Take nothing for granted

As I write this blog we are even closer to the end of our wonderful adventure in St Lucia. I have given this blog the title I have, because of 2 events in the last few days that have made me realise more than ever that we should never take anything for granted and should live each moment as if it were our last. On Thursday, I went for a swim after work with Elaine. The sea is cooler now, but still a lovely temperature and is easy to get in to. It just gives you a fresh swoosh as you go in rather than it’s previous inviting warmth. I walked back past the neighbours about 5.45 and all was quiet, all was well. I sat with Anthony on our front porch, as is our custom here, to catch up on our respective days, and then went to have a shower. When I got out and came downstairs, he told me that a man had been shot just down the street! He had heard what he thought were 5 or 6 pistol shots at about 6.15pm, and then a woman screaming, and had gone to investigate. Our neighbour 3 houses down, less than 100 yards away, was lying in the road on his back dead from being shot in the head. His poor distraught girlfriend was next to him and a few neighbours including Errol (aka ‘country and western man’) who is a policeman, were calling the police and ambulance. Our immediate neighbour, Mikey, had just walked down to see if he could help, but John, the victim, was clearly dead from his wounds. It appears that someone pulled up as he got things from his car, after coming home from work, got out of his car and shot him at point blank range. The poor man probably died instantly and didn’t even know what was happening. It looked to me as if he had been shot from behind. It was shocking in so many ways but makes me remember that none of us knows which day, or moment, may be our last. This was a targeted shooting and there are local rumours about why, but somebody wanted him dead. Such shootings are not common here, but are increasing as more illegal guns seem to be around. I have been told that it is relatively cheap to hire someone to carry out a killing for you, as little as a few hundred Eastern Caribbean dollars. For some, life is cheap and it seemed like such a waste of a life. I had spoken to the man a few times and those that knew him said he was a nice man. The police came within 15 mins and cordoned off the area until well after dark. Anthony was visited by 2 officers the next day and asked what he had heard. Folk say they may never catch the culprit, as they have little forensic tools here, and many won’t talk, even if they know something, for fear of the same thing happening to them. So very sad for everyone. We still feel safe here though, it just reminds us that nowhere is immune from violence and crime.

The following day, Friday 14th, Valentine’s Day, was our 6th wedding anniversary. We decided to go to the yacht club to watch the sun set and then to have a romantic meal at home. This would have all been perfect had it not been for the fact that during the afternoon, the water in our pipes slowed to a trickle and then stopped. We still have no running water over 4 days later. This is not uncommon here but it’s our first experience of a disruption. Information has been scarce, but it seems to be due to a break in a major pipe. Most of the north of St Lucia is affected and is without fresh running water. The first break was repaired on Monday evening, but no sooner had it been fixed than another was found. Every house has a water tank, and switches to this if the mains supply fails, but this is not drinking water. Our tank water doesn’t flow, it trickles, slowly, very slowly. Our tank, unlike most of our neighbours, is at ground level so it has almost zero fall, in fact, it has to go uphill to reach the kitchen taps. We have no water upstairs at all, so we have had to fill the cistern with water from bottles that we have slowly, oh so very slowly, filled from the kitchen tap, before we can flush to toilet. We were advised, in hurricane season, to keep enough drinking water for up to 3 days, and we still had most of this left. Nevertheless, we were running low by Sunday morning and went early to the supermarket, Massy, to get more. The bottles were flying off the shelves even at 8am, and we got the last 5 litre bottle plus a few 2 litre ones, so we are ok for now. Luckily, our friends Judy and Fred, who are staying at Bay Gardens Hotel for 9 weeks, said we could use their shower on Sunday morning, which was wonderful. The hotels seem to have massive storage tanks so all was well for them….and us as the spruce up was very welcome before we went to a most delicious and sociable lunch with Elaine and Tony. So,the last few days have also made me realise that even running, clean, drinkable water, should not be taken for granted. We are so incredibly lucky to have this in the UK but large numbers of people around the world don’t have it and even if they do, like here, it can go at any time, and often does. This may be our first experience of it, but for Lucians it is familiar. Many people pride themselves on being able to wash their whole body in a litre and a half and still flush the loo with the dirty water! I will be counting my blessings when it is back on, but as I write this on Tuesday evening, we are still waiting. Clean running water should be a basic human right in the 21st century but this reminds me that for so many in the world it is a luxury they do not have access to.

Judy, who I mentioned, is a Hanen tutor (google it) and SLT that I worked with in Toronto 17 years ago. She has been working here with CDGC for 7 weeks, since early January, doing training and running groups. She met my boss, Kim’s, Mother in St Lucia over 20 years ago and through her came to work there. It is such a small world. Anthony and I have met her and her lovely husband Fred a couple of times for fish and chips at Island Mix, the arty place where we did our art classes. Every Thursday they do fish and chips, Lucian style. For $25 EC we have tasty tuna and home cooked thin fries, served wrapped in brown paper, with home made tartar sauce. The tuna is not the tuna we know, but a local moist, white fish. It is really fresh and cooked in a crisp homemade batter.We usually have a glass or two of white wine and finish with their home baked rum cake. We sit by the waterfront in the garden there, with boats moored up nearby, and generally have a splendid evening. Judy and Fred leave on Thursday and return to London, Ontario. It has been fun spending time with them.

We have, a week ago, said goodbye to my lovely friend Sal, who came a few days after Catherine left. Sal and I knew each other as friends in Winchester when we were 15, so she is my oldest friend that I am still in touch with. We lost contact once or twice over the years but always seem to find each other again. Sal was working with Hampshire County Council when I started my job there nearly 7 years ago and now lives in London, working with the BBC. Sal is another of my intrepid friends who I admire greatly, in so many ways. She is intelligent, fun, interesting and has a beautiful smile. She is a passionate, giving and caring soul who has recently spent 10 days volunteering at a camp for migrants in Greece. Now that is tough volunteering! We have many things in common, including a love of walking, swimming and yoga. Sal definitely made the most of these while she was here, doing most of them every day she was here. Like Lucy, Sal got to know more people that I don’t know, and got me on the local yoga WhatsApp group, so that now I am about to go, I finally know where and when all the classes happen. Harmony Suites is where Yoga St Lucia hold classes and Sal went a lot while I was at work. She found that they were to hold a class in the ruins on Pigeon Island, on her last Sunday, so we had to go. Anthony went to get our loungers and our favourite spot on the cove, while Sal and I went to the class. The setting was magical with the old stone walls of the camp hospital around us and the dappled shade of the trees keeping us cool while we adopted all sorts of challenging positions. Parts of me got stretched that haven’t been stretched for a very long time. After the class, we could chill for the rest of the day swimming and snorkelling, reading on our loungers and enjoying another memorable lunch at Jambe de Bois. While we were there a 442 ft fully rigged tall cruise ship, Royal Clipper (Google it) came sailing, yes sailing, around the southern tip of the island. As she eased into the bay, she began to furl in her sails; it was quite a sight and made me think of sights there in days gone by when galleons, schooners and clippers would have regularly sailed into Rodney Bay. The snorkeling was good that day and I saw 2 fish for the first time; a colourful puffer fish and a flat fish, maybe a skate, that suddenly appeared from the sand and then camouflaged itself again on a nearby rock, amazing to see. We lingered and lounged, and stayed as long as we could, then treated ourselves to a water taxi with Malachai. At our request, he took us around the back of Royal Clipper so we could see her up close. She was very impressive and had a rear door and ramp open so that guests could go down and enjoy a range of water sports or just lounge in sea hammocks and enjoy the views.

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Good food was again at the heart of our time with Sal. We had another welcome meal at Spinnakers, an outstanding meal at Razmataz and went somewhere new, Sea Salt, at the Marina. Elaine had recommended this and we had a lovely meal. including really delicious sweet potato balls. We also cooked cristophene au gratin one evening and, my new speciality, lentil cottage pie, a real winner. On the Monday after Sal arrived, I had a leave day and I had arranged to hire a car from Jo, our next door but one neighbour. We took it for a couple of hours on the Sunday evening and drove to Calabash Cove to see the sunset, with a rum punch of course. The following morning, we headed to Soufriere to see the sights that get no less spectacular with each visit. Sal and I had a real laugh and relax in the sulphur baths and, as we had arrived early, we even had them all to ourselves for about 15 minutes. From there we went to the Tet Paul Trail. This time, Sal had the hammock with the most amazing view. I also noticed small pineapples growing that I had missed before. I now have 2 growing in my garden, which hopefully we can eat if we come back again next year (something we both hope to do). We also went in a reconstructed traditional wooden home, also missed last time. It was furnished much as it would have been over 150 years ago and was very bijoux and very quaint. Lucy would love it. Lunch, we had decided, would be at Fond Doux, but only after we took Sal to Stonefield for a pre lunch drink to see the views. As we were leaving to go to the car I saw a cocoa tree and went to show it to Sal, whereupon we met Kingsley, the gardener. He offered to show us the cocoa beans, which neither Anthony, nor Sal, had yet seen. They got to taste the fruit and a bean; thank you Kinsley. Whoever first worked out how wonderful the beans were once dried and grated, was a saint. After lunch, we decided to do the white knuckled drive to Anse Chastanet beach. It is a rough and steep 2 mile drive around the mountain to the north of Soufriere, with plenty of hairpin bends, and the most amazing views back towards the town and the Pitons. It is a single track road so we were hoping to not meet another car or a bus at a difficult point. We did meet 2 or 3, but, fortunately, only where it was not too far, or too scary, to reverse. Anthony hadn’t done this before either and loved the beach and the fantastic snorkelling, as did Sal. We were there late afternoon and the golden light quality there was quite gorgeous.

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As well as all that, we fitted in a ladies’ walk around Vigie and Point Seraphine, this time walking to the lighthouse at the top; a walk up the mountain (Ant and Sal); another day at Pigeon with lunch (well, why not?) and Sal made it to Cas en Bas with Jo and Chupps the dog. One highlight for me was when we were on Fisherman’s beach when the beach lived up to the name that Lucy gave it. Sal and I decided to swim along the beach. As we got past the Starfish resort, a fishing boat from Gros Islet came up on the beach and 2 fishermen climbed out. They took with them the end of an impossibly long and colourful net, while the boat went out, around us, reeling out the net as they went. Two men were in the sea with snorkels and flippers signalling to the boat as to the whereabouts of the shoal of sardines that we were swimming through, shouting in Patois ‘Allez, allez’, ‘Go, go’. The net came back to shore about 80 yards or more along towards Marie’s, encircling the shoal….and us. Well I am sure it would have been exciting to have been swept in like a mermaid to the shore in their nets, but we decided not to and to get out and swim back outside the nets. The net itself had floats to keep the top on the surface and smaller weights on the bottom to keep it near the sea floor. Fishermen at each end of the net slowly hauled it in, while others, and the snorkelers, carefully teased it over the few rocks in the way to ensure there were no tears. We swam back to the beach and after getting my phone, I walked down the beach to watch the catch come ashore and take photos. It took almost an hour and a half, and drew quite a crowd, and many hungry birds, but the fishermen pulled in a haul of silvery fish that they emptied into the floor of their wooden pirogue, almost filling it. It took about 7 or 8 men to lift it in. I had a real sense of watching an age old scene. Fishermen must have caught fish in this way for hundreds of years and it was a sight to behold. A few gutsy fish managed to jump over the nets as they were being drawn in, and everyone wished them godspeed. Frigate birds, brown boobies and terns took their share, diving again and again into the water very near to us at one point. After the haul had been landed, those who had helped, and those who had watched were invited to pick out the small fish that had got entangled in the net. Most of you will know that I am a bit of a forager and adore fish, as did my dear Dad, so I was keen to have a few for my supper. They were fresh and delicious a few hours later with a squeeze of lime.

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One other inescapable event when visiting us is the Friday night street party, or ‘jump up’ in Gros Islet. On Sal’s last Friday, we were joined by Charlie and Janetta, friends from Yarmouth, who were staying at Windjammer. It was their first time on St Lucia and they had suggested that we meet up for the party night. We had a blast! Street food was consumed, included lobster, lambi and shrimp skewers, chicken and local delicacies such as plantain, mac n cheese and green fig salad. All washed down with lots of rum punch and a lot of dancing! This is such an antidote for any worries or hard work of the week….we should really do it in Yarmouth! Although, on second thoughts, maybe 3 or 4 degrees is not as conducive to ‘letting go’ to the vibe as 27 degrees is? I am gonna miss this kind of release to the beat at the end of my week 🙂

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I will finish this blog as I started, thinking about things that shouldn’t be taken for granted. We lost our cat Shee Rah 10 days ago while Sal was here. She was 12 and Laura was with her at home when she died. Needless to say, we are very sad and will miss her enormously. We never thought that when we left, and last saw her in December, it would be the last time we saw her. We have also lost 2 friends since coming here, one a particularly dear friend to us both, who Anthony has known for more than 40 years. I did wonder what would happen in the 6 months that I was away, but I never thought that when I said my goodbyes to some people, and to Shee Rah, that I would not see them again. I am trying more and more to never take anyone or anything for granted, particularly as we get older. This was, in fact, a motivating factor in choosing to come to St Lucia; the thought that we never know how long either of us might have left to do adventurous things. Losing precious friends and realising how fragile life is, crystallises the need to do the things that make us happy, and that we want to do now…..and to also do things that help others along the way to be happier. Fight injustice, give as much as we can (not just money but time, effort and of ourselves), be kind and do something everyday that you love….and above all, don’t take anything for granted.