You need to off yourself...

is a daily quote in our household right now.  'Off' for those of you who don't know is an insect repellant spray that we pretty much don't leave the house without! and I am forever telling Byron 'you need to off yourself'! which with all comedy aside is a pretty serious instruction because these mosquito bites we are getting are HUGE! and not only that but there are sand fleas that give you tiny red bites all over which aren't so pleasant either! 

We have just been to our first meeting at the environmental agency.  It is a weekly meeting for those keen on conserving wildlife.  I dutifully went along to accompany the keen conservationist in our family - Byron! but I think he was expecting it to be volunteering projects about protecting animals, instead we had a couple of hours in depth lecture about everything we needed to know about the endemic plants of Turks and Caicos!! and the upcoming volunteering project involves saving these endemic plants from sites that are about to be bulldozed and transplanting them elsewhere on the Island.   After tonight I was thinking of possibly letting By go solo to the next few meetings...until I heard there will be free pizza involved and I changed my mind! Pizza has become somewhat of a delicacy these days since the cheapest pizza you can buy at the supermarket costs £8!! in fact most groceries come at four times the price these days so any free food is good food (with the exception of the corned beef and mash I had to eat as my school dinner today at work...I think I'll be bringing my own lunch on Thursdays from now on!)

That brings me on to why it's been so many days since my last post, I started work on Monday and it has been crazy busy! and every night I have been completely shattered! We have 3 autistic boys we work with and 2 of them are really full of energy... to the max! and all I can say is roll on Friday! Byron has been working hard at applying for jobs but it's a slow process so he has been catching up with topping up his tan and fishing in between! He caught another big one today:

and is still enjoying hanging out at our canal each day.  The water is super clear now the storm is out of the way.

He has also been enjoying discovering the different creatures that are around...like the crazy sea urchins at the bottom of the canal...we definitely don't want to step on any of those anytime soon! and the ghost crabs we spot on our late night beach walks.  The other day we found this HUGE crab crawling right across our yard...we later found out my employer's husband had also found one on his property and he chased it down the road and cooked it for dinner that night! so our Chef friend was annoyed we hadn't caught ours too! 

Here's a picture as the sun was setting over Leeward Beach one evening this week:

and of course I couldn't leave out that I had my first Island cupcake yesterday! I got a gourmet oreo cupcake from Graceway Gourmet, our 'local store'.  I had a skype chat with Mara the other night and she accused me of sounding American already using the word store but I explained it's just easier to use their words rather than always having to explain what a 'jumper' is or what 'uni' is!!

The cupcake was pretty good, I haven't had cake since I arrived which is pretty unheard of for me...going so long without! so I'm sure it would have tasted good no matter what, the frosting tasted like the kind you get from costco cakes which I personally like, although I know many people find it too sweet! and it only cost me 2 dollars which isn't bad for this Island! I'm sure I will be posting more as I try more...I did see this Chinese Jamaican Bakery the other day which sounds very interesting indeed...I will be curious to see what they have on offer!