Off to the North - Massachusetts here we come!

Oh we are so blessed to have our lovely, kind American friends! From the moment we walked off the plane at Worcester airport and saw these smiling, so-pleased – to –see –us faces, we have had a ball! So many, many thanks to Joe, Judy, Rich and Judi. It was like the 2 years since last we saw you just vanished!

As for the wonderful state of Massachusetts, thank you Joe and Judy for living in such a gorgeous place. As we were coming into land, we saw trees, and trees and lakes and trees and hardly any houses and it was like wow! Not what I expected at all. Joe and Judy live in the country surrounded by tall trees and forest, with neighbours close-by, and a stream through the bush. Their home is just lovely – warm and welcoming.

The house is run on under-floor heating, has a fire place, own generator (for power  cuts). It has a fish pool and lots of bird feeders, a barn for horses and squirrels and chipmunks running around. They have 4 dogs which are kept inside except for going out for supervised walks cause there are coyotes around that would eat them! In winter there is lots of snow, with snow piled up to the windows. They have their own mini-snow plough!  Joe says it gets down to -14C …..

The first evening the two Judy,i’s put on an Italian meal (in recognition we all met in Italy) with lots of wine and laughter and catching up. We watched a baseball game between the Boston Red Socks (Joe and Judy supporters) and the NY Yankees (Rich and Judi supporters) and it was engrossing. The conversations between the two factions, with Dave with some knowledge and me with none but asking all the questions as per usual, discussing who’s batting average was the best, which team had the best pitchers etc. I was fascinated by the passion that was going on (Boston won by 1 run by the way!). Bed 1pm!

Brenda’s day!

The one request I asked was to see some Autumn/fall foliage. Trees changing colour etc. Our lovely hosts had put a lot of thought into this and we spent the day touring rural Massachusetts – gprgeous town to gorgeous town. The trees were starting  to change colour – great – however it was the magnificent homes and gardens that were the bonus and totally unexpected from my perspective. They were so well-kept and so like what you see in the movies – tall trees, leaf-lined wide streets, lots of trees around houses. I was in raptures – Joe was giving me a hard time cause every two minutes it was ‘cool!’ …….. ‘wow! Look at that … cool!’

We went to Stockwell (home of James Taylor and mentioned in his song ‘Sweet Baby James’ – a beautiful town- for  a look at a Catholic Shrine (our friends are Catholics) and then to a glass art gallery (yes – I found pieces I liked worth 75.000, or above – a lotto wish-list) and lunch at this lovely old inn that was full of history. Note the big pumpkins outside.

That night after Dave produced his Mount Gay rum bottles, we played the adult version of Cranium! What a laugh! It was girl’s against the boy’s – and got louder and more raucous as the night went on. Boy’s won (Dave has talent  drawing with his eyes closed by the way – I think he cheated!)

Bed by 12.30am

Today was a lake cruise day. Darling Joe and Judy had organised a paddle-boat steamer ride on the send biggest lake(but the best scenic lake) in Massachusetts. It was  lovely. Lots of lake houses around the sides with own private jetties and boats, private beaches. It is very shallow and there is trout in there.

Did you know this lake freezes in winter and you can ice skate on it!

On the way around we passed a small island with it’s own bald eagle nest. The nest is about a meter deep and queen size bed size in diameter! Lots of building to make it me thinks.

the lake had a  big Indian name - see on the T-shirt

For lunch we  visited this lovely pub type place with unusual food by our standards.  I had potatoe skins stuffed with cheese and bacon. There were large bread sticks you can dip into a hot cheese sauce. There were lots of pumpkins and scary things around as well. I thought the sign was amusing but app. it is a problem during snow time! 

At the end we visited an apple orchard ……. Not as we know it Jim! It was very large with many different varities, selling the apples in paper bags. They also sold apple pies, apple dumplings, pumpkin pies. A fascinating place!

St Marteens -sun, swwimming, .....

St Maartens – best day!

This island is quite small but is divided into a French side and Dutch side and there is an agreement that both work together. The French side got hammered in last years hurricane but our port was on the Dutch side and was quite sheltered thank goodness.  There were 3 cruise ships in port so obviously the town was going to be busy. We wanted to go on a tour to the infamous Maho Bay, which is the bay where the planes lane and take off right behind you. (this was where a New Zealand lady go killed last year by the blast of a plane landing – it knocked her over and she hit her head  on some metal bars she was holding on to.). It is also known for some topless sunbathing – so obviously Dave was in his element – boobies and planes! However there was only  one seat left  on the tour so we took another one, much to our disappointment, but our fault for leaving it so late. The day was gorgeous and we got in a water –taxi to a bay which the beach was all covered in umbrellas. All for the tourists! We got two deckchairs and an umbrella right by the water (part of the tour but you normally pay for both). I was so excited – finally I got to go in the water and actually swim in the Caribbean  sea! The water was so warm – and actually quite deep quickly.  We were in and out, sunbathing, read a book for hours! This was what I envisaged right from the word go! You got waited on for drinks (the local beer was cold, cheap and not too bad!) I was ssossoooooo happy! We talked to a couple from Glaaasgoooo (very hard to understand) but they looked after our stuff while we swam and we did visa-versa. We hired a two-man jet-ski ($55 for half-an hour) and zoomed around the bay for 30 mins! Whheeeee! I was amazed they let just anyone ride these things but there were no questions asked except – have you driven one before? to Dave. (and no the jet-ski was not as flash as your’s Simon! Such fun!

Peace was blasted where a large group of Samoans (yes – Samoans – we know this cause they wore Samoan lava-lavas and spoke the language!) decided to have a game of water volleyball in amongst these sedate, some rather old and large tourists! Lots of yelling and laughing and splashing just what you would see on the beach at Samoa! The tourists quickly moved away from them in the water, as the ball was going everywhere with quite a smack! Dave and I thought – what on earth were a big bunch of youngish Samoans doing in the Caribbean? (drinking beer as well) We decided they must be workers from one of the ships as they got back on the water taxi with us  - laughing and drinking beer. I hope they didn’t have to work that evening!

All in all the best day! (even tho we both got a little burnt – had put on sunscreen heaps but I guess the water washes it off)

Now for some time (2 days) at sea doing nothing! More books to read, more cocktails to drink. Dave has discovered banana daiquiri – mine is Miami vice! Oh what a life!

St Lucia

St. Lucia –very pretty – very French from colonial times

So this was my day …… dolphin and whale watching. After the rum experience Dave had to concede to being stuck on a boat for 3 hours in the swell searching for mammals!

After about an hour we saw a large pod of short-finned pilot whales (20 or 30 or so of them). The boat stayed back a bit (to give it credit – I thought the rules about getting too close to whales etc were not considered  too much in the Caribbean when there was the tourist dollar to be had!) These and another pod were all we saw but I was very happy and had big smiles on my face!

On the way back we kept close to the coastline and saw some beaches, mountain peaks and a lovely bay

Barbados - nice!

Barbados – nice!

Quite different vibe in Barbados – civilised and more 1^st world as opposed to 3^rd world.  The buildings in the waterfront look new and recently built, the roads are wider with no pot holes and everything looks clean.

Today was Dave’s rum day – ie we gave up visits to beaches etc so he could go to Mount Gay’s rum factory. Yay! I was so excited but it was the only thing he really asked to do so it was a matter of zip the mouth and smile. Luckily the tour took in some sights in the capital of Bridgetown, including a beach. It was Sunday, hardly any shops open, hardly any traffic or people. So much so in fact the traffic lights (yes they do have them) were all on flashing which meant that on Sundays there is little traffic so they turn the traffic lights off and it was every car for itself! Wasn’t too bad, and our driver was quite funny explaining it all. The houses downtown were rundown, wooden and colourful (we even saw the street and the house Reihanna grew up in – they are very proud of her here. She owns 4 houses app.)

There was lots of colonial buildings and flagpoles with cannons

a cricket stadium named after some important cricketer (the only flash building here) – app. The Chinese helped build it! Grrrrrrr

Any way – Dave’s rum experience. There are lots of rum experiences to be had on this trip (Coruba, Toppers ) but Dave chose Mount Gay. You could not go to the actual distillery (still going where is was established in the 1700’s on top of … Mount Gay!)It was named after some Lord    Gay who was a big-wig in the 1700’s and wanted his own rum mill. Dave was happy as a sandboy – lots of history, discussions – tasting of rumpunch that would knock the socks of you (Dave took mine and downed it!). Then all about how they make it (with sugar cane into molasses – yes we tasted some- it tasted like sugary …. Rum!). Then the best part for Dave – rum tasting. There were 6 diff. types and you had to scull it (smell it, swirl it then down the hatch!) all of the people on the tour had to scull at the same time, no mean feat. I was one of 3 who graciously declined the offer of tasting (hell no!) After these tastings which were in rather large glasses, Dave was rather happy as!

We went downstairs to buy some rum and a shirt etc. A grand day for Dave!