On my ramblings around Barbados in May 2004, some of the local people, who called me ‘the white man who walks’, thought I wasn’t quite right in the head, especially as I had a tendency to set off around mid-day.
On one occasion this proved to be quite happy for the photographer in me. Today I scanned another half dozen colour slides from that day, and was able to watch the sugar cane being harvested.
It was the approach of this loaded lorry that alerted me to what was going on.
Here was the cane to be cut before collecting;
and, further on, containers loaded beside stripped fields.
Tractors were employed to load the vehicles;
after which, were this elderly couple engaged in gleaning? I must say I felt for them labouring under the overhead sun.
They put me in mind of Jean-Francois Millet’s painting ‘The Gleaners’, which caused such a stir at the Paris Salon in 1857.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb smoked haddock and piquant cauliflower cheese (recipe) meal followed by sticky toffee pudding and cream. We both drank Seashore Isla Negra Chardonnay 2014.