bougainvillea – derrickjknight

A Knight’s Tale (131: Bridgetown Part 2)

There follows the last stretch of my walk to Bridgetown.

Bougainvillea continued to spread its various shades of magenta and pink along the roadsides. In the first of these two pictures, the rambling plant seeks the protection of the thorns of the plant to which it clings.

Others ramble around buildings that have seen better days.

I passed a slender schoolgirl complete with backpack on her way to her classes. Her hair had received the typical close attention that the turn-out of all these young people displayed.

Although some of the roadside buildings remained rather unkempt,

others were smarter,

and even grander.

Those steps, and the increasing traffic informed me that I was nearing the Bajan capital. Was the young woman with her arms folded pondering boarding the taxi/bus?

Had she done so, she would probably know what offence the hapless driver went on to commit.

Other flowers in the hedgerows and gardens were frangipanis

and hibiscuses.

By the time I reached Bridgetown in the heat of the day I wondered whether I should, like this woman, have taken one of the rare buses, or at least heeded the advice to start out at 5 a.m.

As previously mentioned I did ride back.

A Knight’s Tale (130: Bridgetown Part 1)

One morning I walked the ten miles from our hotel to Bridgetown along what passed for a main road. Whenever I checked directions I was told I should be on a bus. Not that there appeared to be many bus stops. If you wanted a ride you leapt into the road and gesticulated. It may have been marginally safer to have been riding on one of these ramshackle vehicles which went careering along the winding roads than to have spent my time jumping into bushes to avoid them. I am not sure. If there was a speed limit no-one adhered to it. Actually I did ride back and the journey was remarkably comfortable. Unfortunately I had wasted valuable time standing in the wrong queue. A certain amount of local knowledge was required to station oneself correctly.

Along these roads people lived in chattel houses. These are portable homes, stout, and some very old. Although people didn’t seem to worry about outside maintenance, the insides looked spotless and the adults and schoolchildren who emerged from them were beautifully turned out; womens’ dresses and children’s uniforms vying with the display of the ubiquitous

bougainvillea, frangipani, and hibiscus.

This street scene shows the sign for a roadside bar; a well cared-for church, and typical chattel houses,

one with some kind of lean-to constructed of weathered corrugated iron, which was a common roofing material.

The gardens of some of these houses contained car wrecks.

Other occupants preferred shrubs,

such as this bougainvillea trained around a porch behind a little picket fence.

and along which rampant buses tore.

The children who emerged from these simply constructed homes were clad in crisp, clean, uniforms and certainly were not ‘creeping like snail, unwillingly to school’ (William Shakespeare).

The Biggest Aspidistra In The World?

(THE TITLE IS THE RESULT OF AN ERROR ON MY PART. AS SEVERAL COMMENTERS HAVE POINTED OUT, MY ASPIDISTRA IS A PLUMBAGO. AH, WELL, IT GAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO INTRODUCE GRACIE FIELDS. I WON’T CORRECT MY TEXT, BECAUSE THE JOKE IS NOW ON ME, BUT THANKS ARE DUE TO ALL MY EDITORS 🙂

Even though today was Easter Sunday, and the weather was blustery and showery with occasional sunshine, Aaron and Robin finished weeding the gravel paths in the garden.

This afternoon I scanned the penultimate batch of Barbados negatives from March 2004.

These were the last few from the Bridgetown walk and the first from around the Sugar Cane Club hotel to which we transferred when realised that our initial choice, at the southernmost tip of the island, was so far from Port St Charles where Sam would be ending his epic row.

I would be grateful if anyone could identify this rather magnificent tree with its root tentacles.

Here are some more roadside dwellings, both fixed and chattel examples, all with beautifully rusting corrugated iron roofs;

and, naturally, bougainvillea,

hibiscus,

and frangipani.

I couldn’t identify these flowers.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XROMw3Z4e0&w=420&h=315]

I also learned that Gracie Fields’s claim for her brother Joe was probably rather dubious.

Their aspidistra couldn’t have been as big as this one.

Our new hotel, near the shores of the Atlantic, was well equipped with sun loungers.

The Ocean itself bore out Homer’s description of the ‘wine-dark sea’.

This evening we dined on roast duck; roast potatoes; colourful and crunchy carrots, broccoli and Brussels sprouts; and gravy so full of goodies as to accommodate a standing spoon. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished one bottle of the madiran and poured a glass from the next, with which I will continue now.

Entering Bridgetown

When you have been a townie all your life and you take up residence in an area that has none of the mains services that you have taken for granted, you tend to forget things. Like oil for the central heating. Because there is no gas. Then you tend to run out at a Bank Holiday weekend. And, being Easter, it is still chilly.

Fortunately we have a wood-burning stove. We have never before used it, but did have the chimney swept last autumn. And did have logs from the many pruning jobs we’ve carried out. All I had to do was get my head round operating it. Probably, if I had moved the church candle a bit further away from the heat it would not have melted. Hopefully we are not roasting the jackdaws that clatter the metal plate above the stove with nesting materials and, no doubt, a few jewels they have nicked. And no, I’m not going up there to find out.

Today was the first of a typical British Bank Holiday weekend, cold, wet, and windy. Just not the job for all those Egg Hunts. It was suitable for what Paul Clarke calls a ‘rainy day post’. Consequently I travelled back in my archives to a rather different day in March 2004 in Barbados, and scanned the next batch of the Bridgetown walk negatives.

Others ramble around buildings that have seen better days.

I passed a slender schoolgirl complete with backpack on her way to her classes. Her hair had received the typical close attention that the turn-out of all these young people displayed.

Although some of the roadside buildings remained rather unkempt,

others were smarter,

and even grander.

Those steps, and the increasing traffic informed me that I was nearing the Bajan capital. Was the young woman with her arms folded pondering boarding the taxi/bus?

Had she done so, she would probably know what offence the hapless driver went on to commit.

Other flowers in the hedgerows and gardens were frangipanis

and hibiscuses.

This evening we dined on a rack of pork ribs in barbecue sauce, prawn gyazas, and vegetable fried rice topped with omelette. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the madiran.

On The Road To Bridgetown

I very rarely stage a photograph, so I probably wouldn’t have thought of Jackie’s ladybird shots this morning. She spotted a somewhat sleepy ladybird – not literally of course, because this one already wore its spots – on a rounded pebble in a colourless corner. Thinking it needed something red to set it off, she picked up the pebble perch and plonked it among primulas in the window box on the front wall. The obliging insect stayed put.

We then filled two more canvas bags with hedge clippings and took them to the dump. Our spoils included two large pots and three folding wooden chairs.

Through the medium of donations of plants, seeds, gardening book and tools, the forthcoming First Gallery exhibition intends to raise funds for Southampton public libraries. Jackie will be donating some of the many seedlings that crop up in our paths and elsewhere in the garden. One of these is the geranium palmatum, a splendidly shrub-like perennial.

I made some small prints with which to enable buyers to know what they were purchasing.

This image of The Dead End Path shows the scale of the plants.

This afternoon I scanned another dozen colour negatives taken on my walk along the road to Bridgetown, Barbados, in March 2004.

Most gardens contained a brightly coloured, prolific, bougainvillea, which also adorned the roadside.

Taxis were really people carriers who happily held the centre of the road as they careered along,

occasionally stopping to pick up passengers at bus stops. Were they actually a variety of bus, I wondered?

An elegant egret, craning its neck in the undergrowth,

seemed oblivious of the BWIA passenger plane flying overhead.

Like the shady tree in the bus stop picture above

I could not identify many other blooming flowers.

This evening we dined on succulent chicken Kiev, creamy mashed potato, green beans, and ratatouille; followed by chocolate sponge pudding and cream. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank reserve des Tuguets madiran, 2012

Walking To Bridgetown

On this drizzly day, Jackie did a great deal of planting and composting. We then carried off to the dump two more bags of the griselinia cuttings that Aaron and Robin had filled for us on Sunday. We only came back with a hoe.

After completing the scanning of the March 2004 colour slides of Barbados, i discovered some negative film I used when walking around the island before Sam arrived. The first dozen of these are of a ten mile walk from our first hotel at the southern tip to the capital, Bridgetown. It was a bit hot, and this was when I earned the epithet ‘the white man who walks’.

This street scene shows the sign for a roadside bar; a well cared-for church, and typical chattel houses,

one with some kind of lean-to constructed of weathered corrugated iron, which was a common roofing material.

The gardens of some of these houses contained car wrecks.

Other owners preferred shrubs,

such as this bougainvillea trained around a porch behind a little picket fence.

Chickens, some having been instructed in the art of deportment, strutted around with the apparent freedom of a New Forest pony.

Coconuts

and breadfruit hung over the road which lacked a footpath,

and along which rampant buses tore. There were not many stops, but local people kept telling me I should use one.

The children who emerged from these simply constructed homes were clad in crisp, clean, uniforms and certainly were not ‘creeping like snail, unwillingly to school’ (William Shakespeare).

This evening we dined on Tesco’s fluffy fish pie; cauliflower, mushrooms, tomatoes, and peas. Jackie drank lemon squash, and I drank merlot. Jackie is still carrying a cough from the virus, although I am not.

The Young Gun And The Old Grey Wolf

Now that the prunus Subhirtella Autumnalis has shed virtually all its leaves, the blossom remains to clothe the branches, heavily pruned last year;

whilst on the other side of the front garden bergenia blooms.

Today was again warm, but the wind still blustered. I scanned more of the colour slides from the trip to Barbados in May 2004.

Here is a typical road along which I walked for up to ten miles at a time. Chattel houses line the thoroughfares lacking footpaths, and requiring me to be very vigilant when traffic tore past.

Palms punctuated the landscape, and

colourful shrubs, like the ubiquitous bougainvillea, bordered the gardens.

We stayed in Port St Charles for several days after Sam’s arrival at the island. This was because we had had to guess at his arrival time. It was also helpful for us to see some of the other competitors into the harbour.

Sam, in particular, wanted to be at the docking area to welcome Pavel Rezvoy, who had become a friend. In the event, this meant a night-time vigil as the 65 year old Russian disembarked during the night. Sam had, in fact, stopped rowing before coming in, so that he could arrive in daylight.

Sam, the youngest, and Pavel, the oldest, had been almost neck and neck across the Atlantic. Because of the distances involved, they were unaware of each other’s progress, but we had been able to follow them on the internet. Suddenly, for two days, Pavel’s boat was stationary. His satellite phone was not working so the trackers could not even be sure he was still in his boat. This became quite a worry.

In fact, my son completed his journey two days before his friend. Pavel, a most resourceful gentleman, had lost his rudder, and spent two days making a new one out of bits of his boat.

The pair came in first and second places of the solo rowers. Each evening, fuelled with with rum punches that certainly packed one, we joined the Ocean Rowing Society’s administrative team celebrating in the hotel bar.

Tatiania, Pavel’s ex-wife, had kept the Russian Press supplied with reports on the race. Their take on the story was a contest between The Young Gun and The Old Grey Wolf. The rowers themselves hadn’t even known they were competing. They were just happy to complete the challenge.

Here they are with Tatania and another man called Micha, whose role I cannot remember.

An interesting fact which should be apparent from these photographs is that these two rowers, both in very good shape, were the only ones who had allowed themselves a full night’s sleep. All the others, who arrived in pretty sore, tired, condition, had operated on a two hours on, two hours basis, thus, I imagine, ensuring that they were always tired.

Mr Pink’s fish chips and pea fritters were accompanied by pickled cornichons and onions for our dinner tonight, with which I finished the merlot.

Around The Island

On yet another rain-slashed August day, I spared a thought for those holidaymakers who had come to the forest and the seaside for their long-awaited summer break. The last ten days hasn’t bothered me, because my chest infection has kept me indoors anyway, but they can’t have had much fun.

Needless to say this was another day for scanning colour slides, this time from Barbados in May 2004. If nothing else they remind me of sunshine. This set of photographs was made a day or two before Sam was expected to reach the island, having rowed The Atlantic solo from the Canaries.

Both Jackie and I think we ought to recognise this plant, but we don’t. Fortunately Mary Tang has identified it as frangipani.

Bougainvillea brightens every landscape.

A golden sunset is almost a cliche. Not in Port St Charles.

Jessica watches as Louisa shows her photographs to another member of the waiting group.

Birds like the Yellow breasted Sunbury,

and the Barbados Bullfinch, the only indigenous species, which is found nowhere else, take advantage of nature’s camouflage,

as does the land crab.

The grackle

and the sanderling don’t seem to need it.

This gentleman demonstrates the method of releasing milk from a coconut.

Just before the expected arrival time even the previously bright blue Caribbean Sea darkened,

and a rainbow arced over Port St Charles.

I was regularly in touch with Radio Nottingham to deliver live updates from my mobile phone. That night, I opened our balcony doors so that listeners could hear the deafening waves crashing in from the Atlantic.

This evening we dined on barbecue pork ribs, savoury rice, and green beans. Jam tart and custard was to follow. Ian drank Heritage de Calvet cotes du Rhone 2014; Becky drank lime cordial; Jackie, sparkling water; and I, another glass of the pinot noir.

Succulent Graffiti

On another rainy day, with me not yet fully recovered, and Ian coming down with the cold, we had to postpone Becky’s birthday meal out. I scanned another batch of Barbados colour slides from May 2004, and Jackie stocked up on tissues and medications.

Cacti were flowering profusely.

I don’t know what this plant is (See Mostly Mondays’ comment below. It is calotropis),

but I do recognise hibiscus,

and bougainvillea which grows everywhere on the island.

Maybe these are breadfruit, (actually coconuts, see PS) but most of the Google images have dimpled skins.

A lone stork stands out from the long grass by the sea,

on the coast of which expensive holiday homes

contrast with the traditional wooden chattel houses.

I was surprised to see a horse lurking in the hedgerow, but have since learned that racing is a popular pastime, dating from the colonial years.

This is possibly a grackle, or a Barbadian Black Bird.

The iridescent blue tinge on the neck of the Zenaida dove is intriguing.

I expect there were plans for this rusting drum.

I have seen graffiti in many forms, but only on Barbados has it been carved into succulents.

This evening Jackie collected our meal from Hordle Chinese Take Away which was as good and as plentiful as usual. My drink was Kumala reserve shiraz 2012; Beccy’s, rose; Jackie’s, Hoegaarden; and Ian’s, Tiger beer.

PS. Following the comments of wolfberryknits and Mary Tang, I have corrected my text to show coconuts for breadfruit.