Blogs from Barbados, Central America Caribbean - page 3

As you will have gathered, my non flower arranging friends, this has been a holiday with a difference! The purpose of the trip was to enjoy a wonderful flower show which takes place every three years. Flower arrangers from around the world gather for this event and this year the small island of Barbados was the host. So since my last posting I have been busy at the show, firstly getting up early on Wednesday morning to take part in one of the classes of the competition. A class where all the materials are provided, that was fun 3 hours to arrange a design alongside 19 other exhibitors from around the world.The other classes had 5 hours to create their designs and from the exhibits I saw later I just marvelled at the talent in such ... read more

Well what a day ! We had been told last night that there was a Tropical Storm Warning for Barbados which meant a tropical cyclone is possible within a 36 hours period.Our group were scheduled to spend the day on a catamaran but with large sea swells, extensive rainfall and flash flooding expected along with a high surf advisory and small craft restriction it was pretty obvious that we would not be snorkling in the turquoise seas with the turtles today.We did still gather in the lobby only to hear the expected news that the catamaran company had cancelled the trip. The lobby was filling up with groups of ladies and a few men who we knew were flower arrangers by their warm smiles and happy faces.Several recognised me from Flower Arrangers & Friends of NAFAS ... read more

We were all looking forward to the day ahead with our guide Rose & driver Patrick. Our first stop of the day was not far from Bridgetown. A visit to Medford Mahogony Craft where we were greeted with another big Barbadian smile by self-taught artist Reggie Medford. We heard how as a teenager, Reggie rejected an academic career to take up handicraft, having opted out of university, he started to create jewellery using the coconuts shells from his family garden which proved very successful. After a few years he decided to try to create works of art using the roots of mahogany trees, many of these roots had been that discarded as unwanted rubbish! It wasn't long before this business took off and now he was able to obtain mahogany trees from developers & his mahogany ... read more

Hello from the island of Barbados. Let’s correct an error from a couple of days ago. We have only now gotten to the Caribbean Sea. Barbados is the easternmost of all the islands, and the east coast is actually on the Atlantic side with the west coast being on the Caribbean. So only now have we actually gotten to the Caribbean Sea. We got up at 7:00 and had breakfast biscuits & pastries in the cabin, while the ship arrived in port. Although the original inhabitants were driven away by the Portuguese the British founded the first real settlement in1627. Over the years the island developed and reached full independence in 1966. In early days sugarcane was the main export product with many plantations surrounded by little villages of laborers. These days sugarcane exports have dwindled ... read more

Day 29 - Monday 27 February 2017 cont'd The rain continued, so we decided to start our packing now as we were not able to do much else. Pat prefers to do the packing, so I just kept providing the coffee and tried to keep out of the way. We went for lunch at 12.30 pm, having a drink on the way. After lunch we did our usual stroll around the grounds. I decided we needed a little walk in the afternoon, so we initially headed left to see what height the tide was and if there was a chance to walk past Sandy Lane again. It was too high, so we headed right (North) in Holetown direction. We just went to the next proper area of beach and both had a swim, as it was ... read more