Oh la la treats from the hotel shop

It’s becoming more regular – the visit to the hotel shop. It’s the Creme Fraiche that did it, once you remember how great and versatile it is  (especially for lazy ass cooks like me) you can’t do without it, though it’s a very expensive habit when you come out having spent £50 (not all on Creme Fraiche obviously). I think I might be hankering for Europe..wine, cheese, cheese, wine, pate (the other one’s of course), it’s the gout diet all over again….

Read Full Post »

Mad Men

It’s on SBC, yay I thought, and only on epsidoe 2, series 1, I can watch it all again and catch up on a couple I missed!

Then I found out it’s on a Monday night at 10.40pm, I mean really. I get up at 6pm, we all start work at 8am and it’s the beginning of the week..

Despair.Frustration. Pain. Incredulity. Need I go on?

Read Full Post »

Opening a Social Seychelles bank account the Seychelles way

Pain. Frustration. Incredulity. Despair.

Over the course of a few weeks, I’ve been trying to open a bank account for Social Seychelles- I still haven’t succeeded – but believe that if I had decided to rob the bank instead, I’d now be sitting in South America writing this as it’d be a hell of a lot easier.

I shall spare the details but in a nutshell, I was given a form, told to bring in the NGO constitution and the minutes setting Social Seychelles up, and proof of ID. Each time I go back its something new, we need this signature, we don’t take photocopies of ID, you need a separate Treasurer (really?!), we need proof of address, we need the minutes certified, we need another signature and on and on and on. The best was not accepting our c/o address as proof of residence, which we use for post and appears on our driving licences and all our bills – I’d love to know who in Seychelles does use their home address seeing as though there’s no pigging postal service that comes to my house or anyone else’s. Ridiculous.  I wouldn’t mind but I only have about 500SCR to deposit- £25 quid.

Really is it worth it?

Read Full Post »

Odd running regimens

Bored of the run from near our house, we’ve recently been back to the running track around Roche Caiman and it’s great, why?

It’s got no piggin hills… flat all the way baby…(not that I’ve noticed any discernible improvement in my running time). It also doesn’t have any cars intent on running me off the road, which thinking about it, I should have maybe mentioned first.

What has piqued my curiosity is a number of slightly rotund men walking round the track (occasionally at a jog) clad in shorts and…anoraks. ANORAKS. This is Seychelles, weather between 28-32 degrees, pretty much ALL year round (though I admit to having worn a jumper in the office recently -a very thin one – but still there’s no aircon outside is there?).

I’m not suggesting that in any way that these men are dodgy  and can only deduce that they’re doing some mad keep fit thing (you’d have to be, an anorak/exercise/this heat?) . My main concern is that they don’t take off their anoraks in a confined space nor lend the offending garment to anyone, ever. I also wonder if they’re wrapped in cling film underneath, if not, clearly they’re not trying hard enough.

Read Full Post »

Hot off the press

The shop is now open. Pass it on.

The other one raced in with excitement and I could hear him having a right old chat, asking if they were definitely re-open, how good it was that they were, loud laughs etc etc. I sat in the car and stared at the back of a man having a pee, who when he’d finished, noticed me and muttered in what I thought was creole but transpired to be english, ‘beer’ he said ‘beer’. I smiled weakly, the other one came out and rather than it scaring pee man off, he got bolder and came to the car window ‘ beer’ he bleated, clearly wasted. I looked him in the eyes (hard me), politely said no and we drove off and I enquired of the other one, what the deal was with the shop.

‘They’re open’ he said, ‘how are they?, I said, ‘I don’t know’, he said, ‘why’ I said, ‘oh it was someone different’, he said, ‘so like new owners?’ I said. He paused, ‘I guess they were’.

So that’s the story of the shop.

Read Full Post »

Beach Clean planning and what was I thinking again?

what was she thinking?

With the pub quiz done for a month (feedback suggesting it was a great success, hurrah!), it’s time now to focus on the impending Social Seychelles beach clean in partnership with Save Our Seas and Moorings. Scheduled for 9 July, it seems to becoming bigger and bigger, which is great, because that’s what Social Seychelles is about, bringing the community together, sharing and supporting each other and in this case, promoting responsibility for looking after our environment and doing our bit to help. All very important stuff, but bloody hell, hard work. What was I thinking (again)?

Read Full Post »

Curiouser and curiouser

Saw a police officer at the back of the shop ‘Mangals’ where the family live.  Oooohhhh.

Read Full Post »