Yesterday was a sad kind of a day

Well as usual everything is change and some things change quicker then expected or planned. 

Shaun, Tanya and Hollie left yesterday to start their new life/adventure on their own farm, Albermarle on west Falkland Islands.  This wasn't the plan originally but Shaun was offered work road building and the road that is being built is for the military at Mount Alice.  This is no more then 20 minutes away from their farm house and is actually on their land.  The pay is better then he gets working for us apart from when he was working on the jetty.  So although not really wanting to lose them this early it seemed the right thing to encourage them to move early.  They had to put 10% of the cost of the farm down themselves and all credit to Shaun at the age of 23 he had saved that through shearing and stevedoring and still had a little bit over but things are a bit tight now.  They are very fortunate to have been given a years moratorium on their loan but there is still out lays.  Tanya has been doing a little hair dressing over the last couple of months to help pay the bills but it is not ideal because it means they end up being split up with Tan and Hollie in town and Shaun out here on the islands.  They will manage to get through now though with Shaun bringing in extra money and he has the advantage of going home to his farm every night and I think he gets Sunday off so he will be able to start preparing for shearing.  He will just take the time of from his new job to do his farm work when he needs it. The only big expenses he has now and before his wool money starts coming in is shearing costs and freight costs to get his wool to Stanley.  If need be we will pay these initially and he will pay them back when their wool money comes in or he can come back and work for a while and pay them off in kind.  So that is that.
The jetty is all but finished down on George and we were all up at 6am yesterday getting ready to come up to Speedwell so that they could collect the stuff that they need for the time being.  We left at 8am from George and got here at 9:30am they then had 4 hours to get everything together that they thought they would need and I think they were away from here by 2pm.  They will have to come back as they still have a lot of stuff here  but it probably wont be before the beginning of December.
So I am going to miss them lots, especially the little Hollie.  In the last 2 days she has started walking everywhere.  She is a bundle of fun who loves playing peek a boo, loves music and sways along to it.  She laughs and giggles lots and gives you cuddles (at her convenience).  It's not like I am not going to see them ever but it will be more difficult to meet up because we will all be busy at the same time.  Saying that we are going over to help Shaun gather for shearing in 2 weeks time and then they are going to fly over and help us with lamb marking at the beginning of December, then we will all be in town for Christmas, then in January we will go over and help Shaun gather for his shearing again and they are going to come over in February and help us shear Barren so when you put it all together at the moment it looks like we will still see them every 6 to 8 weeks at least.
To cheer myself up after they left I did a little bit of Xmas retail therapy on line.

My first picnic on Speedwell Island.  We were out Goose egging.

Just being me and pulling a face.

You want a photo nanny.  Taken on George Island

 

And so life goes on.  Christopher and Ali are away crabbing.  I need them to come back with 500 crab today to fulfill my orders but that is a bit of a tall order so will have to see what they arrive home with.