Well – it’s neglected because I’m writing the book. Yes, the actual book. So blogging is taking a bit of a back seat.  Still there will be lots to post and for now a picture. The fishermen in Governor’s Harbour land their catch just before sunset.  You mosey along, choose a fish, haggle over the price and then they get out a machete, scale, gut and fillet it for you.  I once purchased a whole shark for $20 (Bahamians don’t care for shark).  Nassau Grouper is excellent as is my favourite: Hog Fish (like sea bass).  Enjoy x

Buying fish for supper - Eleuthera style

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Now it is cool at 7.15pm.

I’ve been for my beach walk with the dogs. I’m slurping a huge ripe mango as I walk down the beach (I am now covered in mango stains on my top and shorts).  I can’t believe it is so utterly fantastic here. I feel too lucky and can’t start to tell people how amazing it is.

I felt quite the recluse when I went into town earlier, I can’t decide if I’m just rediscovering my true self or that really I am a recluse at heart. Weird thoughts as I ran a top London PR company and had an 8 bedroom house, nanny,driver etc.  And now, after slipping down the ‘no status’ slippery pole in Nassau (i.e. I went to dinner parties where no one asked me what I do/did/think/thought and the men talked and the women share choc cake recipes -  help me! Betty Crocker?) I start to put my ‘former life’ more and more into some contex.   (more…)

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Tuesday July 27 ‘04

Slept until nine but woke in the night to heavy rain and high winds, which made the rattly doors bang.  Good old mum rang; I was drinking from my favourite Skegness cup and telling her how I really want a donkey (we have 10 acres and a three mile long pink sand beach and ever since I went to Skegness as a kid and rode Donkeys I’ve wanted one.  This was made stronger when I worked for the ‘Greek Animal Rescue’ society whilst at Lynne Franks and I heard about the poor donkeys that are thrown off of cliffs once the tourists leave.  Cheaper than feeding them evidently.  Horrid).

Just watching Tarpi wandering around the bush and chewing something. I forget that this toffee coloured small-domesticated animal that’s so keen to please is really a bush dog with a collar.

I watch as a beautiful black and white humming bird flittering in the bush in front of her. They love the Noni that is amazing as it smells so bad (Stink Apple). Tarpi is eating some kind of bush and Orange (the cat) is watching intently. I can see a couple of passion fruit by the front porch, sweetly left for me by the almost invisible Offany so think I’ll have them as a snack soon.

Today I am going to actually unpack so that I can feel at home.  I may even venture out to the shops later – whackaday.  Must remember to wear shoes. There was a huge centipede in the kitchen earlier – it was by the ring on the stove so I turned it on and bbqued it. Cruel but they have a terrible bite evidently and the Bahamian are terrified of them.

Oh yes, I think I flashed Offany with my boobs this morning. As I’ve dressed the wound I try to go topless for a while and I think he was working nearby.  Hey ho.

I’ve been busy as one of the darling brood of animals peed in the boy’s room and by the time I discovered it, it has seeped underneath six bin bags.  I just pulled them all out and dumped them in the square tiled bath, lizards and all, and done my best with Clorox and a bit of kitchen roll (must go to the shop today). Rusty has managed to tie his chain round a bush outside and has now dug himself down in the sand. Orange, despite being fed, is off stalking and I’m contemplating unpacking.  How very different this life is.

The view of old palms from my wooden office on the hill: painting by Rosalyn Palmer

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One day's beach bounty

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Sunset in the Bahamas

Nassau 2001……..

So here we are, six months in already.  Finally felt at home last weekend when over the bank holiday weekend it rained non stop for five days. There must be a special Bank Holiday weather curse, which works throughout the world.  Difference here is that it is still humid and in the mid 80s (which means in a clever, adjusted, sort of way it is really about 99 degs), and I am constantly getting caught out without a brolly or so much as a piece of paper to hold over my head so impersonate a drowned rat on an almost daily basis.

As I start to type this I am watching the golf course being bulldozed.  It now resembles a sort of desert oasis.  There is sand and soil everywhere, much of it in large dune-like piles and the one remaining lake in the centre of the course has had all the palm trees deposited around its edges to keep them alive before they are moved back into place.  No prizes for guessing how it has affected the mosquitoes.  The noisy frogs are also pretty unsettled.   The constant sound of diggers has followed hot on the heels of the disruption caused by the building of our new conservatory and the major renovations on the entire block we live in.  Not very conducive to writing a best seller I must say.  So….we are moving at the end of June to a fab five-bedroom house that is literally on the sea.  I kid you not.  When you look out of the lounge and back bedroom windows all you see is turquoise sea, it is like being on a boat.  When the sea is rough it splashes up onto the patio and hits the lounge windows and leaves behind a film of salt when it dries.  Needless to say it will be horrendous in a hurricane which is why our rent agreement has a clause that the landlord has six hours in which to board up the entire house once a hurricane warning is issued and we get to move out to a hotel (they do special hurricane rates here and evidently it is quite a laugh being hauled up in a Key Largo sort of way for days in the howling wind and rain). No doubt a later letter….. (more…)

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