We arrived home at late last night from our trip to Jamaica for Spring Break. Not the typical Spring Break, we went with my husband's cousin and his identical family, wife, daughter age 13, and two younger sons, just like my boys. For a week, the ten of us were transported to the most beautiful natural setting - a large main house for their family and the girls, and a separate guest house with pool where we stayed with our boys.
Our house came with it's own dog, Max, helpful when you are feeling left out.
On Friday, it was Charlie's 11th birthday, so Patrick (a groundskeeper)made something special for him on the beach that night.
Every night we ate a home-cooked meal prepared by Valrie, our cook. I'm pretty certain that most of the foods were produced locally, as in fruits picked that morning from our own back yard. Of course we had plenty of locally-produced Red Stripe beer to wash everything down.
Germaine drove us all over the island and gave us a real education about local culture. He liked it when he asked Charlie which he would rather be, Jamaican or American, and Charlie said "Jamerican."
I read a book - The Known World. I read it cover to cover and was sad when it ended on the flight home. I also knitted a lacey scarf, more on that later.
We came home to a flooded basement, which had only been renovated within the last few weeks. In our absence, our neighbors and our contractor got together and worked to minimize the damage. They mopped up the water, removed the soaked flooring and moved all the wet items to the garage to minimize mold forming on the new walls and ceiling. They also made the collective decision to leave out the information about the sinkhole that formed in the driveway when they talked to us via cellphone. They had roped it off and telling us would have made no difference except to cause more worry.
Yesterday, my neighbor rang the bell and dropped off a crock-pot filled with dinner for that night, which really helped with re-entry. Ohm....
