Travel back to the Caribbean for the winter was always going to be fraught.  A time of sadness and anxiety: not wanting to leave our (admittedly cooling) Shangri-La in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande for the joys of a final winter in the British Virgin Islands, the knowledge of the hard work that awaited as we prepared to make our relocation to la belle France permanent, and other challenges.  As it turned out, I made the journey alone.  Graham was deemed unfit to make the journey.

Air travel in the Caribbean (inter-island, as opposed to long-haul) has ever been challenging, with lengthy delays the norm, not the exception.  One becomes accustomed to arriving late.  The same day can be deemed a bonus, even if many, many hours late.  And so it was for me.  I arrived at home a mere 5 hours late.  Fortunately, I had texted the friend who was supposed to meet me at the airport and said “don’t worry, I’ll make my own way home” just as soon as the delay was announced.  I finally opened the front door at about midnight.  There was no landline, nor internet nor cell-phone working, and the AC unit in the bedroom was making a hideous noise.  Nevertheless, I slept relatively well.

The following Monday we had the joys of anticipating the arrival of Hurricane Gonzalo.  Luckily for the BVI, the storm jogged northwards just before its forecast landfall and the islands were spared the attentions of a small but nasty storm.  The inconvenience of re-shuttering the house was nothing in comparison with the problems faced by those in St. Martin & Antigua who had been slammed by the winds and sustained damage.  As I had prepared for the storm’s arrival I was beset by massive muscle spasms and joint pain that I attributed to the combined joys of long-haul travel in sardine class and being a middle-aged fart.  However, three days later I was running a fever of 104F.  The chiropractor couldn’t solve those woes.  It appeared that I had contracted the misery virus of 2014, the name of which I couldn’t remember, so I had nicknamed “chunky-monkey.”

Chikungunya is worse than a monkey on your back.  I consider myself lucky: I got off with a raging temperature for a couple of days, loads of joint pain and bizarrely sensitive soles of my feet and was back up and running in a week.  I know of people who have barely been able to crawl from their beds for more than 2 months and “look like the living dead.”  The fact that a week after I idiotically thought that I was home free it slapped me hard (take that!) and left me feeling about 97 years old was neither here nor there – except for the nights when I couldn’t bear to have one bit of my body touching another, but  hey-ho.

A friend recommended that I get the blood tests done to confirm that it was, in fact, Chikungunya.  The local clinic was charging slightly less than $200 for the test.  Money I could ill-afford.  I refrained from the expense and kept taking the Paracetamol (the only thing you can take to alleviate the symptoms.  There is no vaccine or cure (yet)).  However, 4 weeks later, I am back in France.  Still plagued by the after-effects of this virus.  So I went to the local GP and asked for a referral for the blood test to ensure that it is Chikungunya.  I await the results, as the blood sample had to be sent to Paris for testing.  But, without Carte Vitale or anything else, here in the rural Gironde the test was a mere €19.71.  Results by post next week.  Go figure!