A Home

Mac and I had been living at Nolly’s “Little House”, and although we were grateful it wasn’t ideal.  It was difficult to navigate my way along the rather perilous path each morning in the dark, and I truly hated the outhouse.  The “Little House” was also too far away from the Pizzeria for me to grab a quick nap, something I sorely needed at times.

I was therefore overjoyed when Klaus Alvermann asked if we wanted to take over the house he had been renting.  I jumped at the chance!  The house was located at the top of the hill near the main road and directly above the Pizzeria, absolutely perfect for us.  We would be sharing the house for a short while with Graham and two others but would eventually have it to ourselves.

Klaus was a good friend, and he had designed the Pizzeria for us. A German Architect by trade, he had been working for an American man trying to develop Industry Bay, a project that never really took off. The beach bar was there, but the houses Klaus had designed had not been constructed.  Klaus had built a boat while on Bequia called Plumbelly, a pretty little vessel, and was getting ready to sail her around the world.  He figured we needed a more convenient place to live and he was right!

Mac and I moved into the house and would live there for a few years.  We slept on a wide daybed in the living room, with the dining room and kitchen close by. There were two bedrooms on the upper floor and a REAL TOILET!  The rent was very reasonable, and now that we were making some money we could afford to pay our share. It lacked privacy when the others used the kitchen and dining room but that was O.K., I was usually so tired by the end of the day I could sleep through pretty well anything.

Each morning I would get up in the dark and exit through the kitchen door and down the hill to a wire fence.  There was a bend in the fence that got more pronounced the more it was used, and day and night I rolled myself up and over it onto Uncle Cyril’s property. Mac’s Uncle owned a small house on the other side of the fence, then a set of uneven steps took me straight to the Pizzeria. Perfect!  I would now be able to slip home when I needed a nap instead of sprawling across sacks of flour in the store room, which I admit I did quite a few times in those early days!