My South Atlantic Home

It is early Saturday morning and I've just finished my first working week and my second night on-call, I was also on-call on my first day. I have still to go into the hospital to hand over to Dr Wendy (I'm known as Dr Sherwood) who is on for the rest of the weekend. I was woken early this morning by a call from the hospital and am now sitting on the veranda of my flat looking down the valley to the sea. My flat is the red roofed building in the foreground, the hospital is the green roofed building.
The sun is on the mountain tops but its still shady here in the valley, we're expecting another hot day but it is pleasantly cool at the moment.

The flat that has been rented for me is delightful,it is part of an old farm building, probably 150 years old with thick stone walls and a corrugated iron roof. It is a bit shabby on the outside but clean and tidy inside.

There is a kitchen with whitewashed stone walls and old range
with some rather wobbly furniture but there is a modern stove, microwave, fridge freezer and washing machine. There are a few cockroaches around but they are kept in check by the resident population of geckos. Out the back there is a dusty yard with a washing line where clothes dry in an hour or two.

The bedroom also has white painted rough stone walls with a tiled floor. All the windows have mossie nets and when left open these allow a reasonably cool breeze coming down from the mountain to blow through the room so that by the early hours of the morning the room is pleasantly cool even if in the evening I could do with air conditioning or at least a fan to get some sleep. The bed is a rickety iron four poster that is probably a hundred years old with a mattress to match. There is a bathroom with an old cast iron bath and a shower which is ancient but works adequately.

The dining room is spacious and elegant
with period furnishings and prints and would not look out of place in "Country Life", it is far too grand for me to use on my own, I usually eat in the kitchen or out on the deck.








The living room is my favourite, it too looks like something from another age spoilt only by the large TV (which isn't connected). The furnishings are all antiques and the walls are decorated with Napoleonic prints.

The arm chairs and chaise longe look great but are not terribly comfortable and the desk where I keep the laptop is large if rather wobbly but you can't have everything.
The living room opens through French windows onto the deck which forms the main entrance.

There is nothing stylish about the deck except the view.
Although there is a full time gardener the place is pretty unkempt but the view down the valley with steep rocky slopes on either side then over the roof of the hospital to the sea is wonderful and the air is full of birdsong in the morning and evening. The deck is a great place to work in the evening until the mossies and moths come out. The garden of course belongs to the main part of the house where members of the owners family live but I can enjoy the sense of peace and space that it affords and the fruit that drops from the mango tree.
The flat is only a 5 min walk from the hospital which is just as well as I have been kept very busy especially when on-call. The hospital is a little dated but the staff are very friendly and helpful. The work itself is full of challenges some I expected others perhaps unwelcome at this early stage but I'll write about that later.