Barbados

Just in case you missed anything here is a little recap.

Living in the woods

Raising money for The Woodland Trust

Press interest

Couple of papers call me a ‘New Puritan’

Took offence to this term and respond by going to the Caribbean for the weekend, and let that be a lesson to you!

So I spent the weekend lounging about on the beach and dancing like a loon. But it wasn’t all rum punches, reggae and sun burn. No no no. I learned stuff as well.


1) If you become ill having eaten in two different places it is possible, but not advisable, to deduce which of the places it was that made you ill by following the following.
A) Wait until you feel better.
B) Go to the more dubious looking of the two eating establishments and order food.
C) Do not be put off by the fact that it is luke warm and has probably been sitting about in the sun all day.
D) Ignore your instincts that are telling you to throw the food away and run.
E) Eat as much as you can manage.
f) Compare symptoms of this bout of illness with the last – if they are the same then you have found the source of your original illness and know to avoid eating at that place in future
g) Spend the next day running to the bathroom more times than Pete Doerty at, well at anywhere.
2) From the perspective of the shade of a palm tree on a golden beach next to crystal clear waters of the Caribbean the cold, grey damp woods of Oxfordshire seem less than appealing.
3) A weekend is not long enough.
4) There are 550,000 ways of parting a gullible tourist from his money.
5) It is possible to sprain your ankle whilst dancing to Reggae, but it requires a lot of determination
6) Fresh Aloe Vera does indeed stain sheets and, just as the notice on the door to my room said, should be kept away from the linen, and towels.


Whilst lying under a palm tree (there was a lot of that sort of thing) yesterday it occurred to me that if I was at home I would be lying under a beach tree in the cold looking up at a grey November sky. I started to think, what if there was an organisation out there called The Palm Tree Trust out there somewhere, perhaps I could spend a year lazing about on the beach in order to raise money for The Palm Tree Trust. It seemed like a good idea, arduous in the extreme but hey, someone’s got to do it. According to the internet there is no ‘The Palm Tree Trust’.

I did meet a guy who had been living on the beach for years and made a living my selling fresh aloe vera and coconuts to tourists, coming to arrangements whereby he would deliver coconuts to hotel rooms in the morning ready for breakfast.

I went over to his for dinner one night, I’ll write about it later.