So just a week of updates here in Eleuthera – mainly about Sprawling Towers, Bob and the ice cream parlor Coco and Cream.
I went in to the ice cream parlor the other day as the rum and raisin ice cream is being administered to Bob as a medication !! It was wonderful to see a large party of French people all getting a waffle cone and then several local children also buying assorted flavors to enjoy as an after school treat. It looks like a rip roaring success – it is certainly filling a gap and we hope that that it’s success grows weekly. I can’t find a FaceBook page for them but do follow them on Instagram at #cococream.eleuthera
Bob is gradually improving day by day – it is a slow process but the good wishes and prayers that people have sent us has made it a very heartening experience. Of course I do keep impressing on him the need to take it very gently – the weeks ahead are very important in the healing process if he is to avoid having to have surgery as we hope will be the case.
And now on to Sprawling Towers. The work is continuing – Bob has video calls from the site and that is a great way for him to be able see what is going on.
We had the second section of the house slab was poured at the end of last week so now there is a larger section to walk around on with the risk of tripping over the corrugated steel that is laid over the water cistern area. A little digression now….
Many years ago – in fact about 40 years ago – I was living with someone else and we were renovating a very old thatched house in Leicestershire. It was dated at as early 17th Century – which means anytime from 1600 on ! Anyway it was a cruck cottage – called Mill Stone House – and when we took the walls in one section back to the original brick we found 3 half bricks that were loose. As we pulled the bricks out – one had a lace bobbin in it, another had a few grains of corn and the third one was empty. When I consulted a local historian I was told that the empty one should have had a coin it. It was a tradition at the time that they placed these items in the new construction of the house so that it would always provide food, money and a way of making a living – lovely idea isn’t it ?
Anyway I decided with Sprawling Towers that it would be a good idea to not do the same thing but to write the qualities that we both want the house to embody on stones that would then be cast into the foundation slab. Just a few examples are – kindness, appreciation, gratitude, fortitude, courage, compassion, friendship, love, happiness, good health, creativity, abundance – you get the idea I’m sure. There were over 30 of them and our workmen were fascinated and very supportive and positive about the exercise. No-one will ever see these stones but they are cast in the entrance hallway and so everyone who comes in to the house will walk over them and the house will be imbued with these intentions. I might get a nice list of the words done by a calligrapher and hang it somewhere where in the future, long after we have gone people will know what we did.
So on we go – the pool has been started , the septic tanks are nearly finished and progress continues to be constant.
The poincianas are in full bloom and the island looks gorgeous – and so life goes on ……
10 thoughts on “A week of updates in Eleuthera”
Dear Kathy,
I missed the last blog post-am now just catching up- and I am shocked to read about Bob’s terrible accident. What a nightmare!!
I hope that the surgery can be avoided, that with your super caregiving, the support of friends, and plenty of rum raisin ice cream, he will heal and come through this without leaving the island.
Your new home project looks fantastic, and I’m sure is a great distraction. I can’t wait to see it and you two when I head back to Eleuthera in February.
Bob, behave!! Real healing takes real time.
Sending much love to you both,
Friedrike
Thanks so much dear friend – yes it was all a bit of a nightmare. The new house is a really good distraction and it gets more exciting all the time. Lovely to hear from you x
Dear Katy and Bob,
Thinking of you and living vacariously through your blogs. They keep me in touch and make me feel that I am there in some small way.
Sprawling Towers is going to be magnificent! How exciting and distracting for Bob. I pray that he is being a good boy and healing well.
How are the tempertures there in the summer? How I would love to visit once again in winter!
Very best to you both, Camilla
Yes – he is being good at the moment although I know it must be very frustrating for him …. The temperatures are HOT and HUMID during the summer months but we say god bless you Mr Carrier for inventing air conditioning !
Sorry. Mispelled your name. Kathy!
Kathy I enjoy reading your blog as my wife and I have discovered Eleuthera and are seriously thinking of retiring there. We are visiting for the first time next June. Hopefully, Bob has a full recovery but I thought I would make you aware of a mobility device that has changed my wife’s life. She has a disease that affects her peripheral nerves in her hands and feet and so her balance is shaky.
Please check this out as odds are that you know someone whose life could be changed as well if they had it.
https://www.thealinker.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCFevOhLdl4&list=PLVW7DBwscitTN9DFfq4brTvPwzJ1XkZ5K&index=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUkGkSMugtw&list=PLVW7DBwscitTN9DFfq4brTvPwzJ1XkZ5K&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtBK3MgZeqo&list=PLVW7DBwscitTN9DFfq4brTvPwzJ1XkZ5K&index=5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hreFl1mOkZ4&list=PLVW7DBwscitTN9DFfq4brTvPwzJ1XkZ5K&index=7
Dan and Doni Delaney
Thank you so much for this – I will check out all the links. Much appreciated. I hope that we meet when you visit next year.
Kathy,
You are welcome. Barbara Alink the inventor of the Alinker is a special individual as I’m sure you will come to realize when you watch the videos. I venture a guess as you two are kindred spirits driving positive change where ever you go.
If you have any questions about the Alinker my personal email address is ddel150917@aol.com
Dan Delaney
Hi Kathy
A couple of years ago we were redecorating the hallway in our Victorian house. When the decorator stripped back the panelled wallpaper right back – a significant task – he found a newspaper pasted at the base that had been left by an earlier craftsman. It was a contemporary newspaper reporting the sinking of the Titanic that the craftsman had left with a dated message for the ones who came after him. Our decorator left his own message and carefully covered it up again for another century. We were all so moved by the whole thing. Life rolls on and stuff happens seemed to be the message.
And so …..
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Best wishes in a complicated time
Ruth & Mark
What a great story – don’t you just love it when you find treasure like this ! In that same house I was talking about on the shelves in one of the bedroom cupboards we found pages of the News of The World Sunday paper – from the 1940’s. All divorce scandals and vicars being caught out doing something naughty – it was the same newspaper/ rag that it was in later years . Thank you for the Irish blessing – I know it well and love it very much. Thank you dear friends…..