New Woman

Hello World,
It's been a while since the last Blog and there are reasons for this.
The most important one (and I shall only list one, the rest of the reasons will be the blog) was because our computer was subjected to a couple of power surges when the local electricity company had an island-wide blackout, caused, allegedly, by a monkey swinging on the power cables. (No, I'm not making it up!) The effect was that as Michele was turning on the computer, two seconds later the power went out. Eventually the power came on but the computer wasn't quite the same so she left it for a couple of days then powered on again. Just at that exact same time, a second power outtage happened in a local generator serving the airport. Talk about timing! Well, that did it for good. The darned thing would not work, it had a siren and an alarm going on the tower, the monitor wouldn't start; nothing worked. It was only when a computer technician came to try and sort the problem did we find out that the two power surges were what affected the computer despite us having at least three separate power surge protectors. Well, the upshot of it all was a phone call and a letter were sent to the electric company; they put their insurance agents to sort it and a very nice man came, took away the computer tower and brought it back to us, fixed, on Christmas Eve. Okay, there were a lot of phone calls made in between and visits to shopping malls for an estimate of the price of a new tower, calls to the insurance company, calls to the electricity company, calls to local computer shops to send estimates - which they all said they'd do but not one of them did, etc, but we don't need to go there.
We're run ragged off of our feet, looking after the animals and the house, etc, as Pops is in England for a holiday. He is bringing Mum back for their Golden Wedding Anniversary in March. Fifty years! As Tony says, "You get less for murder!". Just goes to show how loving our family is.

Tony's sister came down for two weeks before Christmas for a break. We had excellent drinking time with her. Not many people who holiday in Bim can say they spent a whole day at an abattoir; Barbara can! The bottom line is - two weeks weren't enough, so she's coming back!
Tone's been helping a friend build a house, so it's just Michele home most of the time. What with driving Josh to school and back, shopping, cleaning, laundry, hoovering, mopping, washing, finding new uses for old limes, making Bajan cherry jam (with a little help from Delia Smith) etc there's been hardly any time for sitting and reflecting on the day's activities before sleep takes over and a new day begins again.
Well, boo hoo to me. I'm in Barbados where it's hot every day, it hasn't snowed, nobody's died and the skies are not cloudy or grey!
Anyway, a new string to Michele's bow - take a look at the picture accompanying this blog. Yes. Michele is holding two of the new pups after she washed, dried and de-flea'd them! [If "de-flea'd" is the wrong spelling or whatever, please do let me know, I couldn't find it in the dictionary.]
Again, yes, Michele is holding two live animals.
She actually mentioned in an email to her friend that she thought the pups were cute but the friend said that without pictures it's all hearsay. Josh has named the pup on the right Simba and the one on the left Hector. There was a third, a girl pup called Squirt (she had the squits from the time she was weaned) but she's on the dog-pile now or should we call it Tony's "mass grave".

We've cut down the tallest pawpaw tree Michele grew so the young ones can grow up.

Last Sunday for dinner we had home-grown chicken, home-grown green beans, home-grown pumpkin, home-grown eddoes, home-grown yam, home-grown cucumber, home-grown tomatoes and "Irish" potatoes from Idaho in America, all washed down with limeade from our own trees! We spent the evening on the sofa at home and groaned from our full bellies.

Snowed Under!

Hello Friends,
No, it hasn't been snowing in Barbados but with the amount of weather happening in the world at the moment, we wouldn't be surprised (we'd be very cold but not surprised!) as we're currently heading towards the rainiest part of the year for us in Christ Church. All sorts of different clouds are making their way across the sky, from all different directions, carrying various types of rain that drop in no set pattern. Ha, as I speak, we're having buckets of the stuff coming down on us so here's a photo of a bush on the front drive.
The other night we sat out on the back porch with no lights except moonlight and it was absolutely brilliantly bright with Tony exclaiming, "Who turned the light out?" whenever a cloud crossed below the moon.
Here's a picture of the famous birthday cake Michele made for Pops' birthday in September. Out of a box, with coconut and pecan frosting on top, you'd expect it was lovely and tasty. Okay... BUt the main words in this paragraph being "cake Michele made", it was a bit gooey inside where it should have risen more and a little bit black round the edges where Michele was waiting for it to rise and the oven may have been a tad too warm and the cake was a little bit too sweet as Michele put the frosting in between the cake as well as on the outside and all around the edges. Needless to say the cake was eaten in two days. And, NO, before you ask, the sheep, pigs and dogs didn't get any!

Quick Growth

Hello Friends,
You may or may not notice that the blog is looking slightly different than it has for a long time... we now have the sidebar back at the side as opposed to having the sidebar below the blog. It took a while and a lot of help from people on a Help Forum but in the end it is back now.
The pictures you are looking at are an update of the pictures we first posted in Bloodhound in a Sheep Pen (click on Quick Growth title above to see that post). We hadn't noticed how quickly the trees had grown until we checked back on that blog. We're not so much concerned with the dog; as you can see, it is still behind the fence and living a dog's life under the pigpen but the pawpaw trees growing in front of the fence. We had originally planted about six trees from the vast amount of black seeds you get in a pawpaw; there are now four thriving trees - one of which has pawpaws growing on it. Here's a picture of Tony with his hand on a lower fruit for perspective; we should be eating them in the next few days as the lower fruit are nearly ripe!
As far as PigPen Penny goes, she's still firmly ensconced under the pigpen, still gets free food, still comes out regularly to poop and stretch her legs and drink water with the black belly sheep and still gets chased back under the pigpen every time our other dogs see her. Personally, Michele thinks she should stop getting free food but, looking at it from the dog's point of view, there are sheep, chickens, turkeys and yard fowl (they're new! More on them in a new blog!) all getting fed for doing absolutely nothing! And when you factor in the birds, mice and occasional rats, well, why should the dog work for its supper, eh?

Summer Holidays are over for Josh

Hello Friends,
Well, Josh is back at school now after 9 1/2 weeks holiday! He's gone into the first stream of the third year and so far is getting through his homework easily. His school has just had a new library built so the teachers are looking for donations of children's books to populate it. I have given over quite a few of the younger books we brought over with us as our contribution. Surprisingly it hasn't made a dent in the vast library we own.
During the holidays we went shopping, beach picnics, sightseeing around Barbados, beach, visiting relatives, beach, watched the Crop Over parade, Bridgetown Market, Fish Fry Evenings, trip to the circus and a few trips to the beach with cousins, so that was nice. In between times he was enjoying his favourite role as cowboy and shepherd with his Granddad.
He's also been in contact with a few people on the net and by phone, which is also lovely for him.

Here is an article from the Barbados Advocate written on the day we went to the show.

Suarez Brothers Circus dazzles with fantastic opening night
Web Posted - Fri Aug 18 2006
By Marc Gibson

S for Spectacular! S for Stupendous! S for Suarez Brothers Mexican Circus, which held its grand opening night show at the Spring Garden Highway on Wednesday night.

The over two-hour long show certainly held more than its fair share of thrills and surprises, with plenty of tumbling, twirling, and breathtaking balancing acts by the talented troupes of acrobats setting the night off to a fabulous start.

While there is certainly more than enough to dazzle and amaze both children and adults, a number of lucky children got the chance to meet Big Boy the Giraffe up close.

Lucky adult members of the audience also had their chance in the spotlight under the Big Top, as Evan the Clown frequently enlisted the assistance of the crowd. Sadly, some members of the local audience were, at first, somewhat reluctant to join in the fun but Evan the Clown s quality performances and hilarious antics kept the audience in stitches.

The thrills did not stop there, as the attention of the audience was captured by the agility of seven tigers, three of which were white tigers. Under the direction of the animal trainer some tigers spun on stools, while others rode on a giant wire wheel, and leapt through a ring of fire.

While the crowd was greatly appreciative of the high wire antics of the death-defying trio of acrobats, and was dazzled by the trapeze troupe The Flying Angels , the must-see stunt and attention-riveting performance of the evening was the foursome of daredevil bikers who pulled the audience to the tips of their seats with their hair-raising performance in the Globe of Death .

While the stunt began with two motorcyclists confined within the Globe of Death , the audience was stuck silent by the precision, no, the daring of the performers when the number of motorcycles and riders within the globe rose to four. The applause that filled the Big Top after the four riders completed their performance could only be described as thunderous.

With shows Monday to Friday at 8 p.m. and two shows on Saturday and Sunday at 5 and 8 p.m. Barbadians will certainly have plenty of opportunities over the next four weeks to see for themselves the spectacular, the stunning, the jaw-dropping Suarez Brothers Mexican Circus.

Barbados for a Year

We have been here a whole year now. We've met a lot of genuine people and made friends with some extremely lovely, open-hearted folk in Barbados.

Who wanted to see photos?

Hello Everybody,
We've just spent the week uploading two cameras-worth of photos to a website only to find out right at the end of it that we can only have three sets of photos free. After that we have to pay to show you all the pictures. So, above is the link to our three sets but you will only be able to see the actual sets if you join Flickr.com You then have to sign up or join our family and friends personal group!! If you do, just send us an email and we'll send you an invite to our personal group! We do have photos in the public arena. These are mainly of the beach picnic we wrote about in the last blog and also of Josh's beach birthday and his cake. A niece made the cake from a packet and iced it from a box of frosting bought here but the cake was too light and the frosting waaaay too heavy but... it was a lovely cake and didn't last long at all!
Here's Pops and Tony at the swamp cutting grass for the cows and sheep.

I Do Love to Be Beside the Seaside

Hello Friends,
It's been a while since our last Blog but we have been busy enjoying the delights of our new surroundings.
Our niece arrived from England for three months. We've been doing up a cousin's shop. The rain hasn't kicked in like they said it would for the hurricane season so we've been down to the swamp on a regular morning or evening basis cutting grass for the cows and sheep. The regulars from our local rum shop had a beach picnic. Another cousin took us to a gorgeous beach on the west of the island. Josh had a beach picnic for his birthday. Our Aunt retired from work. A relative and good friend passed away; we are preparing now to attend our first funeral since we arrived in Barbados and we've had to find a new outlet to kill our chickens. In among all this, we've also been sending and receiving the emails which we so love to read which keeps us in touch with the rest of the world.
Obviously all of this would take far too long to write about now. We've discovered a website that let's you put all your photos online. You can then link to it for everybody to see on the web rather than sending them and clogging up our inboxes. This may take a little while. We are off tonight to Tim's On De Hiway, a new bar which opened up in Spring Gardens, just up from Bridgetown, so we'll be quite busy still. (Is drinking and partying and having a great time an occupation?)
Watch this space and prepare for serious links!
Love to everybody.