. (No, the girls haven’t taken up smoking whilst we have been away – its what they call afternoon tea out here, apparently its an Auzzie thing?!). The food was served in the dining room – and was absolutely amazing for the entire visit, three course meal for tea each night which the girls were very keen to become accustomed to!

Our first afternoon we went out for a walk to get our bearings – there’s a nice fairly short hour long route walk marked out with stars on rocks which gives you a great tour of the east part of the island. The first part of the route took us past the huge colony of Gentoo penguins, who all seemed to be on their way back to their chicks along a path called ‘penguin highway’. Whilst the pictures look great, and yes it is amazing to see so many penguins all in one place, when you are suddenly downwind of all of these penguins, it smells a.w.f.u.l!! So the walk took us past the penguins, along the beach back round to the beach to the East of the island which had loads of Elephant seals on. This time of year, the pups have grown and begun to venture out into the water and so a lot of the females were just lounging on the beach, with a few males trying to keep them all together in their own hareem – meaning there was a lot of shouting and wailing going on! Walking back up to the lodge, there were loads of burrows of Magellanic penguins, as well as other nesting birds – an angry Skua kept on telling us we were too near to her nest!

The next day we walked to another beach which again had loads of Elephant seals lying around on – farther down the coast there was a rocky outcrop, which was known as the Orca pool. This was a sheltered pool that the younger elephant seals liked to play about in, and we spent a nice hour watching them play in the pool and practise their fighting skills. The name of the pool is from the fact that, in times of high tide, the Orca are able to get into the pool and attempt to get their dinner…which actually happened the afternoon we were here, but unfortunately missed it!

In the afternoon we were given a lift to the Southern tip of the island (obvs off-road – which middle B absolutely hates!!), where the Rockhopper colonies were. These are easily my favourite penguins – I absolutely love their crazy eyebrows! There was apparently also a lone macaroni penguin in there – but we had no way of finding it – I was never good at where’s wally! We spent a lovely time watching the rockhoppers as they made their way from one side of the rock to the other – and got a great video as they all waddled in formation in front of us, ‘hopping’ onto different rocks as they joined the other group.

Having seen almost all of the wildlife available on the island, our last day was spent determined to see the Orca. We had missed the mother killing the elephant seal to give to her two calves the day we were at the rockhoppers, and so were worried that there wouldn’t be another sighting whilst we were there. But we camped out at the Orca pool for the majority of the day with a picnic (kindly supplied by the kitchen). After 4 hours of sitting watching the pool the girls had long given up and were playing in the tussac and we were at serious risk of sunburn so we headed back to the lodge for smoko. One last ditch attempt before tea time, and we were rewarded! The mother Orca was back with her two babies, and treated us to a show of them swimming up and down the bay for a good hour. It was completely mesmerising just watching them in the waves, we were thrilled we had managed to see them! Everyone staying at the lodge had managed to get to see the Orcas and so tea that evening was a happy buzz of people excitedly recounting what they had seen that day.

The plane came for us at 10am the following morning, middle B had the joy of sitting up front this time, and proceeded to chew the pilots ear off as she listed all the things to him that we had seen – they did try and look out for some whales for us, but unfortunately, we were unlucky this time. We landed back in Stanley to a smooth bump, and felt that we had had a thoroughly good break away. Now all I’ve got to do is make sure I claim it all back on the TRIP scheme, if I can find all my receipts…!

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A Falklands Christmas

Grab a brew and any left over Christmas cake, this ones a whopper!

The School term finished on the 17^th December, the same time the last boat of the year came in. It was a light cargo for us this time, only the two boxes, but perhaps the most important as they contained a lot of the last-minute Christmas presents I had madly ordered back in October. It was a strange feeling having everything so organised this year – my mum had helped hugely in wrapping all the gifts I had bought in the UK before sending them over and so Christmas for me pretty much arrived between two boats, all ready to be put under the tree – smugness central! The lack of shops here did mean that me shopping for family was a little less fun – there are only 3 gift shops really that sell all the penguin merchandise you could ever possibly need– but nothing really worth you wanting to send over to the UK – so I need to think a little more creatively for next year…

My work also closed for the holidays on Christmas Eve, I managed to scrunch up my hours and take a bit of leave so I started my holidays on the 22^nd, and am not returning until the 7^th January. And so we set about embracing all that Stanley had to offer over Christmas! There was a Christmas tree festival which ran through advent, where all businesses rented a tree and decorated it according to their work, then they were all displayed in the parish hall. As my place of work is Science research based, we decided on a theme of things you would find washed up on a beach (not going down the litter line – the conservation watch group adopted this approach) and so we had various shell angels, a crab with glittery pipe cleaners in place of some of its legs, tinselled paper kelp, and adorning this beauty in pride of place was the skull of a sea bird. It was affectionately coined the tree of death by a co-worker, and surprisingly when pictures were shared of the Christmas tree festival on facebook, our tree was rarely seen…!

In the centre of Stanley, we have a dockyard museum which I have yet to visit although I am told it is really good. On one of the weekends, Father Christmas visited and so we took the girls along to the museum to see the red guy. The entire of Stanley seemed to be out, it was a lovely hot day (still not used to Christmas being warm!) and we queued through the museum in order to see santa. The girls each had a chat with him and received a gift from an elf, which they really enjoyed. There was also a Christmas craft fair on (loads of people here are crafty, lots of lovely woollen goods, ceramics and jewellery) followed by a big evening celebration and Christmas light switch on – at 10pm due to the fact that sunset is around 930pm at night and so nobody would see anything if it was any earlier!

As it was the end of term, the girls also had a party with brownies and the conservation watch group – both BBQ’s – in fact BBQ is the main way of celebration over the Christmas period, to be honest I’m a little sick of it now! We started off Christmas week with a trip to the cinema to see Elf – due to the fact that films aren’t really being released to cinema at the moment, the lady that runs the screen has managed to get a lot of the old great films and so there was an excellent selection of films on over the festive season – slightly off topic but the eldest little Barlow and I rounded off our Harry Potter films viewing with a double wammy of Deathly hallows part 1 & 2 over Christmas weekend which we thoroughly enjoyed, and were thrilled to find out that Fantastic beasts will be showing in January to continue our cinema trips into the new year. I had a second outing with the community choir when we sang at the nine lessons and carols service, which really made it start to feel like Christmas as it was followed by mince pies and mulled wine.

We had a bit of a nibbles and drinks drop in at our home on Christmas Eve afternoon- a bit of a ploy to try and keep the girls entertained. Chris and I hadn’t really kept track of how many people we had invited, and so at one point I think there were around 40 people crammed into the house! It was really nice though to see a lot of the people who had helped to make us feel so welcome since we arrived, and so many of them had helped us out in one way or another so it was a great way to say thank you and to toast them Merry Christmas. The afternoon was finished off nicely with a carol service which was held outside the cathedral, underneath the whalebone arch. The weather was a little chilly in the evening, but we still had a lovely time singing along to the musicians whilst the kids played in the gardens with their friends.

We were told that the traditional Falkland Islands meat eaten on Christmas day was lamb – as we were entering into midsummer it seemed natural that this would be the meat of choice and so a week or so before Christmas a colleague of mine offered to source us a lamb. People tend to go a little quiet if you ask them where they were planning on getting their meat from and so I’ve learned its best not to ask, I did however check that it would arrive dead without its innards – that wasn’t something I was willing to do on Christmas eve! My friend also thankfully chopped it up into the various cuts for us, which just left us with the challenge of trying to fit the rest of the carcass into our (small) freezer! Thankfully Chris is quite the Jenga champion and so with a few goes, he manged to get it all in with relatively few causalities. I don’t think the kids were too traumatised…

Christmas morning started off much as the same as in the uk – Chris managed to find some pastries from one of the shops (pre-frozen of course) but it was so nice to almost have the real thing – I have missed a good chocolate croissant since we have been here! The girls opened their presents, it was lovely to have so many of our family and friends managing to send things over – the post over here is sporadic at best and so I was not hopeful that everything would arrive on time or intact – parcels seem to take anything from 10 days to 6 weeks to arrive and so it really just becomes a waiting game! I think I have messaged everyone involved – but thank you again from us, especially at this time of year it is easy to become a little homesick and so receiving the gifts and cards were a great boost. We also did well according to the girls – we got them a trampoline which seems to be the top present over here. I’m not sure if its because the kids love playing on them (they pretty much congregate in the gardens that have the most tat to play on) or if it’s more for adults as a sort of gambling roulette to open your curtains in the morning and wonder if your back garden items are still there or you have to go on a hunt to retrieve them – the wind here really is something I have never experienced before!

We then had a breezy walk on our favourite beach with the dog before setting about massacring, sorry cooking Christmas dinner. I had invited a colleague of mine to dinner as she was over here alone from America for a few months, and so I didn’t want her spending Christmas alone. I also wanted the chance to introduce her to some UK classics – she explained to me that she was using her time in the Falklands to work out which things from Harry Potter were just for the film or were actually British things! Party crackers and mince pies were a whole new experience for her! (with varying success).

So Chris was in charge of BBQing the lamb, whilst I sorted out the veg and Yorkshire puddings. Due to covid, the Falklands hadn’t had its usual workforce from Chile this year and so there was a shortage of workers in the abattoir. This meant that there was quite a panic in the shops the week before Christmas – there was next to no meat. No sausages, and so I couldn’t make pigs in blankets (yep – I know this should have been the first sign to quit) so I set about making a culinary masterpiece. This oven and I haven’t quite got an understanding yet – for me it seems to either take ages or cinder everything to a crisp. I roasted parsnips, they turned out great, but due to us having to wait for the BBQ we ended up eating them all before anything else was ready. So I made more, and promptly burned them to a blackened crisp along with the Yorkshire puddings! (I know they’re not really for Christmas, but I was looking forward to introducing them to my American friend!) The broccoli turned to mush, I have no idea what happened to the mash, it turned into slime, and the only saving grace were the roast potatoes and my friend loved the apple sauce –that was out of a jar. Then, my usually reliable dessert dish of pavlova was raw in the middle…an absolute disaster! Thankfully we had gingerbread house to nibble through as we played games – this year the girls did even more of it themselves, I can see myself becoming redundant in the not-to distant future, which may be a blessing if my veg was anything to go by!

By the end of Christmas week, we had managed to have 4 BBQ’s, and swim in the sea on 3 occasions. The weather, as always has been varied, I had the heating on the day before new year, but then today(2^nd) the weather is 20°C – which doesn’t sound hot, but the intensity of the sun here makes it feel more like 28°C! Even the wind seems to have calmed a little this week and so we are managing to enjoy quite a nice summer here at Christmas time – still so strange to me!

There has also been lots of community events on this week – Boxing day is the beginning of the Stanley horse races which are held at the racecourse near the centre of town. There are a lot of horses in and around Stanley, until the end of October they seem to be mainly left out to graze, most of the areas immediately surrounding Stanley are common areas and so people seem to be free to allow their horses to graze anywhere – and it isn’t unusual to be walking about town and see a few horses dotted around people’s gardens – they make excellent lawn mowers! The races had a bit of a carnival feel to them, there was a hot food stall, you could bet on the horses, and both children and adults competed in the races. On New years day, there is the annual raft race, this year held at the recently opened Yorke Bay. We didn’t end up getting there this time, but it sounds like loads of fun, people racing their rafts, sandcastle competitions, etc.

Even with our somewhat limited tv channels, (only bbc1,2, itv and channel4!! They also have a version of sky news and a channel provided through the army I think) we are still able to keep up with the news from the UK – and the struggles many are still facing due to various tiers and lockdowns. Both Chris and I have mentioned it numerous times over the holidays how lucky we feel to be able to go about in relative normality, and almost feel guilty that we are still able to do the things denied to so many others at the moment. It does mean that we haven’t taken it for granted, we are grateful for the position we find ourselves in, and are only too aware at how quickly it could all change should the disease spread to the islands. We only just manage on the internet allowance we have each month (ran out on the last day of the month in December – so getting better at judging it at least!) so no idea how we would fare if we were in lockdown! I really hope that, with the vaccine now being rolled out that numbers will begin to decline once again, and the UK can begin to recover from what has truly been a shocker of a year.

We are off on holiday tomorrow, so more exploring to be getting on with (I’m meant to be packing – the joy!) as well as our first FIGAS flight – the little taxi flight service linking the islands together, I think I’m most excited about that! Anyway, Happy New year to all, take care, stay safe, throw a snowball for me – gutted there is finally a snowy Christmastime when I’m not there!!

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The reunion

We have been back to school now for two weeks, and as seems to be the norm; a lot has happened. We now have five hens with a very impressive hen house made entirely from pallets Chris managed to source from around the town. The girls spent most of the first day just sitting in the pen with them watching them. Unfortunately, there are LOADS of cats around Stanley, and now we have had a few visitors, just hoping that as the hens get bigger they manage to see the cats off – two of them definitely seem bolchy enough!

Last Sunday we joined many people in Stanley at the cross of remembrance, which is situated at the foot of Stanley cemetery, overlooking the water. The girls took part in the parade alongside the other brownies, guides, scouts etc. There was also a significant military presence too to add gravitas to the ceremony. It was very poignant that we were able to come together so easily as a community to complete our remembrance observance unlike so many communities across the world who are in the grips of the covid pandemic. We have unfortunately had a couple of confirmed positive cases this week from the track and trace system of incoming people to the island; thankfully they are all obeying the quarantine rules and so we should be able to continue to enjoy relative safety from the disease. It does however highlight how vulnerable this island can suddenly become – resources are so much more finite here that should covid reach the town the potential devastation it could wreak would be huge. We obviously weren’t here for the first UK lockdown, however the impact was apparently still felt in Stanley; the panic buying in the shops undoubtedly has a knock on effect regarding the availability of our produce in the shops (albeit 6 weeks or so late due to the boat trip here) but I’m told a lot of the warehouses were able to minimise most of the effects of the UK lockdown; only yeast and milk apparently were scarce.

This week the fun was the arrival of our dog Cookie. Due to the uncertainty of our departure for so long with the UK lockdown, we were late getting her name down on the list for travel. Animals travel on the MOD boat and there are limited (5) spaces on board for pets and so it is quite competitive. So Cookie enjoyed a few (10) weeks staying with my parents until she was able to board the boat in Southampton (after the most ridiculous amount of paperwork and timings of vet visits). True to what I have come to expect over here, the date for her departure was brought forward unexpectedly by about a week, and I only became aware of this when I had asked for clarification of details of dropping her off for my dad. This caused a frantic morning of trying to ensure all the correct paperwork could be released earlier – as everything had to be checked over and completed 48 hours before she got on the boat – nothing like a bit of drama!

Cookie finally boarded the boat on the 8^th October and I was able to track her progress across the Ocean (stopping in Ascension Island for a bit) online. We also received a couple of update emails from the ‘master’ of the ship with a couple of pictures which confirmed she was being really well looked after. This Wednesday the boat came into the port near MPC – the military base that we flew into in August and so I was asked to go and collect her once she had been checked over by the vet. I was so excited to go and get her, it had been a really strange adjustment to not having her with us and we had all missed her loads. When we arrived, she was completely nonplussed at me being there – far from the reunion I had envisaged where she would go mental spinning around, wagging her tail etc – it was more of a cursory nod of acknowledgement! She did however greet any of the soldiers going past just to rub it in!

An hour or so later, Cookie was finally home, a bit quiet and unsure of her surroundings, I think it was quite an adjustment for her to be back on dry land, that within 20 minutes she was lying down asleep. She was really pleased to see the kids and Chris, but just seemed to want to sleep mainly. I was out in the evening, and came back to half an oven glove in the kitchen; she was happily upto some of her old tricks whilst also nearly making me worried that we would have to visit the vet sooner than we anticipated! Its now day 4 of her arrival and after a quiet 24 hours I’m happy to report that she’s much more herself and is enthusiastically greeting us in the morning – and the other oven glove is still in one piece! She has completed her quarantine and so now we can start to take her out and explore the area!

Our car, Ferdinand was also on the MOD boat – in fact we saw it as we collected Cookie. However the transport company are bringing it over to Stanley for us so I wasn’t able to collect it at the same time. As I saw it there and then on Wednesday we were eagerly awaiting its arrival, believing it to be nearer the end of the week. The paperwork for cars, as always here isn’t a straightforward process, you have to first register it with the police station to gain a falklands registration licence (west of town) then you have to insure it with the only company on the island that does car insurance (on the east of town) and then you have to go back to the police station to pay for the tax and get a tax disc (!). Oh and someone else prints the registration plates for you. All this has to be completed (walking from place to place) before you get it but also like most places in Stanley, the offices are only open during working hours, and everywhere seems to close for at least an hour at lunch; meaning it is actually quite difficult to get any admin completed during the day if you work! Frustrating to try and get it all completed in the time frame, even more so when I email the transport company on Friday for an update and they tell me that they’re not delivering cars until early next week – and it may not even be Monday that ours arrives. I sort of hit a wall after that (metaphorically of course!) its been a long 14 weeks of trawling around Stanley – one week I managed over 60km just from walking to and from school etc. Whilst people have been overwhelmingly helpful in offering lifts and even cars to borrow, it’s a long time to feel like you are burdening people and to keep on asking for favours. I had really hoped that last week was my final week of borrowing someone’s car to do the supermarket shop, and so felt quite deflated at the thought of having to again either ask for a lift or get on my bike. So yesterday, with a 40mph wind against me I cycled to the shop for essentials to fit in my rucksack and fuelled by fury at still not having my car, made it home with the eggs intact!

So next week fingers crossed the stars align and we finally have delivery of the car, the ASDA shop we ordered back in September is also due to arrive, so things are looking up – I’ll be able to drive around scoffing the celebrations chocolate (and any mince pies mum?!) that were ordered 8 weeks ago…. shopping is definitely an adjustment here – no idea what we are going to do if there is a toilet roll shortage in the UK this lockdown again, maybe an SOS package of 9 Andrex rolls will be required…?!

The end of the first term

Blink and you miss it – we have completed our first term here in the Falklands, and it feels in some ways like we have always been here. Day to day life in the most part is so similar to how it was in the uk – the school system seems just like what the girls experienced back home, and so this has allowed for a seamless transition for them into their new classes. We have had parents’ evenings for all three – and they all are doing really well, made loads of friends and don’t seem to have been too affected by the large break from school March through to September.

Since my last post I can confirm that the car did finally get delivered (hurrah I hear you cry – not many people could put up with my winging much longer either!) which was absolutely amazing – the relief of now being able to go wherever whenever is huge! In celebration I took Cookie to the beach that evening for a walk, and we enjoyed a good run about the dunes and into the waves! Speaking of the beach we enjoyed some lovely few weeks of sun in November, giving us a taster of a warm summer here in Stanley. So warm I was even able to enjoy a swim on my birthday – don’t get me wrong, the water was still FREEZING and many expletives were howled as I plunged into the water to much amusement of any onlookers. But I managed a good tour of the newly reclaimed Yorke Bay, managing to avoid the penguin colony who must be a tad confused at suddenly having to share their home with the residents of Stanley, and exited the water before I turned too blue.

A leopard seal on Surf bay on my birthday evening walk!

Our ASDA shop also arrived late November, which is actually a little bit like Christmas, you can’t always remember exactly what you ordered 3 months previously and it is interesting to see how well certain things fare on the journey over – not too many disasters and it is nice to receive dried chickpeas that you haven’t had to chop an arm off to pay for – although I am getting a little better at not proclaiming “how much?!” when I see the price of things here- I managed to shop at the veg shop the other day and not wince at spending £60 on a weeks’ worth of fruit and veg…

In terms of shops here there are three ‘main’ shops. The Chandlery is similar in size to your small ASDA / Tesco supermarket on the outside of town– and holds the usual fruit & veg (when the boat has come in recently and also hugely depending on the season), chilled goods (although everything is frozen on the journey over so best before dates are not really acknowledged and yoghurt, cheese etc does not do well on the boat – it really doesn’t taste the same) tins, dried goods, cereal and alcohol. Meat does do well here, most of it is local, and predominantly Beef and lamb. Chicken and other meat is shipped over, and so the availability and price reflects that. We are buying a lot of frozen veg to make it last and try and get it as fresh as possible. The store in town is called the West store, this is smaller but does still offer the same range of goods – although fresh veg and fruit isn’t as large. The goods they import is mainly from Waitrose (!) and so prices are a little steeper here. Finally there are four little corner shops in and around town, called Kelper stores, they stock mainly co-op goods and are just your small corner shop style produce. We also have a nursery here that does really well for fruit and veg – both home grown and from the boat. They have restricted opening times though and so can be hit and miss as to whether or not we can get there on a weekly basis – and also the produce here doesn’t seem to last as long compared to what we were buying in the UK – not sure why. Don’t know if I have mentioned previously, the cheque has made a come-back – people tend to use either cheque or cash to pay for goods, there is only one cash machine on the island for debit cards and so you have to go to the bank to get your money out – which is a bit of a pain for anyone who works full time as it is only open during working hours!

Back to Christmas prep, we have enjoyed a lot of the traditional preparations over advent. We shipped over our Christmas tree and decorations, so it was nice to have a bit more of home around when we put up the tree. I now have more of an appreciation for why the supermarkets back in the uk seem to start Christmas so early in September – if they hadn’t, by the time things get shipped over we would have to celebrate Christmas in March! I was pleasantly surprised with how much we could get in the shops here in December, they had all the usual Christmas chocolate, advent calendars, puddings and mince pies, just obviously a much-reduced selection. And it is definitely a ‘get it whilst it’s there’ mentality – no point in waiting until next week to buy something you want as there is no guarantee that it will still be there; a lesson I am quickly learning. Due to it being almost summer here, the traditional meat eaten at Christmas is Lamb, and so we have put our order in for a delivery of a lamb (dead – you never can be too careful!) before the big day.

I joined the community choir when it started again in September and we had our first performance early on in December at the cathedral singing a few Christmas carols. Due to the far-reaching location of many areas of ‘camp’ (the Falkland term word for countryside) around the islands, the service is also broadcast on the local radio service – Falklands Radio (which I believe you can listen into live from anywhere in the world). The youngest Barlow also enjoyed her first theatrical debut as a narrator in the nativity put on by FS1 & 2 (preschool and reception). I have to admit that due to the fact that she spoke too quickly and quietly, I actually missed her performance and had to rely on a friend who videoed it to play it back and see what she did!!

And so now the schools have broken up for the ‘summer’ holiday – 5 weeks over Christmas. The weather these past two weeks has been a little cold and wet, so fingers crossed it changes whilst they’re off, although it is helping me feel a little more Christmassy and like home!

The end of the first half term

Well, I didn’t manage as many updates as I had hoped this half term, life as always gets busy.

Before we knew it, we were in our new routines of work and school, and then exploring our new surroundings in the times in between. The girls have taken school on with relish, made so many new friends I’m getting dizzy with the number of times they are in and out of the house playing with other children, or just off to the park to play for hours on end (after a few weeks I’ve managed to let go somewhat and let them take themselves off– it really is much more relaxed here for kids!). Within the first few weeks both A and M were awarded ‘star of the week’ from their class teacher, a reassuring nod to the fact that they have settled into their new surroundings so well. We are one of the lucky few houses who have a tree in the garden, and so Chris was able to make a rope swing which has provided hours of entertainment to all three – sometimes all at once! The eldest two have joined Brownies here, and absolutely loving all the games, songs and activities that they get up to.

After the second week of term we managed to experience the kind of Friday evening we envisaged when we first came here; it was a beautifully sunny evening and so we managed to borrow a car and drive out to Gypsy cove, a beach only ten minutes away. Not only were we rewarded by the beautiful scenery of Yorke Bay (closed to public access due to the last land mines still being recovered from there – the last one is due to be removed in November) but also the first of the Magnellic penguins to arrive back to the shores and begin nesting into the banks around the cove. Whilst watching out to sea, we were also treated to a pair of dolphins swimming past. Hopefully a taster for us of the months ahead as we move on into spring.

The weather has generally been fairly good, temperatures ranging from 3 to 13 degrees over the past few months. It certainly is very changeable – the ‘four seasons in one day’ is definitely a thing here, if its windy and wet in the morning, there is a great chance that by midday it will have given way to glorious sunshine. And the sunshine is intense, even on a cloudy day sun cream needs to be applied due to the thin ozone layer over the Falklands. The daffodils are now out, a very strange thing to see in October, not sure I will ever get used to the upside-down seasons of the southern hemisphere.

I have settled well into my job, and dare I say it am really enjoying the change of career. The office is located across the road to the girls’ school, and right on the water; providing fabulous views out over the water and beyond on a sunny day. It also has the flexibility I need to be able to be around for the various pick ups and drop offs at the primary school which is pretty perfect. In my spare afternoons ive also managed to explore the local area, all of the (4) cafes have been visited and cake sampled, as well as my first successful swim in the ocean – complete with wetsuit of course – hopefully much more of all of this in the months to come!

The nightlife of Stanley is also a little different from the lights and noise of Manchester or Wigan; both Chris and I have had separate nights / evenings out. I was at the fancy hotel for drinks, Chris at a place that until he went I hadn’t even realised was a pub – no signs to indicate what the building was so I had always just assumed it was another house! As there is only one cash machine in Stanley, the main way to pay for things is either via cheque or cash and so Chris has the joy of having to pay at the pub with a cheque – quite a unique experience I’m not sure he is keen to repeat! Places in Stanley close at a respectable hour, and we were both happily tucked up in bed before midnight – no hangovers here!

Stanley also does have a cinema that has one screen. It’s a recent addition to the Malvina hotel and shows both old films and new releases. They also do a meal and movie night, so I had a great evening out having a meal and watching little shop of horrors – a classic! Last week we took the eldest two out to see the first Harry Potter film; they’re showing each film over the next few months, fabulous films to watch on the big screen!

Beep Beep, where should I be?!

I had planned to do a few other blog posts by now, but you know, life tends to get in the way of those sort of things. Its amazing how we have just got settled into our new routines. It took us a couple of weeks to get used to the new school timings – more on that later – and then I managed to land myself a job and suddenly we were back to having both working parents again!

The school day

Brace yourselves, well a lot of you did ask…

So our youngest is in ‘reception’. Except here it is known as its official title of ‘Foundation Stage 2’ (FS1 being preschool that we have in the UK). Now the FS2 building is on a different site to the rest of the primary school, its about a 3 minute walk along the road, and so to compensate for those parents who have multiple children in different areas, the timings are staggered. So FS2 start the day at 8:45am. The rest of the primary school start at 9am. With me so far?! Then we have lunch time. There are no catering facilities on site, and so school children are released home for lunch – an hour and a half. Except this again is staggered – FS2 are at 11:45, the rest at 12 noon. Then the afternoon session starts at 1:15 and 1:30 respectively. The end of the school day is 3:15 for FS2 and 3:30 for the rest of the school.

Initially we though how nice it would be to be able to spend an hour and a half at lunch time with our children throughout the day. The reality however is somewhat different. Due to our location, and the fact we still haven’t been reunited with our beloved Landcruiser Ferdinand, we have to walk everywhere. Which means in the first week, I had to walk up and down that blimmin hill 8 times a day – to an average of around 21,000 steps a day, about 62km a week! Couple that with 3 whinging children as they are dragged back up the hill for lunch – and then made to walk back down the hill to return to school – it certainly proved interesting! I found it bad enough trying to get to school on time just once a day in the UK – but twice? That’s a bit much! So after a week, we altered our plans and instead camped out at Chris’ work which was much less of a hilly walk, and had the added bonus of 2 parents to cajole the kids along!

At least the view isn’t bad on the walk down!

The new job

I hadn’t really expected to get a job – I was quite happy with the prospect of being a lady of leisure, especially when the dog arrives (on the boat as I type) and spending my days walking, eating cake and dabbling with the odd bit of crochet…in between all the school pick ups etc. However during lockdown we were sent the Island newspaper – The Penguin News no less and in the job ads section a job jumped out at me. I thought “why not, put in an application, what’s the worst that can happen?!” It’s out of my experience certainly, but a lot of my skills seemed to be pretty transferrable – or so I made it look on my application anyway… A few weeks passed, I hadn’t heard anything and so assumed that I had been unsuccessful. Then, I received a phone call out of the blue checking I had received the email detailing I had been shortlisted for interview (I had missed it) and telling me I was invited to interview in two days time. Long story short, I got offered the job, and a week or so later was happily told my work permit had come through and I was good to start.

So for the past two weeks, I have been working part time around the kids crazy hours of school and I still manage to get three afternoons off to pursue the cake and crochet, and maybe some walking…The role I am in is an admin one, however the Science and environmental aspects within it make it so interesting. I’ve been speaking to people all over the world, and if it hadn’t been for pesky covid there may have been some opportunity for travel to some pretty amazing places. So its pretty perfect, a million miles away from my previous work, which is actually very refreshing. Especially when you walk out of work and you don’t have to take anything home with you or think about it until when you walk back in the next day, I could get used to this!

So we seem to have achieved the main thing we set out to do when we first thought about trying out the Falklands. We were sick of the rushing around, the endless traffic jam commutes, the feeling like we hardly saw much of our own children. In this respect, I think the Falklands have completely got it right. Now, we all manage to have almost 2 hours together in the morning before school (Chris leaves at ten to 8 on his bike, and gets in within 5 minutes). Its a nice walk (down the hill) to drop everyone off, I head to work across the road from the girls school for the morning, before we all meet up for lunch. Then its back to school and work / home for me depending on the day. I do however need to set a ridiculous number of alarms to remind me when I need to be picking up or dropping off one of the kids, and so I seem to have replaced the school bells from work in the UK with my phone alarms! Thankfully I’ve only been wrong once, half an hour early after lunch is better than being late right?!

The end of our family bubble

163 days.

From the 23^rd March when the UK started lockdown (that actually seems like years ago) we hunkered down from the outside world like the rest of the UK. We adapted to the new way of juggling home-schooling with working remotely and eventually found our rhythm. It was surprising how well we all seemed to get on, there were the usual squabbles but on the whole I was happy with how we all managed to just get on with what was needed.

During that time, we also had decided that we probably weren’t going to be moving abroad as lockdown had coincided with all the medical visits we needed to complete to get the work permit, and so we settled into lockdown and enjoyed the unique time of not having to rush out to work or make appointments or organise anything. That was until early May when Chris found out it was still going ahead, and we then had only 6 weeks to organise everything!!

But we made it here, the girls have adapted to all the change over the past 6 months beautifully, they’ve found some new friends already and have excitedly seen their new classrooms, found where their coat will hang on their peg and where they will sit. They are ready now to go back out into the world and start a new normal and we as a family are now ready to emerge from our lockdown bubble and go our separate ways. Chris has started work today, and all three girls start on Monday, its actually strange and if I’m honest a little sad that our little gang are now venturing out into the outside world, 163 days after we first started our little bubble. On the plus side, meeting other people and visiting other places means we will actually have things to talk about around the dinner table once again 😊. However before it all happens and we all truly get going, we are hosting a few friends around on Sunday, a way of distracting us all from the nerves of the next day.

And into the outside world…

Well that’s not strictly true, we were allowed out in the garden, however for at least the past 3 days the kids hadn’t joined us for our daily walk about due to it being ‘too cold’. Goodness knows how they will tolerate the proper winter next year…

And so we have come to the end of quarantine, I’d say the last three days were the most difficult. The monotony of each day, coupled with the lack of ease to do things like get food, organise anything meant that it really was starting to drag.

A few of Chris’ new colleagues arranged a couple of trips for us as soon as we were out of quarantine, the first was to Cape Pembroke, around 7km east of Stanley. Its a now disused lighthouse, standing proud on the easternmost headland of East Falkland and the location of Stanley’s Saturday parkrun – an event I hope to join in the future! The children loved being outside again, even if a little breezy, they couldn’t wait to explore the rockpools and climb across the rocks in and around the shore.

A key can be obtained to have a walk up to the top – a trip for another day!

Our second outing that week was to Goose Green, 94km south west of Stanley. It was our first opportunity to experience the great Falklands roads, which during our 1.5hr trip consisted of tarmac, hard rubble, dirt track and then much to Chris’ delight, off road. The views were amazing, giving us a glimpse of the mountains we want to add to our bucket list of trips to do whilst here. We also experienced the famous ‘4 seasons in a day’ scenario – setting off with the snow making visibility difficult, hail, and then bright sunshine as we arrived at our first stop; Bodie Suspension Bridge. The bridge is one of the most southernmost suspension bridges in the world and has largely been used for the movement of sheep from one area to another during shearing time.

Following our little adrenaline ride of avoiding the ditches and puddles across the fields, we decamped for a picnic lunch in the schoolroom for the settlement whilst the kids enjoyed playing on the park in probably the most picturesque parks they’ve ever played in! The trip was topped off with a quick visit to a beach which name escapes me, however importantly we saw our first penguins!

Quarantine Week 1

After surviving The Great Lockdown of March 2020, we thought we were old pros at having to stay indoors. However, add the fact we were not in our own home, in a new country, with no bank account or phones, it certainly has made our first week here interesting.

I had thought that everything was set up, I had told our UK bank that we were going to be in FI and to expect unusual activity on our card, however on day 1 when we tried to pay for our food order (the supermarkets here kindly do a delivery service for those people who have to quarantine) it wasn’t accepted. After a frantic 5 minutes of scrabbling round (in typical us fashion we had forgotten to get out cash before we left the UK to tide us over for the first few days here) we managed to get it sorted with someone else settling the bill for us. It was only when I had logged onto my internet banking to pay this person back that I realised I needed my mobile phone to work to be able to receive the OTP code to authorise a payment. Even though we had both spoken to our phone providers back in the UK, checked our phones were unlocked and that our SIMS would work in the Falklands, my SIM wouldn’t work here. Just to add a twist to the mix, Chris’ phone would work, but he had never bothered to set up internet banking, as I was always the one who did it. So in the first two days, we couldn’t pay for our food, and couldn’t authorise anything because my phone wouldn’t work. It really made me realise how much currency our mobiles now hold for us. We have authentication set up for so many things now (email, amazon, etc) we don’t even register anymore when we have to pop a code in that was instantly sent to our phones. What was more irritating was that to change the mobile number held with our account, the bank wanted to send an OTP to the old number to confirm the change, no idea what anyone would do if they had just lost their phone, or changed their number forgetting to change that first!

So, back to the food delivery that we couldn’t pay for at first…this was an education. We had been warned that due to most things being exported the price was a little more than we were used to paying…

tuna chunks ( 3 tins) = £6.99

tins of soup = £1.65 each

6 bananas = £4.94

4 carrots = £3.24

Having said that, the meat was good and local, 1kg of minced beef was £3.39 and a large steak was around £4.50 so I guess it evens out a little. We are currently on shop number 3 and have a much better idea of which products to ask for with a shop that seems to last a little longer than 2 days…(and after 3 days have also managed to get one of our bank cards to work!)

The house

Having not been able to explore our surroundings yet, I guess info on the house is the best I can currently give. The house is a rental, and linked to the job. It’s a nice 2 storey 4 bedroom house complete with lounge, dining room kitchen and garage. There’s a large garden that wraps around the house too, perfect for growing veggies and trying to reduce our food bills! The house has oodles of storage, which is a good thing considering we ended up with 16 bags of luggage in the end and need somewhere to store it! It comes furnished with all the basics which will tide us over until the boat arrives with a lot of the stuff we had sent from the UK in July. It’s not hugely homely yet however it’s only filled with what we could take in our plane luggage, once I get a few plants, rugs, cushions and candles it will be fine! Water rates are included in the rental, and heating fuel is via a huge kerosene gas tank in the garden which is topped up one we purchase a card from the supermarket when the sensor in the kitchen beeps at me. I’m told a full tank will last around 3 months in winter, but forgot to ask how much it costs to fill up the tank, so we will see when that comes around! Electricity is via another meter; again prepaid cards are purchased at the supermarket.

One of the negatives we have found this week is the lack of recycling. It’s been actually quite difficult throwing all our waste into one bin – they have only just this month started recycling tins and glass, but everything else is in one bin. Whilst it’s still such a relatively small community, it seems a real shame that we can’t do more in terms of recycling and reducing the amount that goes to landfill, however with the start of recycling tins it is hopefully a step towards big changes in how they deal with their waste in the future. There is however a thriving second hand community here, and you’d be surprised at the items you can bag at a great price; we were struggling with only a few coat hangers between us, and literally the day we were looking into buying some hangers online, someone was getting rid of a huge bin bag of hangers. We also managed to scoop a boxful of glass jars which means we can now get the pickles and sourdough starter going, absolute bonus!

So, one week down, one to go. No sign of the dreaded Corona thankfully, and so hopefully this time next week we will be allowed to venture out and finally open that bank account…