We had a big surprise at the beginning of August.

                                   

John rang Jeff for a routine chat, asked him what he was up to, in which Jeff replied “cleaning the boat” and John said well if you pick me up at the airport tomorrow I’ll give you a hand. The first I knew of it was when a head appeared in the kitchen window asking if we had any cold pitons going spare. It was just great! We had a lot of fun, good sailing and fishing.

It wasn’t long after that Fi’s friend Roz arrived. Her plan was to surprise Fi when she flew in two days later. That worked very well; Fi came into the house with her friend Paddy, wandered around looking at any changes to the garden then went out onto the balcony and looked into the pool and said “who’s the blond girl?”. Then Roz turned around and the squeals of delight could be heard in Castries. The scene was set for numerous parties and late night swims.

Roz was gone by Tuesday, on her way back to UK to get a real job. The rest of us continued to do our thing. There was time for relaxing, swimming, sailing, waterfalling, quad biking, dining and hanging out at Chateau Mygo.

Cold beers after a hard days sailing.

                                      Chateau Mygo nights.                                                                                         

Gone Fishin'...Carlos and the lads.

You have to have your picture taken at the Pitons..its the rule!

Cooling off.

The weather has been excellent. No hurricanes (clutching large chunk of wood whilst I type that). We have had very little rain, mostly at night and only one thunderstorm. The temperatures have been high though and the humidity is troublesome.

The garden is growing fast and most days we are trimming something back that is encroaching on paths or other plants. We have also started to move stuff that grew bigger than expected or wasn’t doing so well. The bougainvillea's at the door are now transplanted to the fences and palms sit in their place. They were getting too big for their pots and also too messy with petals and leaves floating into the house every time the wind blew. Palms show much more restraint.

We are getting an idea of what it will be like when the trees begin to fruit. At the moment we have two limes, a couple of dozen sour cherries (good for juice) two small guavas, 8 large hands of plantains and bananas at various stages of development and about a dozen passion fruit and some not so golden, golden apple. I am so excited by these humble beginnings goodness knows what I will be like when the fruit really comes. Some of our trees wont produce anything for several years, so we will just have to be patient and ever watchful for any signs of blossom.

                                                           Sour Cherry.

Passion fruit.

Lime and golden apple.         .