Beautiful Barbados

We went back to Barbados this year for a get away. I love Barbados! It is such a beautiful place to visit, so much to see and not a very big island so you can see an awful lot of it in a relatively short amount of time. The pace of life is perfect for relaxing and taking in the many beaches. Again, we stayed in Rockley Beach with our lovely friends Heidi and Dietmar. I could live here quite easily... but not yet, still so many  other wonderful places to see first. Here are a few photos of good times.

This is our friend Shawn from Guelph, one of a few friends who came with us this year to make it extra festive. He is standing under a nutmeg tree in a gulley forest looking for a nutmeg.

I forget the name of this tree- it had some really good medicinal qualities...and it was lovely looking.

This is a pic of the ocean at Bathsheba beach. The sweet colourful signs tacked to the palm tree tell you to leave nothing but your foot prints on the beach and there on the ground... not a footprint.

Felt so lucky to be in town for Heidi Berger's opening of recent work with 

 Ancel Daniel at the Gallery of Caribbean Art.

Some of Ancel's wonderful clay sculptures. Ancel is also a storyteller, keen to share the background of her work, a mixture of family, history, natural medicine and folklore.

Heidi's stunning mixed media portrait and sculpture on the walls, with Ancel's sculpture in  front.

One of Heidi's many monotype based mixed media works. This is one of the pieces that she started in Guelph where we spent some time working on my press.

Gorgeous secluded Bottom Bay, not for swimming but definitely for relaxing almost alone and eating conch and drinking coconut water and rum.

Heather and I at Oistin's famous Friday night fish fry. Yes, everyone is there on Friday night and there are way too many choices of where to eat. Legendary fish cakes is a good place to start...

This was a busy spot with big line ups and delicious smells.

Supposedly this is where Billy Ocean shot scenes for his video, Caribbean Queen. Our group still do not believe this but Animal Flower Cave was a beautiful spot for lunch and exploring.

Some of the ponds inside from when tide is high were luke warm and some of our friends went in. 

This was our every evening beach close to home base, Rockley. Chris was experimenting with his new phone, the beach is more of a strip, not a crescent shape.

We visited Chalky Mount before we left. It is a nice little village way up high with wonderful views. There are some simple little places to stop and eat some local snacks and watch the world move by- slowly. Chalky Mount was famous for having great clay for ceramics and so having a large community of ceramicists there. It is not as popular in recent years, but the clay is still there and excellent and you can still find signs that say 'potter' on them. This is Iseph the potter who we met because of one such sign. He is a third generation of Chalky Mount potter. We knocked on the door and stayed for the whole show. This is me laughing because we just told Iseph my name and he burst into song... " I hear the whippoorwill...Tammy's in love." I hadn't heard that since working at a pub in London a very long time ago.

Again, Bottom Bay but up at the top. Yes, there is a little cocktail table with charming bartenders at top of the cliff and bottom.