Week One

This was it, 8 months in the planning ... we finished our renovation project, we sold our house, we have put all of our possessions in to storage, we have packed up our boxes to be shipped to Bermuda and finally we have packed the final bits in to our suitcases .....  

The Wise Old Owls' Adventure is about to start ....

Sunday 13th November 

We were dropped off at Gatwick Airport by Neil's Mum and Brother with all our baggage (we needed two cars to take it all!).  We were so grateful that they took us as I think the Gatwick Express might of been a bit tricky!!  

Once we'd checked in bags and got ourselves through security it was straight to a restaurant to have some food and then do a bit of shopping.

 

This was Patrick and Eleanor's first flight .... in fact this is their first ever proper holiday!  Seven and a half hour flight was ahead of them and they were slightly nervous but we were very impressed at how well they coped, and up until four hours in they even enjoyed it!  It was just the other three hours they became fidgety (thanks to Hazel though for the Haribos they went down a storm).  Even Lucy enjoyed it!

 

Aerial view of Bermuda (we landed at night though)

Monday 14th November 

We were up at 7.30am to meet the team for breakfast and Neil had to be on the 9am ferry to go and see the Base and start work (no rest for the wicked!).  As they were behind on the construction side of things.  In fact, most of  the week was spent sorting out the electrical lighting and security to push along getting the building to a workable state.  Along with the rest of the team who were literally laying flooring etc.

The children and I on the other hand tested out the Infinity Pool ....

 

We then found the local supermarkets and the laundrette as we needed essential supplies and yep, I still need to do the washing!  At the supermarket we even found our own Potato Chips named after us :-)

Unpacking has been a bit of a mission trying to make things disappear in our rooms as we are very limited on storage.  Hopefully the extra draws we've requested will arrive soon and when our shipment boxes turn up we'll be able to make everything disappear.  We have made our rooms feel homely and the Good luck cards have gone up - thank you everyone for your wishes.

So .... these two monkeys find it highly amusing to stand outside the bathroom door!!  As you can see it's a tad limiting on privacy and also very off-putting!  So I have devised a plan that once the pack of paper arrives and my blue tac they will be drawing lots of pictures and we will be covering the bathroom door ... obviously to prevent the unattractive face squishing and giggling!

We were really grateful to have Neil arrive home a couple of nights early so that he could join the children for an early evening swim.

Sunday 20th November

So finally, the last day of our first week, Neil gets a day off.  He's worked solid since we've arrived and we decided as it was a sunny day that we had to go and visit a beach.  Hamilton Princess have their own Beach Club and it was just a short taxi ride across the island to Southampton.  Yippee we had a day of RNR and it was also our first day together as a family. We are feeling very grateful to be spending time all together as this is probably the first day this year that The Wise Old Owls .... DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

  

 

Neil and the children even managed to climb up Gibbs Lighthouse and the views were amazing.

 

 

 

Then in the evening we had dinner at the hotel and afterwards some silly behaviour!!

 

So we've been in Bermuda for over a week and have been taking our time acclimatising to the time difference and finding our feet around Hamilton as this is now our home for the next 8 months.

We've all been full of colds since arriving so have been taking it slowly and not rushing to do anything!  Even though we are four hours behind the UK it has taken over a week to adjust - we've just been falling asleep by 9.30pm.