We have two completely different ways of living, depending upon whether we’re in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande or the British Virgin Islands. Sort of goes without saying, doesn’t it? Or, as some might say “talk about the bleedin’ obvious!” But the differences are enormous. Rest assured, I’m not going to bore you with the details, but just share my morning walk on Tortola with you.
In France I sleep like a log. My head hits the pillow and I don’t normally stir until the blackbird in whose territory Les Terraces falls starts singing his heart out at a relatively civilised hour. Here in the BVI things are quite different. Often I wake between 2 and 3 AM. Sometimes I can fall back to sleep. More often than not I can’t. As my life in Tortola is generally spent sat at a desk, as opposed to running around like a mad thing doing maintenance and stuff in Sainte-Foy, I take the opportunity to take some much-needed exercise while it is still cool and before most of the wild drivers are abroad.
The problem with walking at 5AM, other than a grumbling Graham, is that there’s seldom anything to see except stars. Don’t get me wrong – I love looking at the stars. The challenge is walking safely and star-gazing simultaneously! However, this Sunday I slept in until 5:45!!! Whoopee! Now that it is spring sunrise happens at about 6:20, which meant that it was light when I left home so I decided to take my camera with me so that perhaps I could share my walk, well bits of it anyway, with you.
So, I walk westwards following the coastline for about a mile or so to a place known as Duff’s Bottom. Here there is a little old concrete bungalow that used to have a nice view to the west. However a church decided to build a recreation centre on landfill right in front of their view (we won’t go into how they got permission, but suffice it to say that religion in the Islands is a BIG deal). This is what I saw the other morning:
Not far from the cottage I turn up a small hill. About 75% of the time I find a little flock of goats at the crest. Normally they lie quietly until you get within about 25 feet of them and then they scatter down the hill into the safety of what we call “catch-and-keep”, otherwise known as acacia.
A little further along the road is an exemplary example of DIY house-building local-style:
A little further is another landmark …. a roof that blew off someone’s house in the hurricanes of 1996, Louis & Marilyn. It remains where it landed.
Now we come to something I’d never have seen had I not taken a walk in daylight and had my camera with me – the camera made me look at my surroundings more carefully to see if there was anything that might interest you. Ready?
So, further still is a rare historical artifact that is in astonishingly good condition. It is, I think, an old sugar copper set over its original fire pit.
We’re on the last third of my walk now. Well, almost. The next “land-mark” is the spray painted bonnet of an old VW Beetle. I remember when it was a much-prized feature of a working car.
I love the scent of Frangipani, but refrain from picking it. It’s so much prettier on the tree. But the tree isn’t very pretty as caterpillars eat all of the leaves.
We’re almost at the down-hill section and on our way home. The next sight was a huge sailing ship coming down the channel. It’s a cruise ship, I think. It never came into the harbour.
So, to coin a phrase, it’s all downhill from here! I pass by the hotel that Graham managed for decades and despair at how dilapidated it has become and then past a little marina where there are several boats sunk or sinking. Here’s one:
So that’s it. We’re nearly home now. On the way up the garden path I feed the cats and walk upstairs to the sitting-room (ours is an upside-down house), just in time to see the best of a not great sunrise.
