A picture is worth a thousand words

and a photograph is worth a thousand dollars (one hopes!!), and since we've been pretty useless recently at keeping this blog up to date we thought we'd do it with pictures. So here goes ...

Fran socialised with Jonathan - the oldest animal on earth ( he has been 130 years old for the last century)

The grave of Mr Butcher and his wife, slaves, 1777

The Boer prisoner-of-war cemetery at Knollcombes

The Dolphin stone. Sailors would leave mail under this stone for delivery by the first ship heading the right way. Mail is now much faster, we've had some arrive only 3 months after postage

the coloured earths at Bradleys (on a rare sunny day)

we've planted a few trailer loads of endemic plants. These are for High Peak

The bouganvillea over the Castle entrance. Unfortunately it has now had a trim. Check out the pint-sized cannons either side of the gate

The best (and only) remaining bit of she cabbage tree woodland left on St Helena (the greener plants in the foreground - the ones in the background are exotic flame trees) in the mist together with one of the reasons why they are so rare. This is inside one of the protective fences (which, as you can see in the foreground, is currently closer to the ground than normal). This species and site is also the only known home for some rare endemic insects

we've had lots of practice at taking photographs in the rain. Tree ferns in Diana's Peak National Park

Fran on one of many recent walks. Lot's Wife in background right and Sandy Bay Barn mid background

Another walk. This time through the highly invasive African fountain grass that is rapidly smothering much of the drier parts of the island.

Live music! For something to do Gram (trombone) put together a band of various musicians on the island (most of them from The Big Easy) at the Consulate Hotel. Lots of good blues, jazz and rock covers. Mykel (guitar), Donny (harmonica), Johnny (acoustic guitar) Don' Kno (drummer), Tom (trumpet), Gram (trombone). They're all good musicians: Tom is a world-class trumpeter (but on St Helena by day he works as a drystone waller), Gram is a pretty good tromboner, Donny could be big if he could afford to get off the island, and the guitarists are good stuff too. A real treat.

The view on a rare good day from High Peak (where we do a lot of our work) towards Sandy Bay and Lot's Wife. Most of the time this place is in the clouds and half an hour later the clouds on the horizon arrived.

a fishing boat unloading its catch at Ruperts