Christmas was lovely.  We spent a very happy week visiting Duncan, Dolley and the grandchildren.  Getting there was the usual US immigration nightmare complete with gum chewing, aggressive bloke who spat “Why are you here?” at us (happy holidays to you too mate) and the most peculiar series of “automatic entry terminals” and thereafter the same things we always do when the system is manual, but ten times slower and the most enormous lines.  Fortunately the changeover at Atlanta was 3 hours and we needed every minute to be processed.

We drove up to Austin and spent a couple of days investigating the delights of Texas’ capital including the capitol itself and a fun duck tour complete with quacking whistle things which we used with vigour.  We also went out to visit a nature park and had great fun playing hide and seek amongst the indigenous trees.  Bob even found a fossil (no, not me, a real one).  Back in Houston we had a magnificent, traditional Christmas lunch cooked beautifully by Duncan, opened presents galore and then walked down to the play park, Bob sporting his reindeer Christmas jumper, where the boys played football and the girls mainly played “balancing” and used the swings to Super Granny effect.  After Christmas we played with all our new toys (sorry, Alex and Avery’s new toys), visited Galveston and had dim sum with Nin, Phuong and George and their 2 gorgeous little twin girls.  The dim sum restaurant seated about 500 people, was jam packed with every Vietnamese family in Houston.  Bob enjoyed the company but wasn’t keen on the beef bones, cow stomach and unknown vegetable cake.  He even very politely turned down the opportunity to try a chicken’s foot.  A highlight of the visit was a Segway tour of downtown Houston.  It was such fun, surprisingly interesting but ended in tears when I fell off.  Bob blames me for “going far too fast and out of control”.  I blame him for a quite deliberate game of chicken.  Somewhere along the visit we once again visited the Walgreen walk in clinic.  This time for my bronchitis.  They were so efficient and very kind even giving me a free inhale of some strange purple substance which I assumed to be medicinal.  The rest of the drugs cost a fortune. 

We escaped back to St Lucia through the US airport system only falling foul of one US official, an old bat who barked at us thinking she was very important.  We just giggled.

We arrived too late  at Rodney Bay to do anything very sensible after a taxi ride with the added extra of a strange, immature young man  with a Mr Twit beard who was so boring and that we couldn’t even get too excited about his climb of the tallest Piton.  Bob decided that he had taken to travelling because he was unemployable.

Today, we have done the usual rounds.  A couple of chaps dropped by to mend things that were meant to have been mended whilst we were away, we visited the chandlery (twice), purchased a new Roxanne, got cash out of the ATM (it was working!) and bought a lockerful of beer.  The dreaded supermarket trip was accomplished with good grace, he only said “remember we have to carry all this” when we were just approaching the check out.  The only fly in the ointment has been discovering the weather forecast.  Storms are brewing with the promise of 10 foot waves and 35 knot winds.  Our planned trip to Barbados requires beating for 100 crow flying miles to get there and do we really want to be doing this in foul weather for possibly 24 hours when this is meant to be a jolly holiday?  After much discussion of the various options we have decided that it would be foolhardy to do so.  It will be much more relaxing if we were to stick to short sails with the option of popping into a port out of the storm if it gets too rough.  Hence we are heading south instead.  The only problem is that Pop is flying in to Barbados.  We have been frantically messaging all day to get it sorted hoping that Pop can change her flight to St Lucia, if not there is always the dreaded and “reliable” Liat.  Fingers crossed Pop can get it sorted!  Meanwhile Fran arrives tomorrow, in St Lucia, whoopee.

(Just need to mention the safe arrival of Harriet Stewart Jones on Christmas Day, a great niece.  I had been getting very anxious after poor Erica was induced on the Monday and there was no news for days.  I am thrilled to have been receiving lots and lots of photos of the adorable little girl since, she is gorgeous and I think very much like her Mummy to look at, so thank you doting granny!)