The newest edition!

Reading the title you might be wondering “what are they building now?!”. But no, we aren’t expanding the property. We did however expand the family this week! We are overjoyed to welcome to the world Mr. Lennon David Hawkins. Proud parents, Christine and David welcomed little Lennon on Tuesday at 8:45 am. Tina and Michelle got to take the morning off to welcome the little man. He really does look like a little English gentleman already… or a proper little bloke that has his own spot at the local pub. We can’t wait for them to come home so we can get some proper snuggle time with him.

Until then, work cranks on. As per usual… it’s down to the wire yet again. The owner of Holly house is arriving in a few days and the housekeepers are chomping at the bit to get in to cleanup after the construction. The furniture is awaiting collection at the ports, but there it shall wait until the house is clean enough to get it in. The pool is sparkling clean at least!

Flamboyant is coming along nicely, just not as fast as we wish it could. Just when we are ready to tile the counter top in the kitchen we find out that the tiles we have left are mostly chipped! NOT what you want to hear on a Wednesday morning at 11 am. Why specifically you ask? Well, we can’t just run down to the local Home Depot and get our tiles and the cut off day for the trailer from Florida is mid day on Wednesdays! These were purchased in Florida back in June. After quite a while in hold to with the store in Fort Lauderdale, Tina decided it was time to beg.

The store the tiles were purchased in is just down the road from the shipping company, and we can see online that the tiles are in stock, and available for pick up if ordered prior to 2 pm. We must say, Tina either has a really good grovel or she’s a good client… because the boss of the shipping company said “send me the details and I’ll see what we can do”. Sure enough… he found someone (or he went himself) to go to the store in person and pick up our order AND got back in time to toss them in the trailer arriving next week! Talk about a close one! We are forever grateful to Ralph and his team at Tamarind Consolidated. This isn’t he first time they have gotten us out of a jam, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

We also received some help and advise this week regarding the beloved and now famous tamarind tree at the beach. It just so happened that we had an arborist staying with his family, who happen to be the owners of Casa Rocalta. He took a closer look at the tree and concluded that we need to keep the supports on her for a while longer. She might look good on the outside, but deeper down she still has some damage to her main roots. He also suggested that instead of so many supports, we should just use a few stronger ones instead. Is this guy an arborist or a therapist? I guess trees are a bit like people. We might look good to the unsuspecting eye, but dig in a bit and there’s a whole lot more going on beneath the surface. And, in the end all you really need are a few good supports around you.