whats going on

Hi everyone! Yes, the author of this blog does still exist!! We are still in St Vincent but are hopfully off to Beqia in the next few days. We were there a while ago and went to visit the turtle sanctuary run by a local guy who said if we came back in May I could go and help him out. I'm so excited!!
For the last 2 weeks or so we have been in Cumberland bay with our french friends Manu, Hugo and Solen. There is a river that flows into the bay where we did our laundry like gypsies and walked up with a picnic twice. It was a lovely bay and we made friends with some of the fishermen including Joseph who has a son called Jay and 'Cricket' who took sam fishing.
Apart from that we havn't been doing much. Sam and Dad have been given some fishing pointers fom the fishermen in Cumberland Bay and have suddenly gone into a fishing frenzy and have so far caught..........1 fish!! I have entered a writing competition in the 'Young Writers Competition' with the help of my Grandfather who is an author. Here is my entry:

Alone
It wasn't that he didn't have a good nature – it was his appearance. He knew that – had always known it. Being six metres tall, naked apart from dirty, ragged loincloth and very hairy is not good when trying to communicate with a village of humans. His enormous matted beard and long hair was particularly terrifying because it obscured a large part of his face. The giant was trying to talk to the humans, not because he wanted to buy anything from them (where would he get anything to pay them with anyway?) - it was because he was lonely.
Yes, lonely. He had been by himself for years – ever since he could remember. Where had he come from? He didn't know. Where were his parents? He didn't know. Were there any more giants like him anywhere? He didn't know. So he lived by himself, travelling constantly, trying to find other giants. He killed animals to eat and carried on his search, living on hope which was rapidly disappearing as each day of searching proved fruitless. On and on, through desert, mountains and forest. Now and then he would come across humans as he had today and sometimes he would try to talk to them. He had never been successful but he was desperately lonely and would try anything. Twice he had been shot at with arrows but other than that people tended to gather their children inside and lock the doors. Peering out, terrified of this thing that had come to steal and kill in their village (or so they thought).
Today he had approached a small village and some children playing by the river had seen him and run off to tell the people as fast as their legs could carry them. Before he was even close they had barred their doors and locked themselves inside. Feeling defeated and not even trying to tell the villagers that he came in peace, he left and walked on through the night until he came to the edge of a vast lake which in the still night reflected the stars in then night sky. Then he stopped and sat down at the edge of the water and wept, great tears rolling down his large face. The sobs that shook his body shook the earth too until he stopped crying and looked around at the big unfriendly world.
He was alone.

Hope you enjoyed that!! Wish me luck in the competition!!

a few pictures!

a beautiful Carribean sunset
a lizaard (there are lots round here)

a tortoise (also plentiful round here)

picnicing with our friends

Solen (9 year old girl), Hugo (her brother, 15 years old) and Manu (their father).

a 4 month old turtle

Sam racing against another wee boy in the 'ducky'

Me jumping from the spreaders on Hugo's boat

an iguana

my family and I

doing a litter pickup with our friends in the Tobago Cays

dad windsurfing Sea Warrior sailing!

St Vincent

Hi everyone! Sorry i haven't written on this blog for so long. I have trouble writing factual things like this so that they sound interesting and I always avoid doing it like a chore!

Anyway we are now in the island of St Vincent which is a lot different from other islands that we have been to recently. It is rugged and mountainous with lots of rivers and very few beaches. We hired a car for 4 days over the weekend which was great. We visited the Montreal gardens run by a welsh man in the Montreal valley which is very lush and green and has a spectacular view. The gardens were great and Sam and I swam in the river which was good too.

On Saturday evening we went to a gospel concert (what else would you do on a Saturday night in down town Kingstown?). It was unusual let's say. We were a bit late so they had already started singing by the time we got there. The first women was even worse than I am at singing although the audience seemed to love it, waving there arms and singing along. After that the singers got steadily better until a large group from Barbados came. There was a main man who stood out in front and then a long line of 12 or 14 ladies behind him. They were excellent and Mum particularly enjoyed it.

On Sunday we got up at 5.30 am and drove to the beginning of the trail that goes up the Soufriere volcano. We arrived at the path at about 8.30 and Dad and I got our packs out of the car (we were going to camp at the top). The four of us walked up. It was very steep but we got up there at about 11 am. We hiked around the rim of the crater until we found a good camping spot where we pitched the tent. After lunch we went down into the crater. There was a little loch that Sam and Dad went skinny-dipping in. I didn't! Mum and Sam went back down to the car at about 3 pm while I got the tent shipshape and Dad went off to try and find some water. He didn't find any so we rationed what we already had. For tea we had spaghetti with mushroom soup as a sauce and a tin of 'Vienna' sausages (it said made in Barbados on the tin!). Needless to say it was disgusting. I think people associate camping with disgusting food because it always seems to come out o9f a tin! The next morning at 5.26 am (I checked the time exactly!) we were woken by someone outside our tent panting.

“Hey man. You camping?” Said the man.

How did you guess? Was it the tent that gave it away? That's what we felt like saying.

“Yeah,” said Dad.

“Good man, good.” said the man outside.

Yes it was good – until you woke us up!

“I'm mountain charting,” he told us.

Great, can we go back to sleep now?

Perhaps sensing that he was not welcome this early in the morning he said,”OK see you man” and ran off.

We got up around 7 and had breakfast and packed up our stuff. On the way down the hill we met a lot of rastafarien guys who we talked to. They told us they were 'going in de mountain to grow some weed man'. Hmmm. Interesting. Obviously they were not to bright – we could have been anyone! We met Mum and Sam at the car and went to a little river to swim and have our picnic.

It was great!