Hello dear things. I hope all is well with you and yours and
the endless, multi dipping recession isn’t bothering you too much out there in
the ‘real world’. I think we’ll all die of boredom before it’s over. Well at
least the Brits amongst you had the Jubilee... and now the Olympics and
Wimbledon and all that malarkey are kicking off which will distract you. We
don’t get that kind of excitement here but we do have our very own form of
spectator sports...
I have just returned from my evening walk along the beach
with Joe the wonder dog. The beach is getting on for two miles long and there
were about 3 people at the other end and as usual nobody on our end... just me,
Joe, oh yes and about 30 tiny (less than 3 inches long) leather back turtle
hatchlings crossing our path. They struggled, bleary eyed, but fully formed
from their subterranean, sandy nest and headed for the sea. Well most of them
did, the ink on the genetic imprinting of a few of them had obviously faded as
they deededly headed inland, in the totally wrong direction. I know you aren’t
supposed to interfere with nature but bugger it, we all need a leg-up on
occasion, so I turned them round and watched in awe as these tiny creatures
began their great journey in life. They will travel thousands of miles and for
many decades... before the females, by then a hefty 9 foot long will return to
the exact same spot and lay her eggs. It was truly spell binding.
Having completed our amble up to the end of the beach we
were returning, me paddling in the sea as usual, whilst Joe nosed around in the
vegetation looking for crabs to kill. He sees it as his personal mission to
decimate the crab population of the beach! However, I suddenly noticed him
wondering over to me his tail wagging madly and there gently cradeled in his
huge chops was an errant turtle. He placed it at my feet and it was completely
unharmed, so I put it into the sea and watched as it slowly cleared the reef
and headed out towards Sandy island.
Talking of Sandy island... good link eh... my lovely son
George and his girlfriend Tuala came over for a few weeks and George had
hatched a cunning plan. So we sailed / motored or whatever it is you do in a
boat with an engine, over to the island... just a few minutes ride but too far
to swim... and paddled ashore. This island never loses its power to render one
speechless. My older British chums may well remember the old Bounty chocolate
bar TV ads, where scantily clad nymphs ran through the palm trees, along the
brilliant white sands and into the crystal clear water. Well that ad was shot
on this wonderful deserted island. ‘A taste of Paradise’ is an apt description
of the place as well as the natty tag line for the ads.
So in a carefully
pre-planned move, whilst Kitty and I made ourselves scarce checking out the myriad
of fish on the reef, George walked Tuala to the far end of the beach and
adopting the age old protocol proposed to her and proffered a beautiful
wishbone diamond ring. The boy has style. Happily she said yes, (been a bit
embarrassing on the ride home if she’d said no) so the truly delightful Tuala
will be joining the clan and they too will start their great journey in life
together.
We all went down to Prickly Bay Marina... lord knows why it
is called that, as far as I can see it is totally devoid of prickles... anyway,
George and Tuala joined Baracuda, the most popular rock band on the island, on
stage and along with Nico the hugely charismatic lead singer and guitarist they
performed not the three or four songs they’d planned but jammed for nearly two
hours. A brilliant night. As Eric Bibb
sang about those special days you sometimes get in life... ‘Sometimes you get
diamonds’. Literally in this case!
So we’ve been building again... adding to the front, back,
side wherever of our house... my brother is convinced it is an illness I
have... he may be right. I seem to have spent most of my adult life building
and renovating houses... but I love it. Well it isn’t the easiest thing to do
in Grenada but kitty has proven time and again to be a brilliant project
manager so it is nearing completion. The new ensuite bedroom and study are
useful but the ‘gallery’ ... as they call them here... on the front has
transformed life in the Caribbean. A gallery is what we would call a balcony or
veranda but just a bloody big one where you basically live. It has a proper
roof but lattice sides and just railings to the front. It has a BBQ so we cook
out there, a big dining table, sofas and coffee tables etc and so that is where
we spend every day. It is a wonderful privilege to be able to just sit and
watch the sunlight playing on the waves as they roll in over the reefs and spot
the pelicans hunting for their supper. I used to think privilege was about big
houses, silly cars and fancy restaurants... actually fancy restaurants are
still a huge joy... but just watching nature from our glorified shack on the
beach is to experience true privilege.
So work in Trinidad is still going on apace... our first TV
show is in pre-production the second one has been green lit too but we are just
sorting money on that one and then there are loads of ads to do too. So I do
get very tired. I only tell you this to justify the idiotic behaviour on my
part, in the tale which I am about to relate. One night around 11, some idiot
tourist turtle spotters were wondering around the beach with huge torches,
which of course just make the turtles turn tail and head back into the sea. You
are supposed to use pencil torches not something that looks like it belongs in
Stalag X1V. So not only were they shining their torches at the sea but they decided
to examine our houses too with particular attention it seemed, being paid to
our bedroom window. I was about to scream at them and cast serious doubt on
their parentage when the lights went out and they disappeared into the
blackness. So having carefully put my gimble mounted gaggling gun away again,
we went back to sleep. I got up at around 4 to check the plumbing and looked
out of the window and saw two bloody pencil torches actually in our garden. The
bloody cheek of it! Then a couple more appeared nearer the beach but still in
our garden. This was too much. Up went the window and some good old Anglo-Saxon
expletives were hurled into the still night at top volume causing Kitty to
rocket out of bed as if she’s had four thousand volts passed through her cute
little derrier. To my utter amazement, rather than make a rapid tactical
withdrawal, the bastards turned on more and more of the bloody torches. Then
slowly the fug cleared from my tired mind... it is important to remember I was
very tired... and I realised it was unlikely that there were 50 or more
tourists in my garden at 4 am in the morning. I managed to beat Kitty to the
punch which did a little to save my ignominy, when I told her they were
just...yes you guessed it... fire flies! In my defence fire flies here are
bloody huge and we have no light pollution so they really do light the place
up... and did I mention... I was tired!
I am hoping that as the Caribbean continues to pour it’s
calming balm over me, I will lose more and more of my deep rooted urban angst
and next time I think there are 50 tourists in my garden I will simply exclaim
“Ahh, there are 50 dudes in my garden with pencil torches. Cool!” Well we can all
dream can’t we?
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