A few things about our life in Antigua

Sorry about the photo order mix-up again. but couldnt leave these guys out

Our new neighbours' pets who seem to think sunrise is 3am...

An easy way to compare cultures is to inspect their driving habits. In Sicily the driving is chaotic to say the least. It flows like a river full of debris, with no real lanes, every car bus and scooter muddling their way along and no internationally understood rules. Dodging in and out of the traffic can even be fun. And it works. The only annoying thing is when the traffic pauses even for the merest moment, someone starts hooting. This happens often due to the previously discussed Palermo parking habits but we even experienced this at red robots...

In Antigua there are a lot more cars than you would expect but obviously nothing compared to the concentration in Palermo. The roads are single lane two way, just, and littered with potholes. Due to car cost and pride, it is very rare to find an Antiguan willing to drive through these craters. As in Palermo, the Antiguans will only park directly outside their destination. Add to the two previously mentioned habits the Antiguan tendency to stop in the middle of the road to chat, either to pedestrians or an oncoming vehicle, and you understand the propensity for the traffic to stop.

Parked Cars and a 'short-cut' - the Antiguan way of getting water across a road

But the big difference, Nobody Hoots. Nope, whether you are queing to pass a parked car, pothole or waiting for someone to finish a conversation, everyone is chilled. There is no hooting or shouting and everyone is perfectly happy just to sit and wait. Its wonderful. Granted, when youre in a hurry it takes some deep breathing to keep your hand off the horn but with so many good examples of patience around you its hard not to feel like an idiot if you are impatient.

It does also mean that when summiting a blind rise or rounding a corner you never quite know what to expect: pothole, parked car, que of cars....

Tree Frog

The wildlife here consists mainly of frogs, centipedes (deadly apparently), tortoises, mongooses mongeese mongeeses (?), um goats and cows, cattle egrets, and of course mosquitoes (based on what we've seen). The tree frogs are tiny but at night are easily audible all over the island, very audible. Its amazing how much sound can come from something so small.

The travelling tortoise

Our painted tortoise is currently a resident of the Catamaran Marina Office. He is waiting for his ride across the sea for his summer holiday in the States. Yip, this little guy hitches a ride in a yacht across the Caribbean Seas escaping the oppressive heat and hurricanes.

The baby tortoise residents of the CatClub

These little guys were born in the owner of the Catamaran Marina's garden. Apparently the landcrabs (oh add them to the wildlife list) EAT the baby tortoises. So these guys are living in a newspaper lined box, munching on lettuce and being taken out to swim once a day. You read right. These are tortoises that go for daily swims. A couple of centimetres of water are poured into the box and the tortoises wade around. They seem to enjoy it and apparently it helps them poop which keeps their home clean. The perfect pet -> Cute, full of character (these ones at least), travel well, and poop on command.

Our cute little cottage

The owner was very generous and said we could stay ashore on his dime. So we went on a house hunt and found Spice Cottages. Ours is called Mint (um a spice?) It is wonderfully rustic but has everything we could possibly want. You know, all the essentials like ceiling fans, wifi internet, aircon in the bedrooms, cable tv, high ceilings that keep the cottage unbelievably cool ... and the luxuries like a big fridge and decent size stove.... and of course the front and back verandahs all surrounded by a cute picket fence.

Once again, we are varnishing the floorboards. Our perfect house proved the perfect venue. So for a while our verandah, chairs, and outside concrete block were covered in boards.

Granted the parking is a muddy puddle which resulted in us having to push the car out (good luck trying to drive an automatic under powered tank out of mud) and our neighbour is a strange, dreaded (hair) character who wanders the street talking to the trees and demanding that cars come back immediately, not to mention his pets (see first photo) but it is absolutely wonderful. It has everything and best of all, is away from work!!!! (well mostly)

And now the boards are lining our walls while they dry to full strength. um does this count as bringing your work home??