Our first guests at Mango Lodge

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We arrived safely in Dominica after 2 days travelling (which should have been one day) and with no luggage - thanks to LIAT, the Caribbean airline (either Leave Island Any Time or Luggage In Any Town). But we did have our beautiful home, a fridge for cocktails and a view of the Caribbean sea to die for. Five days later we had both our bags, a car, a fridge full of food and drink, and we were ready for the arrival of our guests.

The ferry was late arriving due to a whale sighting en-route from Guadeloupe, so the skipper slowed down and drove in circles to let everyone see - only in the Caribbean. Val and Craig squeezed into our little car and we got them back and settled into Mango Lodge. For a week we enjoyed swims in the bay, cocktails on the deck and Craig’s wonderful cooking. We had big shopping trips to the Portsmouth fruit and veg market on Wed, Fri and Sat mornings, spent some time in the house doing jobs and even threw a dinner party.

We had lovely trips to Spanny Falls and to Cabrits National Park (see next 2 entries), we visited the cold sulphur springs at Morne aux Diables ( the volcano just up behind our house), watched the fishermen bring in their catch in the bay and often bought fish fresh from their boats. Craig took on the “coffee project” and made a lovely cup of coffee all the way from picking the fruit through cleaning, drying, winnowing, drying, roasting and grinding. We expect some will be served in the restaurant in France when he gets home.

It was a terrific week and we are now truly settled into island life. Craig and Valerie went on to Tortola and a week’s sailing course leaving us one day of laundry and cleaning before Tom and Wendy arrive - there was also time for a cocktail at sunset of course!

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Comments

[Valerie]

Happy Days
Ahhhhhh - so good to see such lovely memories. Now in St Johns so short internet access. Will be back in touch on our return to reality.....not that we want to! Grosses bises xxxxxxxx

[Trevor Overall]

Mango Lodge & The new baby
Hi Kate and Andy, I am glad to see you are keeping up with your adventures, it's great to see what you are up to, we love your spirit of adventure. Tomasina has had baby two now (Felix) and our first Henry is doing fine! That's all the children now, well Tomie's catholic heritage was a little shakey :¬) and its the best we can do for her fathers penitence!! I am planning to walk the Penine way in one trip in 2011 let me know if you fancy it - a bit of blighty weather would do you both good. Best wishes Trevor, Tomaisan, Heny, Felix.