Current Rock of Residence:
Suva, Fiji
Island Girl Since:
1986
Originally Hails From:
California – though that was an awfully long time ago!
Found frequently standing in front of the world map that hung in the dining room as a small child, Mary was presciently givena book about the South Pacific by her parents on her 8th birthday inscribed, “To our dream traveler”. Back then she aspired to live in Ulan Bator and Tierra del Fuego for reasons that remain unfathomable. Since escaping the suburban cultural desert of the pre-gentrified South San Francisco Bay Area, she has lived on three rocks: St. Croix, the UK and Fiji. Her time in St. Croix gave her an appreciation of fine rum, incomprehensible bureaucracy and not wearing shoes. In her little Northumberland village, she learned how to pronounce her T’s properly, take tea with milk and not to regard neighbors with suspicion. Leaving oldest child at university in Blighty, she moved to the sweaty megatropolis of Suva in 2012 with youngest child and husband, where she now works and takes in waifs and strays, mostly of the feline variety. You can read more about Mary’s Fiji life on her personal blog, Fiji Diaries.
Explore posts by this writer:
This week we started our WWLOR Book Circle with a group of women from all over the world. Our first meeting was full of lively discussion. We all agreed that reading is like travel for the soul so I thought I would just refresh your memory with some great island reads...
Calling All Spring Breakers!
I know many of you are planning your Spring Break trips to the islands. Lucky you - the islands have missed you all!! It's always so fun getting ready for a beach vacation. We have some great products that have been rock tested listed on the website but I thought I...
Post Vacation Blues
So you've just returned to your island after a busy, bustling, beautiful vacation abroad. As you unpack your 500 suitcases of goodies (and your 8 weeks' worth of dirty laundry even though you were only away for 10 days ) you reminisce over the good times that were had...
If Once You Have Slept on An Island
A hundred year old poem that has stood the test of time... If once you have slept on an island You'll never be quite the same: You may look as you looked the day before And go by the same old name, You may bustle about in street and shop You may sit at home and sew,...
There’s a Rat in Mi Kitchen, what am I gonna do?
RATS… I think every rock has ‘em and if you don’t count yourself lucky!! I can’t stand them - from their beady little eyes to their gelatinous tail - yuck!! On my rock, you see them wandering around from time to time but as my husband would say in his English accent...
Link Up Local
Either you are into searching, scouting and finding out new, (yeah, new what??), new everything or you are not. I belong to the first category. For me part of living on a Rock is embracing the style/ways and quirkiness of that Rock. Having moved to a new Rock a year...
