I am still enjoying playing with my new camera so I will probably be posting lots of pictures in the next few weeks. I took this picture of Oscar using the close up setting and was quite impressed that you can see the wet part of his nose in the picture. The second picture was taken last night when we went out for my 30th birthday. I had a great evening and had 16 of my friends join me for dinner which was great. Thank you to everyone who made the effort to come out and also to all the people that have sent me messages on facebook, sms, email etc. If you are my friend on Facebook you can see more of the pictures there.

We are now back in the UK after a week in St Lucia. I spent most of yesterday recovering from jet lag, hence no blog posts, but am feeling a bit more awake today. Further to my post about our open top jeep ride around St Lucia, I have now been able to get to the pictures. I found that the jeep ride was a particularly good way to see the island, mainly because there are only 8 people to each jeep, so if you have any questions you can ask the guide at any time. You can also ask to pull over at any time, if there is anything you want to explore further.

The tour started by driving through some of the more built up areas of island including the capital Castries. Pictured left is one of the islands many Catholic churches.

Pictured right is the tour guide Chris and our friend Dave who also came on the trip with us.

Here you can see one of the many places along the road where the local farmers offer some of their fruit for you to taste.

Pictured right is just one of the many banana plantations that we drove past.

Pictured left you can see me at the front of the jeep and next to that some pineapples growing in one of the plantations.

Here you can see the landscape as it starts to change as we reach the range forest. At this point the air becomes much cooler and the tracks through the forest are at times no more than dirt tracks.

To the left you can see a view of The Pitons, St Lucia's most famous landmark  that stands over 2,000 feet tall. To the right is a picture of Rory enjoying a dip under a waterfall which is meant to have healing properties.

On the left is a picture of the Sulphur Springs at the dormant volcano and on the right myself, Rory and Dave at the springs.

This shows our visit to a cocoa plantation. The picture to the far left shows the cocoa beans drying in the sun and the other picture shows a lady pealing the roasted beans before they are made into cocoa sticks. According to the guide over 90% of the cocoa from this plantation ends up in the US.

In the afternoon we made our way  back by boat. Here you can see me enjoying the boat trip and Rory swimming in the sea.

We had a busy day yesterday as we went on an open top jeep ride through the rain forest. We set off just after 8 in the morning. Seeing St Lucia by jeep is definitely the way to do it and although it gets a little hairy on some of the steep tracks in the forest, you see a lot more than if you were confined to the coach. You also have the advantage of being able to stand up and take photos whenever you want. We also stopped at a cocoa plantation where we were able to see how they make chocolate, one of my favourite things. Needless to say there are lots of photos but these will follow when I get back to the UK tomorrow.

We went to Dave and Anita's wedding yesterday. They had the service on a private beach called Pigeon Island and as you can see from the photo on the left it was a stunning setting. This was followed by champagne on the beach and then we moved onto the reception at Jacques restaurant. The venue is right on the waterfront and has a private area for functions with room for dancing. The whole day went really well and the happy couple are now off on their honeymoon. Congratulations Mr and Mrs Hedges.

We arrived in St Lucia yesterday evening for a five day stay during which we are attending a friends wedding on Tuesday. I must say I was dreading the eight hour flight but it was better than I expected, perhaps because I managed to watch three movies on the way. We did, however, arrive very tired and so last night we just stopped for a bite to eat before heading off for an early night.

So far I am impressed with the hotel. We are staying at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort in Rodney Bay. On arrival we were greeted with a glass bucks fizz and the staff couldn't be any more helpful. Obviously I have the promised internet access, which is essential for keeping track of my various businesses whilst we are away. I will also post some pictures of the room shortly. We ate in the resorts Hi-Tide Restaurant last night and once again my first impressions were good. Rory had red snapper and I had a baby rack of lamb that came with a sweet potato mash. We are just about to head out for breakfast now, so more on this later, hopefully with some pictures of the island.

We went to see our friends Dave and Anita this weekend and after having a nice meal at a restaurant in Maidenhead we spent the rest of the evening at their place. We had packed our Playstation 2 along with our Singstar games and after a few drinks we decided to give it a go. This was not our first time playing Singstar but we have always found it goes down really well at parties. We finally stopped playing at around three in morning after working our way through most of the songs on our six Singstar games. I do have videos but due to the fact I am tone deaf will not be posting them.

We went to a party this weekend at Shaz and Chhaya's house, despite the fact that it rained all night we were still nice and dry under the marquee. Chhaya had spent the day cooking and treated us to a great spread of samosas, kebabs, chicken wings and mini pizzas.

Chhaya and me.

Shaz and me.

Facebook can now claim to have created its first boy band. A group of four musicians met on Facebook after discovering they had similar interests. They later tracked down Daniel Glatman, former boss of the band Blue and asked him if he would become their manager. They have now signed a £1 million album deal with Universal. The group called Blake have already recorded their first album which includes classic tracks such as Moon River and Jerusalem.

This was my first trip to Ireland and although most of our time was spent at a friends wedding, I left with the intention of going back again for a longer stay. It definitely wasn’t the weather that made my stay enjoyable, it basically rained on and off all weekend. I did however find it refreshing to be surrounded by beautiful countryside instead of feeling rather crammed in as we tend to be back in London. One thing that immediately struck me was that every person we came across whilst in Ireland greeted you with a cheery good morning or a friendly wave. Back in London, things are slightly different, if you even so much as glance at another person on the bus or train, you are met with a blank, unfriendly look.

During this visit we hired a self catering cottage from Dream Ireland. The cottage is located in the grounds of the Mount Wolseley Hilton Hotel. It included a double room with en-suite bathroom, two rooms with twin beds and a third room with a single bed. It also had another bathroom and toilet as well as kitchen and large living/dining area. In fact it was much bigger than our house and cost 420 Euros, that’s about £287. I was very impressed with the accommodation offered for the price and you also had the option to use the hotels pool, spa and gym. The cottage also had the advantage of being located within an easy five minutes from the main hotel which has several restaurants serving food for most of the day and several bars which were open until very late.

The atmosphere in the hotels bar was a welcome change from a smoky pub; smoking having already been banned in public places in Ireland. On the night we arrived, at nearly midnight, we were surprised to find the hotel’s main bar still open and the locals enjoying a good singsong well into the early hours of the morning. In fact they were still singing when we left at three in the morning. In all it was an enjoyable few days and I will definitely be going back.

Views of the living area in the cottage.

I just got back from my trip to Ireland during which we stayed in a shared cottage. It's always so nice to be home. All the cats were pleased to see us and Rory's father was kind enough to trim our hedge, whilst he looked after the house for us. I really missed home, but most of all I missed my nice new TV.

I and my husband are heading off to Ireland this weekend for a friends wedding. It always occurs to me when going away how much easier it is for men to pack. They simply pack a pair of jeans and a pair of trousers and a couple of tops. My packing dilemma goes something like this. We are going away for 4 days. The first day we are at the wedding, so I have my dress and shoes, but what if it is cold, I might need a jacket. The next day I will need something casual to wear during the day, so I pack jeans and trainers, but wait I am going out in the evening, will I need something smart? So I pack a skirt and top, but what if it’s too cold for a skirt… I pack trousers. The thing is trousers require different shoes to a skirt so I pack my smart boots as well as my strappy shoes. Ok, the bag is starting to get heavier at this point and thats before I think about day three. Men have it easy. 

We went to a housewarming party this weekend at Brads, Richards and Neil’s new house. Despite the fact that it was cold and raining someone had the great idea of having a Braai (BBQ). With the help of a few strategically placed umbrellas the meat stayed dry which is more than I can say for most of the guests.

It was Rory’s birthday this weekend so Tamsyn, Brad and Jim came over for a Braai (BBQ). We spent much of the evening playing on the Wii console on Wii Sports having tennis and boxing tournaments. Although I proved to be fairly rubbish at the Wii Tennis I managed to emerge as the ultimate champion of the boxing knockout.

Brad and Jim playing Wii boxing.

From the left: Rory, Tamsyn, Me, Brad and Jim tired out after the Wii Sports tournament.

Tamsyn and Jim visited this weekend just before they went off to a Barbie and Ken themed party. These blonde wigs are available online from the joke shop.

We went shopping today trying to find me an outfit for a wedding we have coming up in May. Whilst I appreciate my husband accompanying me on these shopping trips, it usually involves me trying on anything from ten to twenty different outfits and then coming home with nothing. As frustrating as this can be for me, it is far more frustrating for my husband who spends most of his time waiting outside nearly every changing room in the shopping centre. Noticing the gathering of other boyfriends and husbands doing exactly the same thing (you can spot them by the defeated look in their eyes, the many bags they are carrying and the look of immense boredom) I realised there is a huge untapped resource here. If only shopping centres would realise this, they could fill the area around the women’s changing rooms with a variety of cool gadgets guaranteed to interest bored men. I’m sure if shops started doing this their sales would increase dramatically and perhaps my husband would look forward to going shopping with me.

Yesterday we went to a braai (thats a BBQ to all us British people) at our friend Bradlys house in Colliers Wood. Brad has just come over from South Africa to work here for a couple of years and it’s the first time we have seen him since we got married last June so it was great to catch up. Despite it being quite cold we observed the usual braai etiquette of standing around admiring the fire and all paying homage to the tongmaster. It reminded me of the following short video which outlines the do’s and don’t of braai etiquette including the all important rules which prevent the female members of the party interfering in the manly business of taking care of the fire.

Rory and Brad.

I and my friend Petra had dinner at Jade Garden in Staines last night. We both agree that they serve the best crispy duck ever. The rest of the meal was also very good. One thing I always find odd about this restaurant is that despite it being so good and so reasonably priced for the quality of food and service it always seems to be very quiet. Last night for example there were only 2 other tables filled.

It could be that from the front the restaurant appears to be simply part of the attached hotel. In fact you need to go into the entrance of the hotel and walk straight through to Jade Garden. Being such a good restaurant this place really should fill every table even in the week. In all for a two course meal with a bottle of nice wine the total bill was only £45.

If you want good food, good service and fantastic crispy duck this is the place to go. As always we over ordered, although from past experience we have learnt that you can take home what you can’t eat in a doggy bag to enjoy later. Obviously my husband has also learnt this because when I arrived home he was eagerly waiting to claim the left over’s and greeted me with the words “what did you bring me this time” before snatching the bag from me and heating it up in the microwave.

I came across the following site http://www.krumble.com that allows you to review local businesses and have added this and other reviews. It seems like quite a good idea.