Well I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to hear that my feet have been trained and now seem to accept flip flops as footwear not instruments of torture. Most days I walk for over an hour between short walks to shops in the morning, the beach at lunchtime and often another walk to and along the beach in the evening with Allie. Between that and the healthy eating I’m delighted to say that the weight is dropping and the waistline diminishing steadily! Long may it continue.
We’re both writing at the same time now so there may be some crossover but hopefully you’ll get slightly different perspectives on what we’ve been up to.
You’ll have seen all the coverage of Hurricane Dorian and references in Allie’s blog. It turns out we were very lucky it passed right over us but didn’t dump loads of rain until it hit Martinique, only 6 or 7 miles north. We were well prepared and now know what to do if another storm appears. I feel incredibly sorry for the residents of The Bahamas who have never experienced a storm like it. Some of the video is terrifying.
My day to day routine remains fairly similar, bartenders are beginning to reach for the rose as I approach the bar, not that I make it easy for them as I’ve taken to switching it with Piton, the local lager, rum punch or Sauvignon Blanc to keep them on their toes! Unsurprisingly it’s more expensive to drink on the beach than inland except at the St. Lucia Yacht Club of which I am the newest member, 6 months overseas membership for $EC250 or about £75. This does however entitle me to 20% off all drinks which is a real deal. I’ve met a few people now but still working on trying to find a group of like minded retired blokes to join up with. The tennis club is not easy to get to from here without a car and is only open 5-7pm which is a difficult time for me with Allie getting home about 4.30pm most days.
We hired a car last weekend and, as you have to buy a US$25 driving permit decided we’d only get one and Allie would drive this time. This was good because she is a very safe and sensible driver and you need to be on these roads but also because it meant that I could really take in the countryside and scenery whilst, mostly, relaxing in the passenger seat. They drive on the left here and most traffic regulations are the same as the UK but 95% of drivers are much more courteous than in the UK. They stop for you at junctions and give way even when they’re on main roads. They are similarly courteous to pedestrians. If they see you waiting to cross even a main road they will flash their hazard lights and usher you across and oncoming drivers respect that. UK drivers could learn a lot from them. Like the IoW there is only one short stretch of dual carriageway on the island on the northern edge of Castries which is a bit lively as the lanes are a bit narrow with concrete barriers and they call it the “motorway” and speed up accordingly.
Whilst Rodney Bay is lovely it is fairly built up and it was nice to explore the spectacular coast on northern tip of the island on Saturday and visit the market in Castries and see a bit more of St. Lucian life. On Sunday we drove down to Soufriere, only about 16 or 17 miles as the crow flies but at least 1.5 hours’ drive on amazing winding steep and at times bumpy roads. The drive takes one through small fishing villages and past little hamlets up in the hills amongst incredible vegetation with beautiful splashes of colour from exotic plants. We visited the Diamond Botanic Gardens which were breathtakingly lovely, serene and peaceful but I’ll let Allie tell you more about that, and the sulphur springs and drive-in volcano both of which were firsts for me.
On both Saturday evening and Sunday lunchtime we visited beautiful private resorts which welcome visitors which is a nice change from the norm at home or in Europe. Again I’m sure Allie will have more to say. Everywhere is nice and quiet now as it’s still low season here so we are benefitting from that, on Sunday we had a beautiful seaside restaurant ,with use of swimming pool, all to ourselves apart from one couple who appeared for about 30 minutes, ate then disappeared. We think they were on honeymoon!
I hope I’m not jinxing myself when I say we’ve had almost no mosquito bites and that’s unusual especially for me, I usually seem to attract them from miles around. I have had to make a few running repairs to the fly screens on the windows but so far so good.
I get a little flavour of home most days by listening to Wave 105 online so I’m probably the only person on St. Lucia who can tell you the state of the traffic on the M27 or when Wightlink are having “operational problems”!
I’ve just heard on the news that Boris’s brother has jumped ship, what a palaver. Can’t believe what a balls up we’ve made of the whole thing. Just want it to be over.
Anyway that’s enough from me for now…..until the next time.
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