Question: Where was this photograph taken? Chester? Chichester? Or Cricklewood?

Nope, none of these. These photos were taken yesterday afternoon in the “sunny” Caribbean!

Only the other day Brad and I were eulogising about the rain out here. You see normally we are more than happy with the kind of tropical rain showers they have here. I’d go so far as to say the rain here can actually be quite enjoyable!! It’s rain done properly. In fact if I were to write an ideal job description for rain, tropical showers would fit the vacancy perfectly.

This is how it works: A bucket of rain comes down for 10 minutes and it’s really dramatic stuff this rain. None of your murky English drizzle for days on end…. The skies go dark, the torrential rain thunders down deafeningly on the roof, mini-floods appear everywhere and sometimes some dramatic thunder and lightingmake an appearance for full effect. Then as abruptly as it started it stops. The sky brightens up, the sun comes out, everything quickly dries and life carries on as if nothing had ever happened. Job done! The plants are watered, the grass stays green and it’s all over and done with in quarter of an hour.

At least that is how it’s been any time we have ever been in the Caribbean. But yesterday it obviously decided that enough was enough and that perhaps the English style of rain has a few advantages. Because yesterday it rained nearly ALL DAY! I don’t think the sun appeared once, the sky was dark grey and it poured down almost non-stop.

The rainy season is supposed to end on 30th November! Perhaps it’s just realised that it’s been slacking on its job description a wee bit too much and that it only has two days to make up the overtime?

Today is our final full day here in Grenada. I never thought I would hear myself say it, but we are now starting to feel ready to come home (and no, it’s not just the rain that has caused this by making us homesick for November weather in the UK!) We have had an amazing month and seen and done so much. But I think we have explored every nook and cranny of the island over the last four weeks and, although it is very beautiful here, it is starting to feel a bit small. I guess that’s not that surprising considering that Grenada is only 21 miles long and 12 miles wide.

I think it is also because we have moved from “desperately-needed-holiday-mode” to “living abroad” mode. Don’t get me wrong….if I could I would always have white sandy beaches, warm seas and a lovely swimming pool available. And sunshine on tap and pretty flowers. But I’m starting to wonder if on their own those things are enough to build a life around day after day forever. If I lived here I would need some kind of project - either studying or working in some capacity or a serious hobby – in order to keep my mind occupied. Brad says he now feels the same too.

If someone had said this to me a month ago I would have thought them crazy! After all, what could be better than a life spent lying on a beach, swimming, seeing the sun each day and relaxing? I guess it’s just another interesting insight that this last month has brought me. I came to the “Spice Isle” and have realised that variety truly is THE spice of life.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could have the ability to have the best bits of the whole world all in one country! You see, the sunshine and warmth here is gorgeous….but not if you need to get something done. It’s fine if you can just lie on a sunbed and keep cooling off in the sea, but if you want to get a job done or run a business or even just go shopping in town, then within a few minutes you are soaked in sweat, exhausted and desperate for a cold shower and feeling awful. And when every day is exactly the same weather wise, you can actually start to fancy a little variety in the seasons (although not the kind of variety of a British winter I hasten to add!)

In an ideal world I guess I’d be a millionaire with a private jet. I’d have houses all over the world and when I felt starved off sunshine, sand and sea then I’d hop off to somewhere exotic for a week or two. If I fancied some culture I’d disappear off to a European city for the weekend. And if I fancied some serious shopping I’d just call up Emily and we’d go and wear out my platinum card (haha!) buying ourselves shoes in Harrods for the weekend. As money would be no problem, I could take on as many projects as I wanted and then employ staff to manage them all when I got bored and wanted to move onto the next one. Like in Grenada, I’d set up a Dog Rescue Centre for a start. Definitelty. Oh and naturally I’d be incredibly brainy and quick-learning, so I could train as a vet one year, a doctor the next, a business analyst the third. And if I didn’t ever use the knowledge then so what? I’d just learn it for the sake of it until I got bored of it! Oh and I’d also learn to do things like surfing and horse-riding and painting and farming (god knows where the latter came from, just humour me….). I’d keep designing houses to live in with pink and green walls and balconies, or bright yellow walls with white fretwork. Then when I was bored of living in one, I’d build another one somewhere else.

And you know what? After all that I might just wake up haha!

Brad and Roy at "Fish Friday"

Gouyave Fish Friday

Grand Anse Beach

Emma swimming at night!

Last night we went to “Fish Friday” at Gouyave, Grenada’s main fishing town. Every Friday they have a big street “Fiesta” where everyone sets out stalls cooking and selling all different types of cooked fish and other food and drinks. Sometimes there are up to 2000 people at the festival on a Friday night, both locals and visitors to the island. It’s a fantastic event and full of atmosphere, but best of all the food is delicious! There are so many different types of fish and different styles of cooking it…barbequed fish, fried fish, stir fries, fish cakes, everything! There is also every type of fish you can imagine…tuna, red snapper, fried jacks, lobsters, flying fish and loads of others whose names I don’t know! They sell all sorts of food to eat with the fish too, like macaroni pie, fried breadfruit, rice, plantain, green banana, etc. I had fried jacks (about the size of sardines but fried until very crispy and crunchy), macaroni pie and plantains, all washed down with a bottle of cold Carib beer.

We were there with a friend of ours called Roy. Roy runs a little roadside bar near the airport which we like to go to in the evenings. We’ve got to know Roy well over the last three weeks. His bar consists of two wooden tables and a few old chairs and he never has more than two or three people there at a time. He knows them all well and they enjoy stopping for a cold beer or two after work or on their way somewhere in the late evening. We have learnt so much about Grenada from Roy. Grenadians LOVE chatting…it’s probably their main social activity and once the sun goes down everyone comes outside and sits on their front steps or outside the many shack bars, exchanging news and talking about politics, experiences and gossip.

Through chatting to Roy, we have learnt so much about Grenada. We’ve talked at length about what it was like during and after Hurricane Ivan, about the Communist Revolution that took place here in the early 1980’s, about the house he is building for his family (Hurricane Ivan destroyed it a few days after he had bought it but now his family are hoping to move in just before Christmas). He has given us an insight into Grenadian politics and current news stories. We have discussed the forthcoming Cricket World Cup (some matches are being held in Grenada at the new stadium that is currently being completed), the difference between life in the UK and Grenada, agriculture, economies Grenadian culture and the Grenadian outlook and way of living.

Last week we went to Fish Friday with my Mum and Dad as they were over here for a week on holiday. Roy said that he had never managed to get to Fish Friday due to his work commitments (he works full time at the University in charge of maintenance, runs a car hire business with his wife and opens the bar nearly every night too!) He said he would love to go though, so we suggested he come with us when we went back this week. We all had a really good evening, and it was a shame to have to leave early to get back so that Roy could open the bar at 9pm. I could have eaten a lot more fish given a bit more time!

We have had a really nice day today. This afternoon we went to the beach for a few hours and it was as lovely as always. I particularly love the beach at weekends as there is so much more to watch and observe, as so many local people are out enjoying their afternoon in the sun and sea. We spent ages in the sea, swimming and floating about and generally having a lovely relaxing time in the sun. Then we sat on the sand at the edge of where the waves were lapping and I decided we should be kids again and build sandcastles! Why is it that when we become “grown ups” (or even teenagers) we think we have to stop “playing” with things like sand? Wet sand is great fun! I’m sure people walking by thought may have thought we were nuts but I couldn’t have cared less, after all they don’t know what they are missing! I built a rather cool sandcastle and looked up to admire Brad’s industrious work that he had been concentrating on quietly for a few minutes (always a bad sign!). He was looking exceptionally pleased with himself and had a very big, cheeky grin on his face. At that point I realised that he had fashioned NOT a nice innocent sandcastle but two enormous sand “breasts” complete with nipples!! TYPICAL! Blokes eh?! I had to laugh though...and threw lots of sand at him because he deserved it!

I then moved further up the beach and played with the hot white sand that was dry and powdery away from the lapping of the sea. It was so different from the texture of the wet grainy sand and it poured through my fingers and blew away on the breeze. It felt so lovely and hot and fine. I’m definitely going to bring some back with me to remind me of the beach here! I even lay on the hot white sand and enjoyed the feel of it on my skin. When I got up I looked very strange, covered in sand! But I just ran into the sea and washed it all off.

When the sun started to go down we decided to walk along the beach and take some photos. We ended up walking almost the entire crescent of Grand Anse beach, which is a pretty long way! Although my chest is pretty mucky at the moment, it doesn’t seem to make me feel as “ill” as I would in the UK with a similar level of symptoms. I wonder if it’s the climate, the humidity, or being by the sea that has helped with this? We bought a couple of cold bottles of “Ting” from someone on the beach (fizzy grapefruit juice) and as we walked along the beach and back we talked about how much we would love to live here and set up a bar/restaurant or hotel and have a little house here. I love the sorts of conversations you have when you are on holiday somewhere like this. Somehow anything seems possible in the sunshine and bright colours of a tropical island and you get filled with news ideas and possibilities. They are unlikely to be possible, or even practical, but it’s great to imagine and dream and wonder about different things.

We then drove back to the villa and I was so hot by then that even though it was dark, I put on the pool lights and jumped in for a lovely cool refreshing swim. We have bought two objects called “Noodles” which are for use in the water. They are basically long polystyrene tubes that you can wrap round yourself or hold onto and they hold you up in the water, so are great for lying and floating with. I lay floating around the pool and listened to the tree frogs cheeping all around. I love the fact that out here it is NEVER cold!!! Even at 3 am you can get up and sit outside in the garden in a vest top, listening to the sounds and feeling warm! I also saw some fireflies as I floated around the pool, flashing golden lights in the night air.

I so love my swimming pool and will find it so hard to leave behind! My Mum always says I’ve been a “water baby” since a young age and I really do love nothing better than splashing, swimming and floating around in the warm sea or the swimming pool. I also love the freedom it gives me that I don’t get on dry land. In the water I can jump up and down, kick, dance, turn round and round…all with ease due to the support of the water. Doing these things on the land would render me breathless within a few minutes. I also love the feel of being in water and again it brings out the child in me because it’s FUN!!! There’s also nothing better when you are so hot and sticky that you just can’t bear it and then you plunge into cool water!

After a rest in bed for an hour whilst Brad cooked us a delicious supper (chicken in passion fruit sauce, rice and plantains), I had my nebulisers and then we decided to go over to Roy’s for a drink. His friend Peter was there again too and we all chatted away for a couple of hours. We chatted about cricket, football, Peter’s numerous family members in the UK, and also about electricity! Peter is an electrician and it was interesting to hear that in the area where he grew up (just round the corner) they didn’t get electricity until 1985. Also the whole area where we were sitting and (which is now quite developed with shopping malls and main roads) was all just fields of sugar cane back then.

Peter and Roy are planning to come over to England next year as neither of them has ever been (although they have both lived in Canada). I really hope they do come as it would be great to see them and introduce them to the UK in the way they have introduced us to their island.

So here I am, sitting in my typical bleary morning state eating my breakfast at the table under the shade of the veranda (not often you can write that in November woo hoo!) Now, you’ll no doubt be surprised to hear that I’m not at my most convivial or mentally challenging at this time of the day (no really….) So having blinked a lot and looked blankly around me for a bit, I decided to read the cereal packet. Like you do.

Now the cereal is called “Caribbean Crunch” which the packet reliably informs me is a blend of “Toasted oat cereal with pineapple, banana, raisins and coconut”. Sounds a sensible enough cereal to produce in a country that grows pineapples, bananas and coconuts and that can supply you with more raisins in the supermarket than you can shake a stick at .

However, the interesting thing about this “deliciously toasted selection of freshly milled oats and other tasty ingredients, packed with nutritional goodness for a most nourishing and sustaining breakfast” - which also, incidentally, “puts a new crunchiness into salads” (SALADS?!!!) - is that it is not made in the Caribbean at all. No, no, no no! It’s made in good old Blighty….Crewe to be precise. That centre of Caribbean culture and cuisine no less.

So before this packet of breakfast cereal reaches my breakfast table, it has undergone a complex trans-Atlantic journey. The pineapples, bananas and coconuts have been grown in the Tropics. Then shipped to the UK. Where upon they are stuffed into a pile of oats. And promptly flown back to the Caribbean. Logical really isn’t it?

Now this isn’t the only interesting thing about this cereal (OK, contain your excitement a wee bit longer…..). This is a RESPONSIBLE breakfast cereal as it comes with a health warning. See, you can tell now that it’s made in the UK can’t you? Nothing we like better than a good old health-protecting statement to safeguard unwary cereal-eaters about the perils they may be putting themselves prey to.

See if it were a truly Caribbean cereal there would be no health warning. Or if there was it would be something along the lines of “Don’t be falling no sleep when you be eating dis cereal or de Good Lord may take you to He Kingdom in de sky”. But this is a good old British health warning and reads as follows:

“PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A CRUNCHY PRODUCT. IF IN ANY DOUBT ABOUT THE CONDITION OF YOUR TEETH, PLEASE CONSULT A DENTAL PRACTITIONER”

Followed by additional warnings of: “THIS PACK CONTAINS NUTS AND SEEDS” (would never have guessed when the ingredients include coconut, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds) and “SENSIBLE WARNING: CEREAL MAY BE HOT WHEN REMOVED FROM MICROWAVE – BE CAREFUL!”

It seems to be a peculiarly British thing to feel that we have to cover all possibilities of an accident or mistake being made. Is it because the cereal manufacturer really believes that their elderly customers may forget to put in their false teeth before munching their morning cereal? Is it that they really believe that without the warning you may not realise that a microwave makes things hotter? Or that that someone with a nut allergy may accidently overlook the fact that the word “Coconut” contains “nut” in it? Is it that the cereal manufacturer is scared he will be sued by a toothless, nut allergic twit who mistakes the microwave for the freezer? And anyway, what if said toothless-nut-allergic-twit-who-mistakes-microwave-for-freezer is also illiterate? What then?

Since I’ve been in Grenada I have noticed a stark contrast to the amount of risk that your average Grenadian is exposed to during their lifetime to your average Brit. The other day we went to Annandale Falls which is one of several big waterfalls in the rainforest area of the island’s interior. There is a natural pool here at the bottom of the waterfall, and people love to come and swim here and dive into the cool clean water. It makes a wonderfully refreshing dip after having got very hot and sticky in the heat of the sun.

We were there at a weekend and it was wonderful to see so many people out enjoying their Sunday afternoon. Children ran and jumped into the shallow areas. People had a cooling swim in the middle. And young lads kept trying to outdo each other by diving into the deepest parts from the rocks around the pool. A couple of women sat on some boulders at the edge and one was washing and combing out the others’ hair. People had picnic baskets and sat chatting as they watched what was going on.

I couldn’t help but wonder how these waterfalls and natural pools would have been treated in the UK. I’m sure that at the very least there would have been a contingent of lifeguards and various posters stating rules and regulations….no running, no diving, no petting, no bombing, certainly no hair washing! There would be lockers for valuables and the deeper area would have been cordoned off so that children didn’t accidently swim into it. There would have been opening and closing times, stringent water quality checks and no doubt a hefty entrance fee in order to offset the costs of everything involved.

Now may be this would have been a good thing? Or may be it wouldn’t? I’m not about to become one of those people who spend their time saying “Oh its not like this in Country X…it’s all so much better there”. For example I do think that Grenada would be better off having a drink driving law (at the moment there are none, although you can’t drive very fast on the narrow country roads so it presumably makes accidents less dangerous on the whole). I also think that they should continue to enforce the new seatbelt legislation. And I must admit that coming from the UK, seeing lads diving off high rocks into waterfall pools or riding on the back of trucks with the cool breeze blowing in their hair, does make me quite uneasy.

But perhaps in some cases, being too careful and safeguarding everything too rigidly can remove some of the fun and spontaneity from life? Certainly the fun that was happening that Sunday afternoon at the waterfall would have been different if it had been strictly regulated. And can too many safety regulations also be counterproductive, because when we expect life to be made safe around us by “others in charge” we lose our own instinct to be careful and protective ourselves?

Wow, that was very long and pondering for me at 9am!!! I think I need a lie down now! Actually I’m going to go swimming to cool off because it is very hot already. Don’t worry though, I will be safe enough with my armbands, lifejacket and rubber ring as you just can’t be too careful these days…..”Belt, braces and a piece of string just to be sure” as my Dad would say Haha!

Paddy McPadderson at the controls of Leprechaun 1

Leprechaun 1 ready for its debut flight

*This is a special post dedicated to my very good and very Irish friend Alan!***

*Newsflash*

The new airline, PaddyAir, was launched at a press conference in Dublin last night. The owner and sole pilot of PaddyAir, Mr Paddy McPadderson, said:

“We be lookin’ forward to bringing de Oirish experience to de air travel in de 21st century. Bejesus.”

PaddyAir will run flights between Dublin and Grenada from tomorrow onwards. The sole aircraft (see attached photo) will run to a flexible schedule, depending on how much alcohol the pilot has drunk the night before and whether or not he can find his map.

Customers can look forward to a uniquely Irish experience during their flight. The traditional airhostesses have been replaced by leprechauns and in flight entertainment will consist of the entire back catalogue of Foster and Allan’s Greatest Hits on the radio.

For those who chose to fly first class, there will be extra perks. The entire cast of “RiverDance” have been drafted in to perform leg-flinging entertainment to the accompaniment of a trio of tin whistles. Guiness will also be served on tap and video screens will show Foster and Allan’s music videos (including squiddlydiddly dancing).

When asked at the press conference why air-conditioning is not available on PaddyAir’s current model of plane, Paddy McPadderson retorted:

“Jesus! Mary mother of God! I’ve never heard the like of it! If they be wantin’ cooler air they can jus’ open de feckin’ winda”

“There has been only one hurricane in the known history of the island – Janet – which occurred in 1955. We do not expect a repeat visit for another five hundred years or so.”
[Grenada’s main guidebook – printed 2002]

At 3.30pm on September 7, 2004, Hurricane Ivan struck Grenada with full force. It was the worst hurricane in living memory and one which claimed 39 lives. Travelling at 125 mph, it tore through Grenada, leaving behind a wasteland of flattened houses, twisted metal, and splintered wood.

During the 6 hours of hurricane force winds, 90% of homes were damaged or destroyed and 40% were left totally uninhabitable. The entire island lost its electricity connection and drinking water was unavailable for several days. Telephone services were cut and there were shortages of food. The Prime Minister, Keith Mitchell, declared a national disaster.

The storm destroyed schools, churches, the island’s prison and one of the island’s two hospitals. The island's extensive public health system collapsed and people were left without medication. Only two of the island’s 75 primary and secondary schools were left in a useable condition. In the aftermath of the hurricane, widespread looting occurred and troops had to be brought in from surrounding countries to restore order.

The hurricane had sucked up seawater and blown it across the land. As a result the remaining trees and vegetation appeared to be scorched and brown. Inland, the rainforest suffered extensive and severe damage. Half of the trees were left lying on the ground and the other half lost all their leaves.

The economy suffered a devastating setback. 80% of Nutmeg, Cocoa, banana and other agriculture trees were destroyed and 70% of the island’s tourist infrastructure was damaged with hotels left needing extensive repairs and rebuilding.

The following are eye-witness accounts of the hurricane and its aftermath:

“As the wind blew on my roof it sounded like I was in a washing machine. The next thing I remember, I was lying on the floor with the roof on me.”
James

“In the area where I live, as far as my eye can see, every building lost their roof including mine. It all happened so quickly that all one could do was to stay where they were, covering themselves. When my roof disappeared, I went underneath a step in the basement together with my five-year-old daughter, sheltering from the rain underneath a piece of thick canvas. We stayed there for about 2.5 hours as the wind howled and roof tops came tumbling down the hill and crashing into our house.”
Ernest

“When the eye of the storm came, we left the house and went outside. It was very quiet. There was no wind. It felt surreal, as if we were experiencing something extreme and on the edge of human existence. Outside, it was as if a giant had trampled through the area. Trees were flattened and the buildings looked like they had been abandoned years ago and left to ruin. When the wind started up again, the gusts picked up all the loose debris and threw it against the house we were in. This included huge water tanks, big branches and the roof of a neighbouring house.”
Heather

“In Grenada food is desperately short, and serious health problems are imminent due to lack of sanitation and clean water. Distribution of relief is hampered by lack of vehicles, and roads are still impassable.”
Nicola

“Almost all of the house roofs are gone, debris litters the streets and the most prominent sound that you can hear is the sound of chain saws as people try to clear the wreckage. On our way out of town we were stopped by soldiers who wanted to search us for looted materials, they eventually allowed us to continue but warned us that their orders were to arrest people on the streets.”
Leslie

During our time in Grenada we have learnt a great deal about the effects Hurricane Ivan, many of which being felt (and can still be seen) over two years on. My next blog entry will talk more about this........

PLEASE can someone save my sanity by helping me to understand why I can't post any photos in my blogs suddenly??!!!

I have a blog entry waiting to publish but I need the photos to go with it and for some reason they just won't appear. I have the images hosted at www.imageshack.net and I normally put the direct URL for the photo into the box as requested, after clicking on "insert photo".

Now when I do this, it says the image is being uploaded, then tells me that it HAS been uploaded and I can return to view my blog. But when I do this....there is nothing there!

I have also tried adding photos direct from my computer (by clicking "Browse") but these do not appear either.

Anyone who can help me out here will be richly rewarded with a coconut and a bottle of Carib Beer. Yes, I know its a big prize, but since I've been struggling with this all yesterday evening and this morning, I think it's worth it. Now please form an orderly queue........................

This blog entry is a copied account of what I wrote this afternoon whilst lying on the beach:


There can be no more relaxing and soul-enhancing ways of spending time than a Saturday afternoon on a tropical beach.

Lying here comfortably on my sunbed, I take in the surroundings and the atmosphere. The waves gently crash on the soft sandy beach – a constant, gentle, and eternal lullaby.

A gentle breeze sways the coconut palms – their fronds gently lifting and dancing in the warm air and dappled sunshine.

Voices and laughter drift through the air – so many people out enjoying their weekend. The local children giggle and shriek as they play in the water and run up the beach, a sound like a bubbling stream of pure joy and happiness.

A group of lads are enjoying their afternoon together. They sing, they shout and they laugh. Now and then they run along the sand before performing back flips and somersaults into the sea.

The leaves of the trees shading me rustle and flutter as the breeze caresses my back.

Round the bay the land curves, a crescent of greenery with little white buildings nestled amidst the rolling hills. The multiple clustered buildings of the town snuggle together, tumbling down towards the harbour.

The blue sky stretches far above. Laughter and voices float across. The sea continues its constant and unchanging melody.

Two beach sellers pass by calling out “Coral! Beautiful coral!” and “T-shirts! Buy some T-shirts!” and quickly they are gone again, moving further off along the beach.

The sun’s rays are becoming longer as the afternoon drifts on. Above me a bird sings his heart out in the tree. The dappled sunshine dances through the broad green leaves and flutters through the fringes of the coconut palms.

The sun begins to set behind the hill and a warm pink light suffuses the surroundings. People still splash about in the gently rolling sea and sit together on the sand. It’s been a great Saturday afternoon.

I am having a sulk at the behaviour of my laptop. Which I think is totally justified considering it isn't working. Hurrumphh.

I am therefore getting behind at updating my blog which I am not impressed with either, so I am going to have to find someone to fix it in the next couple of days.

In the meantime I've just got a few minutes left in a local internet cafe, so I thought I'd put up a quick post. This place is called "TJ Chillaxinn" and according to the wooden sign outside, you can get an interesting assortment of things here:

Restaurant and Bar
Internet
Massages and Tattoos

The internet room is out the back and is actually quite nice as it has air-conditioning and three computers.

Right, I must go and pick my Mum and Dad up from the airport as their flight will be arriving in 5 minutes YAY!!! I'm so looking forward to seeing them. Shame they couldn't bring Daisy out here too though!

I will leave you with a great quote that I saw yesterday. All the buses here (which are actually minibuses) have names and also usually a quote written across the back windscreen. The one I saw yesterday was called "Real Stable" and had the following quote, which I found pretty meaningful on a lot of levels:

"Each tree of success has roots of stability that run deep"

Grenadian Car!

Emma, James and Puppy

Town of Sauteurs



Hmmm, I haven’t blogged for four days now and as a result I’m not entirely sure where to begin on catching things up. Do I start from yesterday and work backwards or start from Friday and work forwards? See that’s the trouble with blogs, once you’ve started them you need to maintain them and I find myself entering a total state of blogheadedness…..

“Ooooh, I must take a photo of that for my blog!” (cue instructing Brad to screech to a stop on a blind bend to facilitate photo-taking-ability) or “Oh no! It’s 1 am and I’m knackered and my feel shite but I haven’t blogged about how I went and bought a cheap skirt in a shop today!”

The first photo in this entry was taken during one of these blogphotomoments. I find it amusing to drive around the tiny villages on the island and see cars in various states of decay, just happily residing alongside the road, with plants and climbers and assorted vegetation happily winding around them to make quite an interesting display. I guess there aren’t too many scrapyards on an island this size, so they tend to just become part of the roadside undergrowth. The best one I saw was a Volkswagen Mini Van with no doors, which, as well as taking on the role of artistic vegetative display, was also housing a donkey inside it. Now that’s what I call resourceful!

I’m sure the man standing beside the road was extremely intrigued why these strange tourists would want to stop in the middle of the road and begin photographing a rusty old banger instead of the beautiful countryside….but that’s blogging for you!

There are two things that I enjoy most about travelling. The first is exploring the “true” country, away from the tourist areas, and the other is talking to the people of that country about their lives and their views on things. We spent Friday doing just that and although it was a very long and tiring day, it was well worth it.

We decided to cut right through the middle of the country and go up to the very northern part. If you look at the map above, we are living down in the south-west coast in the area called Lance Aux Epines and we wanted to drive up through St George’s (the capital), go across the centre of the island and up to Sauteurs. This is a distance of approximately 35 miles which we anticipated would take a couple of hours each way. Ha! Not quite!

As I’ve mentioned before, driving in Grenada is very different from driving in the UK, apart from the fact that both countries drive on the left. Apart from in the southwest of the country (near the capital), the roads are very small, narrow, very winding and often very potholed. And that’s the main roads! The biggest problem however is finding the way to where you are going if you are not intimately aquainted with every area of the island. The map is often of little help because there are no signposts letting you know which direction each road is going in, and there are no names on any of the villages that line the way one after the other. So every few minutes we will arrive at another point with four apparently identical roads going off in opposite directions (three will just take you further into the village and only one will take you through the village but you have no way of knowing which one of the four that is) and we will spend 20 minutes taking each one in turn, eventually finding that the first three take us on a 5 minute route that suddenly turns into grass and the final one (sod’s law it always IS the final one!) will get you to the next village along the route, where the process will begin again. Oh and of course you also don’t know which village you are now at as you had no idea what the last village was called, or the one before that, or the one before that……

Usually the easiest solution is to stop and ask people the way as you pass through the villages. There are always plenty of people about…workmen on the roadside, people cutting down vegetation with machetes, people walking home from work or school, and friends sitting on the front porch of their house or in a shack bar chatting together. The only problem with this solution is that you need to be able to make yourself understood and also to understand the response. It’s not normally a problem (after all the national language is English) but in some of the more rural areas, the accent can be very thick and difficult for us to understand, and naturally they have the same difficulty in understanding us. This doesn’t just happen when you ask for directions. Grenada is such a friendly place that people will call out to you as you drive by or stop to share a joke with you through their car window as you pass in the road. Often we just have to smile, nod and laugh along and hope we are making the right noises in the right places!

Because of the difficulties in navigating the route and the time spent going round and round in circles hopelessly lost, as well as the need to stop for calls of nature and food, the journey to the north and back home took us a staggering 8 hours!!!! It was utterly exhausting physically with all that driving, but also mentally since I spent most of that time peering at the map and trying desperately to fathom out where on earth we could be. However we did see so much of the country and learnt so much about the way of life away from the capital city area, that it was definitely educational and worthwhile.

Driving along these roads one passes through a village and then shortly after, another village and so on, all the way. Many of these houses are tiny and built simply of wood, with just a couple of rooms inside. Others are bigger and built of cement blocks. All of them tend to have a front porch facing the road, where people can sit out and watch the world going by as they chat with friends or braid each others hair etc. There is often washing hanging on lines merrily waving in the breeze, or sometimes it is laid out over the bushes around the house to dry in the hot sun.

There are dogs wandering around the houses and roads. Often these dogs will lie in the middle of the road and be reluctant to move! It is very sad to see that many of the dogs are very thin and occasionally limping. I want to take them all home and look after them! We saw two dogs who had obviously recently given birth and the tiny little puppies looked so adorable sitting by the side of the road with an expression of bemusement at the world around them! There are no noticeable breeds of dogs here like there are in the UK. Dogs here seem to belong to people but are not treated as “pets” in the same way as they are at home. They all look quite similar….basically short haired, brownish “Heinz 57” varieties!

As you drive along, you see goats every now and again, tethered to the verge by the road. We also stopped abruptly along one road when faced with a big brown bull in the middle of the road staring at us! Thankfully he didn’t seem to be in the least bit aggressive and after a couple of toots on the horn, he ambled to the side of the road where he was tethered to a rock.

There is a noticeably poorer standard of living when you start driving up into the villages inland and away from the main towns. People still have food and clothing and the children go to school etc, but there are many smaller wooden houses, people are working with machetes to cut down vegetation and in one area we noticed that people were collecting their water from standpipes alongside the roads.

We eventually decided to stop for lunch at another point where we had found ourselves lost and pulled into a bar/restaurant called “Daw’s Café”. Here we were greeted by a really nice guy called Wade who proceeded to cook us some lunch. We were the only people in the place and it consisted of one large room with a single table and a wooden bar. The food was absolutely delicious...chicken cooked over a BBQ, rice, pasta salad and green salad. This was washed down with a fresh fruit punch and the whole lot came to the grand total of £3.50 each!

We finally reached our destination on the north coast…the town of Sauteurs (pronounced “So-tairs”). As with our trip to Grenville, we arrived at school leaving time and one of the busiest times of the day. The town was pretty small and basic, but we wanted to visit a place there called “Carib’s Leap”. This is the edge of a cliff above the town itself where, in 1650, forty Carib warriors threw themelves off into the rocks and angry waters below, rather than surrender to the French who were invading their island. The actual spot was less dramatic than anticipated when we arrived and was now part of a rather unkempt graveyard belonging to the church that is now on this area of land.

After a brief drive around Sauteurs and the north east coast of Grenada, and having taken some photos, we decided to make our way back to the south of the island. We thought that having finally found our way up the route to the north, we would find it easier to get back again….not quite as easy as anticipated, especially since the sun was now going down and there was no light in the car! Having found ourselves going in the wrong direction, we eventually stopped back at Daw’s café again for refreshments and (mainly!) for a desperately needed toilet stop. I think Wade was somewhat surprised to see us back again a few hours since our last visit. We’d told him we would come back soon, but I doubt either of us was expecting it to be that soon!

We went inside and had some drinks and some of the cake he had just taken out of the oven (still warm!). Whilst there we met his two year old son, James, who must have been at nursery when we had stopped off for lunch. James was full of beans and, although we could barely understand what he was saying and he could barely understand us, we had fun playing with him whilst his Dad was in the kitchen. He particularly enjoyed us showing him how to take photos on our camera! Wade’s family have two dogs, one of which is a young puppy. Both were fairly thin and the little puppy looked so cute and sad that I picked him up and spent 20 minutes cuddling him on my lap…he really was adorable!

By now all the light had gone (the sun goes down very quickly here and by 6pm each day it is completely dark) and we had to make our way back the rest of the way with me trying to read the map by the light on my mobile phone! Thankfully we did remember most of the way from here on and the journey back was a bit less stressful that on the way up!

Phew! That was another massive bog entry! I’m not sure whether anyone will actually read all that, but it’s nice for me to have a record of my time here for the future so I’m glad I got it all down in writing. It has been very cloudy all day today, which is a first since we got here but actually makes a nice change! It rained very heavily in the night and a short while ago we had another big downpour, which I guess isn’t too suprising since we are at the end of the rainy season here. It is still nice and bright though, so I’m not complaining!

I’m off to get something to eat for lunch now and may be have a swim later. It is Sunday here, so all the shops are shut and people are at the beach or “liming” with friends (liming means chilling out and spending time together). Sounds like the best way to spend a Sunday to me!

I







I am sitting indoors at the moment having my nebulisers. It seems even hotter than normal today and its only 10am! I’m also feeling a bit rough today so I’m not looking forward to moving everything over to the apartment in a couple of hours, one of the hottest times of the day! Everything is packed now and ready to go, apart from all the food in the fridge and freezer which will have to come out at the last moment.

The apartment looks nice but it’s very small compared to having the space of a house – just a bedroom, lounge/kitchenette and a bathroom. However it does have the most stunning view of the sea, which I will take some photos of. It is part of the house where the owners of this villa live and we will share their pool and garden. The biggest benefit to it though it that we can have it free! Then after a week there we can move back to this villa for the final two weeks.

Now there aren’t many downsides to being in a tropical country, but there are a few. Many of them take the form of insects! Thankfully Grenada does not have such delights as poisonous spiders or scorpions, but the little pests can still cause trouble and sometimes a fright.

I have just counted my mosquito bites and they now number over 20. The mosquitoes here also seem to have developed the skill of making their bites as large and ITCHY as possible! I seem to be constantly scratching or trying desperately not to scratch. I’ve tried three different natural insect repellents now (I don’t like using the powerful toxic sprays as they are absorbed by the body through the skin). Yesterday we bought a new one that it made on the island and contains essential oils of citronella, eucalyptus, pennyroyal and cedarwood. When the sun went down I stood in the kitchen spraying it non stop all over my legs in an exceptionally liberal fashion.

The first thing I noticed was that Brad seemed to be on the verge of passing out from the fumes. The second thing I noticed was that the spray was an oil and I now looked like a ready-basted chicken. The third thing I noticed was that the oil had spread out in pools around my feet and been walked around the tiled floor, thus rendering it as lethal as an ice-rink. Undeterred, I declared to Brad (once I had resuscitated him) that there was no chance of a mosquito eating ME tonight and went skating of along the floor to sit outside and eat dinner. But guess what? This morning I have another bite right where I had sprayed my foot. I just hope that after eating me the flipping thing had severe indigestion from all the oils…..

I had another encounter with a couple of unpleasant insects on the second evening we were here. Firstly I padded out across the patio in my flipflops to hang a wet swimming towel on the washing line. Suddenly underfoot there was the most enormous SCRUNCH! Thinking I must have stood on one of the little frogs that seem to be everywhere in the evening, I did what any sane and rational woman would do….i.e. panicked, stood on one leg and yelled for Brad to help. However it was not a frog that I had stood on, it was the most spectacular sized cockroach, equipped with antennae about a foot long. At least it had been. Now it was on its back and dead as a doornail. Funny isn’t it, how they say that cockroaches would be the only creatures to survive a nuclear holocaust, and yet at the sight of my flipflops they go all pathetic and die?

About an hour later, and having recovered from this introduction to Grenadian insect life, I went into the kitchen from the bedroom to get a drink. This time I was in bare feet and as I padded across the kitchen I froze as my mind made sense of the fact that there was a long black wiggly thing about a foot long, beside my feet. The fact that it had more legs that you could shake a stick at, hastily informed me that this was either a centipede or a millipede. I guess I could have worked out exactly which it was had I had the inclination to kneel beside him and attempt to count his legs (“9,835….9,836…..9,837….oh shit he’s moved!”). However at that particular moment analysing the mathematical arrangement of the hugewigglything’s legs was very far from my mind.

Having clearly learnt how to deal with such situations from the encounter with the cockroach an hour earlier, I clearly handled this matter in a far more sane and rational manner…..I sped across the kitchen, leapt onto a high bar stool and screamed for Brad at the top of my voice. Brad’s response was something along the lines of “Oooh hello, that’s interesting” at which point I informed him that no, it wasn’t at all interesting, it was quite frankly horrible and scary. So there’s me stood on a barstool being hysterical and making girly sounds like “Ooooooh it’s horrible! It’s horrible!” and there’s Brad with his caveman instinct coming out, trying to protect his over-sensitive woman by encouraging the hugewigglything to climb onto a magazine so he could move it outdoors.

Now I had read that the millipedes on Grenada are harmless but that the centipedes can bite, and are distinguishable because they are segmented. I decided to helpfully inform Brad of this fact (from the safety of my bar stool) and called out “Brad! Brad! It might bite. Is it a centipede or a millipede?” At this point there was a thwack and the reply came back “I’ve no idea but it’s a squashedpede now”.

Sadly I have no photos of centipedes, millipededs or even squashedpedes to delight you with, nor even giant cockroaches or teeny mosquitoes. So you’ll have to make do with the photo of the impressively huge cricket that decided to spend some time indoors with us yesterday evening instead. Enjoy!

Today we have decided to spend the day chilling out at the villa before we have to pack everything up later, ready to move to the apartment in the morning. I am sitting here on top of the roof terrace, one of my favourite places. The roof terrace is quite large and partly covered by a pergola so it’s nice and shady. There are potted tropical plants around the terrace and bright blue railing surrounding it.

In front of me I have a gorgeous view of the sea, some rooftops of other villas, a huge expanse of sky and a couple of palm trees gently swaying in the breeze. To my left and right are large expanses of green trees and tropical fern leaves growing up from the garden below.

The sky has gone quite overcast above the sea at the moment, though behind me is still bright blue sky and little white fluffy clouds. I think we may have some showers in a minute. I don’t mind the rain at all in Grenada as it’s completely different from in the UK. Here there are short sudden downpours of rain and within a short time the sun is back out and everything quickly dries. Tropical showers are also nice and warm, very different from the rain at home where there may be days of endless gloom and drizzle, not to mention the cold!

The sounds I can hear are the singing of birds, the distant sound of workmen talking and working as they build a new house nearby, and a very occasional car driving up the road. The villa is situated in a quiet, affluent part of the island, and there are quite a lot of ex-pats here, mainly Americans and British. The houses here are mostly large, with good-sized gardens and beautiful sea views. Some of the houses are palatial, but ours is quite small and sweet. I wouldn’t want to be rumbling around in a mansion personally!

There is a noticeable difference in wealth of the inhabitants of the island as you drive around. Here in the area around St George’s (the capital) you find all the hotels, banks, businesses, shopping malls, University, etc. Many of the people here are better off and have big houses. Once you venture away from the south-west corner of the island, you tend to find a more traditional way of life and generally a poorer standard of living.

I had a bit of a sad moment earlier when I was sitting up here on the roof terrace eating my breakfast. I was looking at the view and thinking how much I love it here. Then I got to thinking about how I’ve always wanted to live abroad, ever since I spent a year in South Africa. Sadly I don’t think this is a dream that will ever be realised, at least not somewhere far from home. Whilst I can forget about having CF a lot of the time, it does interfere with wanting to live abroad, especially now that my health is becoming more problematic. If it wasn’t for CF I really do think that Brad and I would both choose to focus our lives on travelling and living abroad.

I also got to thinking about something that has been on my mind since I got here, which is will I ever be able to come back to somewhere like this again? The flight over this time really took it out of me and was the maximum I could possibly have pushed my lungs to. By the time we arrived I had a temperature and my lungs began bleeding, but more than that I was utterly exhausted. For the next couple of days I was so breathless that Brad was even having to help me with tasks like getting dressed. Thankfully I am feeling loads better now, but with having to have oxygen when I fly now and particularly with the impossibility of getting travel insurance, it does make me realise that my ability to travel to places like these may be becoming very difficult. That’s quite a sad thought really at the age of 32.

Anyway, these thoughts only lasted a few moments and when I have them I just think how incredibly lucky I am to be here right now and get on with enjoying the time I am here and making the most of every day in this paradise place. I love the brightness here, the sunshine, the blue skies, the bright colourful flowers, the relaxed way of life, the gorgeous white sand beaches, the people, our swimming pool, everything! Even going food shopping is a fun experience!

I think a lot about Emily while I am here and how sad it is that she can’t experience these things at the moment. When I’m swimming in the pool or the sea, or walking around the town, or seeing new places I think of Emily and how much she would love to be able to do what I’m doing now. It makes me appreciate what I have and am able to enjoy, and also how fortunate I am to be here. And Emily, I know you will be reading this, so just think of what you will be able to do and see and experience once you have those new lungs which you WILL get soon, I promise!

Wow, that was a long blog entry! Whilst I’ve been writing it the grey clouds have moved away and the view in front of me is now of a bright blue sky and a lovely blue sea. There is a beautiful breeze keeping me cool and the pink bourganvillea is gently swaying in the air. I’m off to eat some toast and then jump in the pool to cool off! Byeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Today we decided to explore some more of Grenada, so headed off along the coast road that winds along the south coast and then up the east side of the island. In Grenada it takes a very long time to travel a fairly short distance because the roads are very narrow and continually twist in and out as they snake along the coast and wind in and out of the hillsides. A lot of the roads further away from the capital of St George’s are also quite rough and potholed, which makes for a rather bumpy ride at times!

The route weaved through one little village after another. These villages usually have a couple of wooden shack mini-marts and bars, a church, sometimes a school and the occasional small business repairing tyres or selling car parts. There are people out walking down the roads, dogs trying to find patches of shade or food, school children playing on their way home, the occasional tethered goat and a gentle trickle of activity as you drive through.

Our destination was Grenville, the main town in the parish of St Andrew’s, the largest producer of Grenada’s main export crops – cocoa, nutmeg and bananas, as well as spices, vegetables, coconuts, fruit and flowers. Last time we visited Grenada (in 1999) we visited the nutmeg station here and had a tour of the factory where the nutmegs and mace (outer covering of a nutmeg that is also used as a spice) are purchased, separated, dried and prepared for shipment.

Grenville (pictured above) is a bustling old town and was particularly busy when we arrived as school had finished for the day, so the roads and pavements were full of schoolchildren. Here all children wear very traditional, smart school uniforms, even the older pupils. The small girls look particularly cute in their little red and white checked dresses with their hair plaited neatly with big white ribbons.

We parked up in the centre of Grenville and had a walk around in the heat of the baking sun. The strangest thing was being the only two white people we saw in all the crowds of people going about their daily lives in the town. There is no problem with safety as everyone is very friendly. It just makes you feel really self-conscious that you can’t blend into the background and that you are so clearly the odd ones out!

We bought some delicious bags of peanuts from a street seller who was roasting them in honey and spices over an open grill. I’ve never tasted peanuts as delicious as those…and at only 20p per bag they were a total bargain too. We also went into quite a few little shops selling a whole variety of items from homewares to clothes to toys. They are all quite dark inside as they have no windows so that the sun is kept out.

I saw some pretty skirts in one shop and we went in to find out how much they were. They were hanging up on the ceiling and the lady had to get a big stick to get down the one I liked. She asked if I’d like to try it on, so I said that would be a good idea, and she took me to a very unique changing room. There was a make-shift wooden door along the back wall of the shop and she opened it up for me to go inside. Once in there I could hardly move…it was smaller than our cupboard at home where we keep the vacuum cleaner! “Good job I’m not on the large size” I thought. There was a mirror in there but due to the fact it was completely dark (apart from the light coming over the top of the door) it was a bit difficult to tell what the skirt looked like, but at least I could tell it fitted before reversing back out of the tiny partition and at £9 it was a bargain too.

By now we were melting in the heat and stopped off at a bar down a side street for a cold drink. It was a typical street bar, with a lino floor, a few wooden tables covered with flowery plastic tablecloths and plastic potted plants on top. It actually seemed hotter than outside as there was no breeze in there, but a couple of ceiling fans slowly rotated, moving the heavy warmth around a bit. A handful of people were watching American Football on the TV, which seems to have quite a big following here. I did try to use the “washroom” but finding that, like the changing room, it had no source of light, I decided that whilst I could just about manage to put a skirt on in complete darkness, I’d rather not try and use a tiny cramped toilet in the same circumstances!

After we got back in the car we tried to find the alternative route back, through the interior rainforest of the country instead of along the coast. However this proved very difficult due to the problems of navigating in Grenada. Having a map is only a certain amount of help on the island because there are no signs anywhere! This means that the roads have no names, there are no signs saying what each village is called, and there are no road signs pointing out which direction you are heading! Add this to the fact that there are no obvious main roads - just lots of narrow windy lanes with varying amounts of potholes – and you can end up hopelessly lost!

In the end, after half an hour of weaving up and down steep tracks, we found our way back to the sea and decided to just stick with going back the way we had come. At least if you keep near the sea you only need to worry about whether it is on your right or your left! After an hour we were back in the capital of St George’s, a distance of about 20 miles. We stopped of at a supermarket for some meat, flour and bread and then headed home for a rest.

Tomorrow we are going to spend the day mainly in the villa relaxing and swimming in the pool, as we will have a busy day on Thursday since we have to move all our stuff to the nearby apartment we are renting for next week. The following week we will be moving back to the villa for the last 2 weeks of our stay here. It’s certainly going to take a bit of work packing up everything as we now have a fridge and cupboards full of food!

It is 8.30pm here and I’m typing this outside on the terrace. The tree frogs are cheeping their hearts out, the mosquitoes are making their regular evening attempts to munch me and I’m going to go and have a swim in the pool now to cool off! Byeeeeeeeeeee!

Welcome to Grenada!

Well the title of this blog is “Take me to the Caribbean” and when I thought it up I wasn’t sure when or if I would ever get to go back to this wonderful part of the world which I love so much and which holds so many special memories (including my wedding day!)

But finally, here I am! Living on the beautiful island of Grenada for a whole 4 weeks….and believe me, I really do know just how lucky I am. Over the next few weeks I will try to write lots about what it is like here and what I’ve been up to. But first I thought I’d start with a small introduction to the island itself.

Grenada is a Caribbean island and lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, north of Trinidad and Venezuela. The island is 21 miles long and 12 miles wide which doesn’t sound that big, but because of the little windy roads around the island and because there is so much to see and admire, it takes a long time to travel a fairly short distance.

Grenada has numerous beaches, warm blue sea, the prettiest harbour in the Caribbean and a mountainous rainforest interior with lush vegetation and dramatic waterfalls. The land is very fertile and produces bananas, mangoes, cocoa, papayas, etc. However the biggest export here is spices and this is why Grenada is called the “Spice Isle”. Spices cultivated here include nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and ginger but nutmeg is the most important, with Grenada producing 40% of the world’s nutmeg supplies!

The temperature here is roughly 30°C all year round and the people are as warm as the sunshine….friendly, smiling and helpful and truly lovely to meet.

Grenada was devastated by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. It left more than half of Grenada’s 95,000 people homeless, damaged 90% of the buildings and decimated the island’s nutmeg industry. However, thanks to the dedication of the local and international community, the island has made – and is continuing to make – an excellent recovery.

Well that’s it for a short explanation of the beautiful island where I am spending November. From tomorrow I will start to write more about my experiences here and my travels around the island. Right now I’m off to bed for a nice long snooze!