3 for 1: a looong weekend in paradise

Thursday.
Note: The sun goes down here at about 6pm every night - which you'd think I'd be used to, but for some reason my body is sure that because it's summer here the evening is still young and I still want to go play in the ocean ;) I don't because all my safety conscious friends told me not to.I still want to though. The pool's out because they close at 6 as well for the same reason. On the other hand my bathtub is HUGE deep and I can soak right up to my chinny chin chin.

Anyway, Thursday was pretty chill after Margueritaville as you could tell from the crackbook pics, EVERYBODY had a good time, and several peeps needed some recuperation time including Carey and |Beth our new friends from Illinois (though he did take part in the sexiest Canadian contest). Having crashed early the night before I was awake at 4am, managed to go back to sleep until 6 but after that I was awake and rarin' to go. So I wandered down to the beach and welcomed the dawn with a smoke and a swim in the ocean, which is warmer than the pool, talked to the fishermen on the beach and then had a shower and headed for brekky laptop in tow.
By 8 I was comfortably ensconced in a nicely padded overlarge wicker arm chair on the breeze way going through pics to get them posted and voila, a coffee and Bailey's with some rum cream was deposited at my table. The bar isn't open so till 10am, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to see Yanike smile and tell me shhhh, she made it for me special... the service is truly top notch here. I did get most of the pics processed by the time Dean showed up for breakfast.Then it was off to the pool. Such a hard life ... I know.

Played in the pool with Kory Bren, Minda and Super Dave, the woop woop twins and Sally-Anna until siesta time then spent the siesta part of the afternoon getting the pics actually posted and talked via video with Amanda for about half an hour. Reservations for supper at Luigi's which is pasta at noon and Brazilian in the evening. I thought the lamb and the pork were delish but Bren says they don't even come close to real Brazilian food. AND I tried some black bean with rice - and found that they weren't so bad after all, for some reason I had the idea that they were the same consistency as kidney beans - not. Learn something new every day.
We spent the rest of the evening kicking back, watching a bit of the show and making plans for Minda and Dave's last 2 days over waaay too many mai tais and mudslides.


Friday - Rick's Cafe
As a creature of habit and order (insert guffaw here) I was up early however around 1am the night before I heard the chain in the bathtub rattling. Like a person would rattle it. Yet I knew there was no one else here. Trusting to the better side of valour I got up and closed the bathroom door not wanting to have to deal with something I might not want to deal with until morning. About and hour later I heard a scrabble, a sort of swishy thud and some crash boom bang. From the bathroom. I stayed in bed. When I got up in the morning the towels from the towel bar were in the tub along with the conditioner and shampoo, which had obviously been knocked over by the falling towels. I can only assume that a gecko had gotten into the bathroom and was exploring causing the towel fall etc. as there are no visible openings large enough for anything else to get through. I checked. Which is too bad because I've been trying to find a gecko to get some pictures.

Morning puja to great Ra completed I enjoyed breakfast on the patio and another song with the line cooks. The staff here break into random song whenever the mood strikes them and I love it. Got everything together for my shopping trip and our afternoon at Rick's Cafe. Doc took Brenda and I to the Sun outlet where I actually found a jamaican sundress that FIT me for under 15 bucks (impressed), then we stopped and picked up some spices and I got confused about Jamaican dollars much to Doc's amusement, and then he took us to a lady in the craft market that makes rasta hats. I described how much hair roberto had and she is making me an extra large one for next thursday. Terrific! It really is too bad about the weight limit on my luggage - I could have spent the day in that market.

Then it was off to Rick's to meet Kory Minda and Super Dave. When we got there the doorman was expecting us and to our delight we had rented the big cabana by the jumping cliff for the day which came with bottle service, snacks and 5 red stripe in a bucket for $14 US as well as $4 guinness and our own waitress named "baby girl". I had quite the frolic with my camera, you could see the lighthouse from Rick's bandstand and we spent the day chatting up the jumpers and Carolyn & Tom from Ontario (also at the RIU). I tried some "ting" a fruit juice primarily made of grapefruit and I believe we should be importing that stuff. We took a dip in the cliffside pool and watched the glass bottomed boats and catamarans dock to watch the sunset as the cliff divers went about their daily entertainment. Kory jumped, but unfortunately the ladder to get back on the landing has a broken rung so even if I did jump into the ocean, there was no bloody way my knee would have gotten me back out of it. Maybe next year.

The sunset was marred by clouds, yet we had a complete blast and headed home around 8:30. Turkey dinner was waiting in the Garden Restaurant when we arrived. We moved to the Coliseum to watch some of the reggae show. I had a few cocktails in the lounge before we headed before bed while Minda & Dave, and Carey & Beth headed off to the disco.

Sat.
For Minda and Super Dave's last day we opened and closed the pool bar - well I left 2 hours early when the torrential downpour began and I was scooching the laptop bag to higher ground. Made friends with sweater Bob and shaky, saw the lovely Sally & Anna off. Carey and Beth left at lunch which Brenda and Kory brought poolside (they are so great to us). Jamaican curry patties, curry chicken and fresh killed and cooked lobster from just down the beach.The closers headed for a rest before our reservation at Shadows while I uploaded pictures but missed Amanda when I tried to message her, and made friends with a bunch of Brits from Manchester, Lincoln, Lancashire, Liverpool and Wales. Great blokes all.

Supper with Dave at Shadows, the other three were not making the reservation for 5 and |Dave and I were ravenous. Tasty tasty treats! Dave was back to his place after supper and I joined Sue and I want to say Len, but may be mistaken, along with Sxxx and Stew, Maz Nigel, Al, and xxxx damn another one I've forgotten. They're here till Monday and have invited me to come to England. Minda & Dave have been an absolute riot and I will be sad to see them leave, however the shiny side up is that 7 of our other friends will be here 6 hours after they're gone. Brenda wants us to dress up with makeup and everything for pictures in the am - so we'll see how that goes;)
I Tomorrow looks to be another wonderful day in paradise. Ja mon.

and now it's time for another scrumptious breakfast on the p[atio under the palms.
Love y'all