Sunday 28 September 2008

Out And About

In the end we decided on Ste Anne again for our Wednesday trip, as time was getting on and it is the nearest. It was ever so much quieter this week, as the rain has evidently put people off the beach. However, we had one cause for ranting...Smokers on the beach! We have noticed that hardly any Guadeloupeans smoke, however, practically all French people smoke. As Ste Anne is full of the latter, it is also full of cigarette smoke and stubs, ugh! So LissaLou got a lecture on why she should never smoke - I remember getting the same from Al when I was little and it was very effective!
Whilst there are definite moments of homesickness for me, for example reading about autumn and thinking of apple season coming up and the leaves getting ready to turn colours and fall, there are also moments of sheer delight here - floating in the warm Caribbean Sea watching the coconut trees against the blue skies and the golden sand is definitely one of them! As is hearing the girls screaming and shrieking in delight as they splash and swim and shout "you can't catch me!" then laugh joyfully when I do!

Bertie is building up his clientele very successfully, so he has decided to invest a bit in his "business" by buying a board and pens. The girls have enjoyed this investment too, drawing intricate pictures then rubbing them all out. Unfortunately CassCass jumped on it this morning and it is not quite the same. That could be said for a lot of things that have the misfortune to fall in to her hands. Everything is pulled out of cupboards, boxes, folders, envelopes, and poor mummy spends her time clearing up after her. The funniest bit is when I come up to her and she says "don't come in here mummy, don't look"! Who says children don't know right from wrong?!

Thursday saw Baby JoJo and I wander along to the Post Office to cash some cheques and finally send my camera to the UK. I couldn't get it insured without the original receipt so I will just have to have faith in the French postal system! After our previous visit, I expected the worst but we actually went straight to the front of the queue. Unfortunately, nothing gets done speedily here so we still had a ten minute wait whilst the cashier was in deep conversation with a man...turned out that he was from the snack bar parked outside and he was taking their lunch orders! Depositing a cheque was surprisingly complex - no swiping cards here, you have to fill out a form and put all your details and the name of the person and bank from whom the cheque is, before signing the back of the cheque for some random reason. Once completed, we collected CassCass and wandered along to the boulangerie. On the way, I was asked by a random man if I was on holiday. When I replied that I lived here, he asked if that was with my husband. On hearing the affirmative, he smiled and went off. I am still wondering what his motives were! Bertie said he would never stop and chat up a lady with two kids, she would obviously be far too much work!

Friday was our return visit to the dispensaire. You may recall our three hour wait last time, so I went prepared with writing paper and book. How disappointing, this time there were only 10 of us and I was seen fourth, and back home within an hour and a half! The lady who saw Baby JoJo also saw Bertie at the same age, and was delighted to see his son! He is now 7.8 kilos (I think he hasn't put much on as he was not eating much due to his cold) and 68.5 cm. The doctor checked him all over again and he has no laryngite no bronchite no otite or any other ite hurrah! So he was able to have his first injection for Hepatitis B.

Today we were going to go to the shopping centre whilst Bertie was at work but it rained (surprise surprise!) so we stayed home and painted instead. The girls produced some lovely displays and clearing up was great fun as we used the water collected from the rain!

Mamie brought a few more chicks home and Bertie and Papy were meant to be making a coop for them, but apparently they just sat chatting, father and son style. So the chicks (now 12) are still here and very smelly! Reading Handa's Hen took on a whole new perspective as we realised that's what we had downstairs!

2 comments:

evie winter said...

I seem to remember Al's actual words (to me anyway) re smoking were 'I'll kill you if you ever start smoking'.
Very effective indeed!

Hevs said...

I had a feeling the word kill was involved somewhere...Our new slogan could be "If the ciggies don't get you, Al will!"