[On the way]

On the way

 

Saturday 17th May 2014

As I sit and write this, I have just finished a Skype chat with Roxanne, her and Daniel have just arrived safely in Manila having rode the 8 hour bus journey, it is now almost 7pm there and they are staying the next few hours at her cousins house about 20 minutes drive from Manila as they need to be at the airport for 4am (Philippine time) for a 7am departure.

Roxanne said Daniel was very well behaved on the bus and slept the majority of the trip, hopefully will do the same on the flight.

I fly off the Island tomorrow morning and providing everything goes to plan will get to Heathrow around 10.30am and await their arrival at 3.30pm, we will then travel back to Gatwick where we wil stay overnight in a Premier Inn and then return to Guernsey at 10am Monday morning.

I have been fortunate enough to move into the bigger room already as the guy that was leaving at the end of May went earlier than planned so that is one less problem to worry about.

Daniel preparing for the trip home

Happy Days 

Well done Lewis.

Great read Lee enjoyed it very much. Thank you.

[The Good, The Bad and the Ugly]

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Friday 18th April 2014

The Good:

The company own 4 staff houses here on the Island and the latest one is a converted hotel which can accommodate around 40 staff, this is an “open market” property which means you can remain on the Island as long as you wish and it also means children are allowed to live with you there.

A couple of weeks ago I was offered a room there which means I can bring Roxanne and Daniel back so the tickets are all bought at what I thought was a very reasonable cost of just over £700 this includes my travel to and from Guernsey, I will go to Heathrow to meet them and they will arrive back on May 19th.


The Bad:

So I went to see the room we will be moving into and it is very small!! Certainly not big enough for the 3 of us to live in for any length of time but to be fair to the Hotel (who really do their utmost to help the staff) they have told me there is a bigger room becoming available at the end of May beginning of June which we can move into. I have been moving our stuff bit by bit this week and will move in properly at the weekend.

To be honest this latest chapter has left me feeling a little disappointed in myself in the fact that at 52 years of age I am not in a position to provide for my ‘immediate family’ in a way that I should be able to.

That said the past 8 years have been the most enjoyable of my life that I can remember and whilst each month is a financial struggle I really do count my blessings at how lucky I am.

The Ugly:

As you all know (if you have followed from the beginning) when at home Roxanne is a “Princess” and doesn’t have to lift a finger (and rarely does) but just occasionally when she is in the mood she will do some cooking, one of these times was the other evening when feeling peckish she decided to fry some corned beef mixed with egg for herself, Cean and our 2 nephews.

Lo and behold the next day they are all suffering from sickness and diarrhea which gradually gets worse to the point where all 4 of them are admitted to hospital with food poisoning, fortunately after 3 days they are all well enough to return home once we have paid the Hospital bill of £500 (never ending)!!!

Until next time........................................

Congratulations Skalie   

Congrats on 10k posts Trigg, legend.

Star of half time at the village Basketball tournament.

[A few more pics since my return to Guernsey]

A few more pics since my return to Guernsey

Thursday 13th March 2014

Daniel has some pet chicks.

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We had arranged with the help of Roxanne’s Auntie and cousin to get Daniel christened on the morning of his birthday the 11th so the first 3 days were spent running around and spending ‘stupid amounts of money’ getting everything finalised. Of course we had to have the obligatory pig to cook plus we had another pre cooked pig (spit roast) which fortunately one of the Ninang’s (Godfathers) paid for.

As it turned out on the day I realised why we had bought so much food because at a rough estimate we fed 300 people!!!! There were 3 serving stations set up in the compound + a table set for the Godparents. 1 of the stations was for invited guests, 1 was for the children and 1 was for uninvited guests. Roxanne’s mum and her 3 helpers were absolutely fantastic and the whole thing ran like clockwork but I have to admit to being glad when the whole thing was over.

The rest of the holiday was as in previous times spent relaxing and doing very little although this time we had Daniel.

From having left him 8 months earlier the transformation was amazing he was now this little man walking around and he already knows he is like a Prince there and then came the big decision....

About 2 weeks in Roxanne decided after we had chatted a few times that although she wanted to come back to Guernsey she also wanted to stay with Daniel, I was happy with this especially as it is at the time where he is beginning to chat so at least I know that she will speak English with him, the other factor as always is the money, it is my salary that looks after the family and it was Roxanne’s salary that we lived on here in Guernsey but out of that we weren’t actually saving any money so I calculated we would be no worse off (probably better off) if she was to stay there for now.

Decision made we enjoyed the rest of the holiday, lovely weather 30+ every day until it was time for me to return to Guernsey.

The trip back was as planned although strangely quiet and on returning to work (I had already emailed them about Roxanne’s decision) I had a chat with the GM and HR explain that Roxanne wants to return but this time with Daniel as we wish to be together as a family, this does cause some problems as living in Guernsey is not the same as in the UK as it is all to do with housing licenses and work permits, I explained it is our wish to remain on the Island but if necessary I will have to look to relocate to the UK, and that is where we are at this time I await the options open to us..........

[3 Months on]

3 Months on

Thursday 13th March 2014

....to catch up, as I wrote previously we left Guernsey on January 4th for our annual holiday stopping of for 2 days in London at another of the company’s hotels (staff rate) this was nice for Roxanne as she hadn’t really had a proper chance to see London before. We arrived at the Hotel around midday dropped our bags off and headed for Oxford Street!!! As she wanted to some shopping for the family. We were lucky with the weather as it was forecast for heavy rain but it was dry just very cold but having spent 4 hours traipsing around the shops it might as well have been snowing for all I cared.

We ate in the bar/lounge of the Hotel that evening and retired to bed fairly early as I had worked the night before we had left. Sunday morning we had a lovely breakfast and the original plan was to have spent the day seeing some sights but as my lovely wife had failed miserably in her attempt to finish the shopping it looked like we were in for a another fun filled day!!

Around the corner from the Hotel is Buck house and although I didn’t realise it we got there about 20 minutes before it was time for changing of the guard, I explained to Roxanne the history around this and she thoroughly enjoyed the experience from there it was back to Oxford Street for another 4 hours of fun, I had booked for us to go on the London Eye at 16:30 so that was the excuse to finally quit the shops. Again she really enjoyed the Eye (another dream fulfilled).

We ate in the Library restaurant on the Sunday night and had what can only be described as a really fantastic meal.

Before leaving Guernsey I did some investigation on the best way (cheapest) to get to Heathrow and it turned out to be a Private Hire Airport transfer company who charged £26.40 door to door (for the both of us). The car was booked for 10am and duly arrived 5 minutes early, the young man driving was most courteous and 40/50 minutes later without any stress or hassle we arrive at Terminal 4.

The flights back to Manila were uneventful and we duly arrived on Tues 7th at 15.45, another 6 hour bus ride followed and we arrived home just before midnight.....

Fantastic achievement Jade well done