It was a place full of wind and rain and desolation. They would be there for a full year.

And they were really looking forward to it.

They took the final box off the trailer, that a tractor of all things had pulled up from the boat ramp, and offered the driver a cuppa before realising everything they owned was still boxed up. He was keen to get back he said, before the wind came up any more.

More? you remember thinking. It was whistling around corners, there were no trees – but if there had been – they would have been lying flat in surrender. Jeff, the boatman, left and with him our final contact with the outside world for at least a week until our radio check in.

The wind and rain symphony began. And Jeff was right, the wind could get worse, and frequently did as the weeks built into months.

When the boatman came back in October he’d find us much changed. I’d be pregnant. My husband would have finished his PHD. We’d both be fluent in Swahili ahead of our next posting. All 12 of our chickens would have perished. I would have grown to like potatoes as a necessity. Our jumpers would be home spun, home dyed and home knitted. We’d know all the movements in the weather symphony and we’d be right royally sick of each of them.

But that was all ahead as I rifled boxes looking for the kettle and our mugs, feeling snug and a trifle smug in our new digs.