Typically tropical..part one

Not having to go to work on a Monday morning is but a minor addition to the reasons to be cheerful when you're sitting on the veranda of your apartment, watching the boyfriend dive into the pool just a dozen yards away through the palm-rich and gloriously sunny surroundings of the All-Seasons Europa apartments. And it's only 7 a.m. and already in the early thirties.

We left England on a later flight than in previous years, departing Gatwick at 1.15pm, meaning we had a later arrival at Grantley Adams airport in Bridgetown, just before 6pm Bajan time. I watched and enjoyed the Ed Norton and Liv Tyler version of the newer Incredible Hulk movies, and saw most of Mamma Mia on the plane (but was frustrated at not ebing able to sing along!), and we were fed pretty well - the cottage pie was terrific- but somehow (and I can't quite put my finger on why) the BA experience wasn't as good as the Virgin one. The staff were slightly on the grumpy side and althought the choice of films was pretty good they did only show 2 cycles of programmes - leaving quite a stretch with nothing to watch but the map!

There were several bouts of significant turbulence, notably during the serving of lunch and resulting in Jo Hanger's red wine being thrown across the floor just when she needed it most. Ellis and Ollie spent equal parts of the flight bestest mates and direst enemies - neither state being particularly conducive to a relaxing snooze to wile away the time. The flight seemed to take ages, but finally we were being treated to the circumnavigation of the island prior to landing that is rather impressive and allowed us to try and point out familiar land-marks to the first-timers.

Our unexpectedly speedy exit through passport control/customs was offset by an extraordinarily long wait for the baggage which seemed to be being offloaded a handful at a time by a Bajan porter who wandered back and forth from the plane to the terminal in his own sweet time! During the wait we missed the sun setting, and our drive to the apartments was therefore necessarily devoid of sightseeing, except for spotting a large well-lit gazebo-type construction in a field full of sugar-cane which our driver informed us was the starting station for spot of nocturnal car rallying - judging by the number of parked vehicles, this was pretty popular (either that or each car in the rally contained about 8 people!)

We also, anticipating that the local supermarket would be shut, persuaded our driver to stop at a garage, and supplies of milk, bread and miscellaneous breakfast items were purchased.

On arrival at Europa there was a slight annoyance on finding that they planned to charge us an extra US$12 a night for the now fully installed air conditioning. In the absence of Russ (who had taken the offer to travel to the Stanford Twenty20 in Antigua), Julie was able to successfully argue that we'd paid for this in the inflated room prices we'd been charged by Rumsey/Tempus and eventually they relented and handed over the room key/activation cards. Fortunately, Dave had brought his padlock with us, which meant that in the evening we were able to lock our door while the card was still in the A/C activation slot - this ensured the room was lovely and cool before we retired of an evening.

Sunday morning followed swiftly on from a couple of welcome bottles of Banks' beer and a rather early night for all, smug in the knowledge that despite hitting the pillow at local time 10p.m., it was in fact 2a.m. UK time. And at least Europa had added breakfast to it's significantly expanded list of restaurant options. And I was first in the pool!! 6.15a.m. and it was warm and refreshing and a real sign of the holiday having started. I wasn't alone for long.



After our on-site Bajan breakfast of flying fish, scrambled eggs, garlic fries and toast we walked to the supermarket (which we had established opened at 9a.m on Sundays) both to reacquaint ourselves with the locale, and because the Europa's complimentary bus doesn't run on a church day. We were joined by the Renshaws and our neighbours Andy and Sally Beevers, the latter needing a quick tour of the important local highlights. We stocked up on useful bits, noting again the high price of the fruit and veg, buying plenty of soft drink options as well as a bottle of Cockspur rum and some Hersheys chocolate.

We took a card from the taxi-driver we got a lift back with in case of future need, and then took Sally and Andy for a walk down to the beach, via the Italian coffee shop (and a milk-shake and mocha frappe).There is a new entrance, through the Divi Heritage Resort, which comes out further north up the beach, but access to the Sandy lane beach is still possible - although the tide seemed to be in and rather high.

After a quick look at the beautiful expanse of sand and the gorgeous clear sea, we wandered back.

A couple of changes of note were the completion of the change from the Pizzazz of 2004 to Just Grillin', and the shutting of Chefette, but we were to find plenty of great places so eat in the course of the next 2 weeks.

More soon....