Day Five: St Kitts

This island is our favourite island that we visited, for two main reasons. Firstly, the port that we docked in was very tourist-friendly. No-one could get in or out unless you had your cruise card on you, therefore you couldn't get murdered there (see Antigua for more details!) and enjoy your major shopping experience, and secondly, pretty much the whole of the rest of the island was untouched by the modern day, so plenty of fortresses and wonderful little shanty towns, together with a pretty big rainforest!

We were woken up again by the ship coming into dock, which is great as it gives you about an hour or more before you go for breakfast, which is good, especially if you've had a heavy night the night before! So after eating another big breakfast, we ambled our way down to the harbour, where we were picked up by another little minibus and taken to our first destination, high up in the hills.

After the usual 2 or 3 stop-offs to take some snaps, we eventually arrived at Romney Manor. This is an amazing place, high up in the rainforest, with some spectacular views and pretty great gardens to boot. The main reason for the stop off was to see some Batik clothing being made. Now, Batik, for anyone that hasn't clicked on the link, is an ancient trade of colouring cloth using a procedure involving wax dyeing. The clothes were amazing and, because of the glorious price of the dollar, cheap to buy as well, so we all came away with some item of clothing, which will probably make an appearance at various cheesy barbecues over the summer!

Here's a piccie of some of the cloth drying out:

That blue one, second in, is similar to the shirt I bought!

After that, we slowly made our way up towards the highest point of the island, and to our next destination, Brimstone Hill Fortress, which is a UNESCO world heritahe site. It got its name because the fort itself was made from the lava rock from the nearby volcano Nevis, so its pretty damn strong!

I think that may be Nevis in the background, but either way, its a good photo so there!

There were supposed to be green monkeys up there, but apart from the sickening sight of one on a leash that one local decided to charge every tourist for looking for (a stern, british look put him to rights!), there were none to be found.

After that, we made our way slowly down the steep lanes back to the harbour, and before getting back on board for some lunch, had a wander round the tourist-friendly part, which was lovely, and amazingly intact, considering just over a year ago it had been decimated by a rather large hurricane!

The entertainment on board ship up till this point had been excellent. There were resident singers, who were suitably cheesy and quite good at times, and in the first week we had two comedians, who filled the category 'I know his face but not his name', or vice versa). They both came from the Jongleurs club sceme, and they were really good. So, first up, Sean Meo...

...who, when not entertaining us with fairly risque material, was getting hammered in the casino, or sleeping by the pool. Oh the pain of being paid to be funny!

Next up, Junior Simpson, who is slightly better known (this is where the text-wrapping goes AWOL)...

..and, whilst very funny, was not as funny as the chap we had coming up next week. But more of that at a later date.

The highlight of the entertainment on the first week was the 'Planets' show, which was performed by the Freedom 2 Move performers who had done various acrobatics around the ship all week, and done an excellent job of performing an ABBA tribute act the previous night. This was performed outside on top deck, and was incredibly spectacular, as it was created by the chap who thought up the War of the Worlds west end stage production.

After watching that, we headed back to watch the final performance of the above comedians, ably assisted by Manuel Martinez, before heading to bed (after an alcoholic nightcap, of course!), as tomorrow, we're heading for Antigua, the wedding capital of the world!

Three, Two, One....Goooooooooooo!

Right, now for the normal blog bit, and this time with actual content!

Been a busy week at work (thus, no blog for a week-ish), but its been quite interesting in brum this week, as they have started to excavate the bit inbetween Baskerville House and the REP for the new library. Before they do this, they have bought in the archaeologists to uncover the original house that John Baskerville lived in. They are there for about 4 weeks, and have only opened up a few trenches, so its not really worth a photo yet, but stay tuned for more digging action!

Finally the weekend came and after attending a leaving drinks 'do' in solihull on friday, and hearing Blues' demise on saturday (*snigger*), sunday saw me, Jason, Gareth and Dan go out to Bassetts Pole to get battered by paintballs all day long. It was great fun, and apparently our team won, which was nice.

Highlight: Me, Jason and two other lads decimating half a field of opponents, using tactical army techniques, strategic manouevres, and a whole lot of bullets!

Lowlight: Gareth hitting me on the forehead with a paintball, giving me double vision for about a minute, then when I came to and started firing at his group, him hitting me in the glove and square on the visor!

Anyway, all good fun, and despite the bruises, of which I am still finding some to this day, I'd do it again!

This weekend I shall be mostly attending the 'Mellberg Day' at villa park to give Olly the best send off that the holte end can muster (got to be worth a quid on him scoring, hasn't it!?)