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!!