1998-2007, old photos of the land and building work.

1998

Back in 1998, when we first bought the land. Right on the tip of the peak after a little bit had been cleared. We then left the land until 2004 before we did any more work on it.

2004

The JCB comes in for the first time to start clearning.

A perimeter wall is built around the property and along the back of the land along the road.

2003

After the land is cleared then we have room to put the tool shed up. Similar to a horse stable, but what dad knows the best after working in the industry for the past 25 years. A concrete base was laid down first and then we made several panels which we put together.

2004

Working on the first chalet. After the land is cleared, the water tank has to be made. This is the water tank im standing on.

The base goes on the top of the water tank, then block work goes up

Once the block work is finished then the roof beams go on, and are concreted into the ring beams.

Me and Dani working on the gingerbread facia boards.

Me working on the roof.

Corrie cutting some boards.

2005

It was mine and Deans job to tile the roof with shingles, both of us really enjoyed this job.

We had to glue the corner tiles together and then pin them, 1000's of these had to be done, so we were quite lucky because it meant that we could sit in the shade for over a week.

We started on the landscaping outside then, do you like mine and Deans first patio.

Danie and dad making the steps down to the chalet.

Doing a bit of gardening, it took four of us to position this stone.

Its really taking shape now.

Adding top soil to the gardens. Dani by our trailer bought in from the UK.

After the gardens have been planted up.

2006

These are a few pics of the second chalet being built, from before I made the site.
I know many of you will have seen these pics before, but for those who haven't, Enjoy!

The tank being built.

2007

After the tank was built, the concrete and block work shell of the house was built, the roof timbers went on next and then the actual roof which dad designed and made himself, (now you see why it takes so long).

View from the harbour of Dani's chalet going up.

June

Thought I'd introduce you to our beautiful 4 cats that we seem to of gained since we got out here, they were strays when we found them. The mother (now known as mom, who's the large tabs), had 4 tiny kittens, one of them left home, we see her around, but for some reason she doesn't want anything to do with us lol. The others are called Tomi, (girl, tortoiseshell), Coco (male and white with lovely blue eyes), and tabs (male tabby).

They are about 8 months old now, we are slowly getting them tamer, we have had them all done, and they've had all there jabs, so I guess dads keeping them. Below, meet mum, tomi, coco and tabs. (still gotta take one of tabs)

Our job this week was to construct a 16' wooden timber building to store wood underneath, at least we were in the shade for most of it.

The guys have finally moved up to start the pool, the JCB digger dug out lots of earth for the foundations which took about 10 days, so we were left with a huge crater. The two pics below show the borders of the swimming pool to the front of the land and then corries house to the back of the land. You will have to excuse my photo stitching, not the best I realise.

The reason why so much soil is dug out, is that water tanks have to be built below the house, before the house is built, this is because you cant get mains water over here. Any water you need here has to be collected from rain water from the roof and then stored in the tank for when it is needed. The problem comes when the dry season comes and it doesn't rain for three months.

Me and Dean are still busy doing the underside of the canopies with ship lap boarding and putting the gutters on. We have 2 sides left to do so should be finished in a few days. I think its on to the balustrades (hand rails) on the balcony next.

Mum, Dad and Corrie are out of the bathroom and starting with the kitchen now, they tiled the floor and are now tiling the kitchen and fitting the cabinets. Everything was going fine until dad realised that he had put the taps on back to front. He had put the hot on the right and cold on the left, apparently they are the other way round, and since we got out here, mum has been telling him the wrong way. I think that means that the shower, the bathroom sink and all the taps in my chalet are wrong not. Not so good, but dad would rather rip everything out and know its correct, instead of leaving it all in.

Let me introduce you to Mr P. Now the chances are this little fella will gross out most of you because its pretty ugly the first time you see it, and it has the most yuckiest rats type tale, (good job I never got that in the pic). Anyways Mr P stands for Mr Possum, the locals call it an agouti. They are nocturnal creatures, that eat anything from meat to fruit, but when ever we feed our cats at night, we get two of these creatures coming to feed as well. The cats aren't scared of them because they are rather daft little creatures, in fact I think they have very poor hearing and eyesight, I can scream, clap and shine a bright light at it and it hardly flinched. They are very clumsy as well as they are constantly knocking things over with there tail and walking into things (another reason why I think they need glasses). They are marsupials, so they have there young in a pouch like kangaroos do. I do find them rather cute though, and they are just slightly smaller than a cat, so nothing to be scared of really. The locals here in Bequia, and in fact on all the Caribbean islands catch these little animals, burn the hair off and then eat them, (apparently they taste like chicken). One of the guys working for us on the site caught one for lunch about 6 months ago I was totally disgusted, but then again that the way they have been brought up and its just food to them.

When we first came here many years ago, we planted some baby banana plants, now they have grown to be quite a nice size, we've even managed to get about 6 bunches of bananas off them so far. They aren't like your usual English bananas though, they are about 3 inches long, so you need to eat about 4 of them, to get your fill of a U.K. banana. When ever we have papaya or any other fruit then we keep the seeds and throw them over the balcony, in hope that some will grow. 6 months later, we have about 20 papaya trees. Here is one of our home grown papayas. And our banana trees, how cool is that.

I was messing around with my camera as usual, when I noticed about 15 ants all struggling with this piece of food up a very steep wall. Now again I realise many of you will cringe, but I really do find ants rather amazing, when they are all working together as a team, and lifting something that is over 10 times their weight, its just makes us humans out to be rather week. Thinking about us though all working together to get something done, we are rather like ants as well, don't you think.

Ahhh, Sisterly Love, I thought id better put a pic on of me, because there doesn't seem to be any. I guess its because I'm always behind the camera.

Dean still hasn't got his office yet, so he uses the tool shed to check his emails, good job we are all on wireless.  And when he's not checking his emails he's working of course, oh and riding on his new quad.

Well we've had a busy week, dads managed to finally finish the bathroom off, after spending weeks on it, it does look pretty nice though. Dads being tiling it, and corries being grouting (filling the tiles in with cement).

Me and dean have been doing lots of woodwork under the canopy of the chalet and fixing the guttering up, the problem is that 4 sides of the chalet are 35 foot off the ground, so much of our time has been spent building scaffolding to get to that height. Good job we aren't scared of heights.

We have about 6 trees on the land called frangipani trees, every so often they come up in beautiful yellow and pink flowers, they must taste nice as well, because as soon as the leaves come out on them, within a day they are covered from top to bottom in these massive black and yellow caterpillars, I mean they are huge, here are a few of the medium sized caterpillars next to my hand. They actually look quite scary, but they are totally harmless. The locals wont touch them because of their creepy colour. I would love to know what type of butterfly they turn into though.

It takes about a day for them to eat every leaf off the tree, then they go away, within a week the leaves have grown back, and we are back to square one. The caterpillars return and start gobbling away...all over again.

Below are some pics of the caterpillars, me and deans nice canopy, Corrie looking rather fuzzy (I was experimenting with my new camera), looks cool though. The last pic is of mum, corrie and dad in the dinghy.

Thought I'd introduce you to some of the guys that work for us, here are some pics i took so far, there's about 10 of them working with us.  From left to right,

Whiskey, (Second man in charge)  Marcus and Magnus (the foreman), Abdi, Marcus, Marlon and Brent,  Corrie and Shago. Will try and get some more pics on here, coz there are many more guys working.

We've finally finished the roof, well most of it, take a look, doesn't it look beautiful, well it would if you put your blood and sweat into it.  Mum and dad got back with Corrie today, its nice to see them again. Here's a pic of deans quad too, oh and the lovely Fay, who sells t-shirts on the beach. Had to put in the pic of dean, coz i liked it.

We found our third tarantula for the week today, they keep hiding under the packs of shingles that we are using to tile danies roof. The first one being 4 inches and the others were slightly smaller. Apparently they aren't poisoness although they do bite. The locals here call them donkey spiders because their hair is just like a donkey. More like Donkey Tarantula don't you agree

The work guys are coming along nicely with the wall, and we are slowly getting the roof tiled. Had to put timbers on first. Dean constructed this nice little awning while we finished each bay so we didn't get burnt. We still had to put sun tan lotion on because the sun is so strong. 

Have you  worked out what it is yet, its a stone bath to go in the main house. The guy who we bought it off just couldn't store it in the U.K., so its come out to Bequia early, it took a JCB to lift the thing, it may not look big from the pic,  but you can actually fit about five people in it. We don't even have the house built yet!!!

August

I want to write a little something for my lovely Uncle Chris who sadly passed away a few weeks ago from Cancer, at the age of 39, he was only young and will be missed by so many people.

Uncle Chris you will be sadly missed, you were always there for us, you were great to get on with and talk too. I will miss our nightly quizzes, our Thursday night meals down the swan and our lifts to the shops. It only seems like yesterday that I saw you and hugged you good bye to come out here. I am thinking of you constantly looking down on all of us and watching over Nan and granddad. Please keep them safe and look after them. They say that god only takes the best don't they, well I guess that's true now because you were great.

You may be gone but you will never be forgotten.

Thinking of you always, your niece Samie xxx

The rest of August

Well I do have to admit I didn't update my site last month as much as I wanted to, due to trying to get everything finished before Danie came out, however here it is now, Me and Dean actually had a bet on, he thought that we wouldn't finish the chalet before Danie came out, I thought we would, it was only over a lobster Pizza, not too big a bet, but they are very yummy, so it would have been nice to win. To Deans luck though, a nasty hurricane, which was actually called Dean, came rushing towards Bequia, so we left immediately in the boat and sailed down south. We left Dean putting hurricane shutters up on the doors and windows and strapping down the buildings. You may laugh with the strapping part, but believe me if you had a category 5 hurricane go over any of the timber buildings up at our place then they would be ripped out the ground, so we had to be prepared. 

We thought we had missed the bad weather and and we were a good 200 mile south of the centre, but when it came to getting into to Trinidad, we had 35 knots of wind on the nose, big waves, no visibility from the rain and we were only averaging 0.5 knots over the ground.  We had only a few miles to go and it took us about 6 hours. It was like going up the red sea all over again, and for those who already know about that trip, would understand what hell we were going through.

When we finally reached into port, the swell was so bad in the marinas, that everyone had to leave there because of the damage it was causing to their boats. One yachty died from trying to fend her boat off the dock, another got swept out to sea. A large piece of pontoon broke loose from the key side, dragging supper yachts along with it. We couldn't get in. It was like having the whole Atlantic coming into a little marina. This was actually due to the southerly wind which the hurricane had caused. We were no where near the eye but because of the sheer size of it, we were getting the southerly tail end of it. You can see this on the map above.

We didn't know what to do, there were no other places to go to, and it was starting to get dark, so we motored up and down, up and down, in hope that the weather would calm down. It didn't so we had to anchor in a tiny little bay which was some how sheltered from all the swell.

Dean was still up in Bequia looking after the house, we rang to see how he was, and although there was no wind in the bay or on the island, the hurricane brought in a big 6' swell with it. The beaches were a no go, you couldn't even walk down them without getting swept away from the massive breaking waves. Every boat in the anchorage had left, but as it was so rough out as sea, all these massive tankers starting coming into shelter in the bay in Bequia. They couldn't anchor because of the swell and their sheer size, so they just spent the whole day circling the bay, just to get that little bit of shelter.

The weather calmed down in the Marina in Trinidad, so we pulled in at last, and what a relief that was. Danie met us there instead of Bequia. The next few days were spent stocking the boat up with food and booze to take back to Bequia with us. Danie spent her 21st in Trinidad with us so we spent it in a mall.

So after all of that I guess I owe Dean a lobster Pizza after all of that.... argh

The sail back up to Bequia was nice, coming down you have to do an over-nighter so we took it in turns to do 3 hours on and 3 hours off. Me and Corrie took a watch together and then mum and dad. But on the way back up to Bequia, we cheekily anchored of the southern tip of Grenada about 8pm got a nights sleep and then set off to Bequia early the next day. Did I say nice trip, well I meant the weather was ok.......for the first few hours. When it came to the boat, we had problem after problem. Firstly when we were anchoring off Grenada the engine stopped dead, we accidentally got a line stuck round our prop, me and dad managed to get it off luckily. The next day a fitting on our main sale broke causing us a problem, we had the tide against us so we were only averaging 2 knots over the ground, instead of our usual 6 knots. We didn't want to get into Bequia in the dark, so we put the engine revs up and within about an hour we had an alarm going off. The engine had boiled dry, something was seriously wrong, and there was steam and bubbling coming from the engine. This meant that we had now lost our engine. As the wind was on our nose and we were motor sailing to Bequia, for us to sail we had to go 90degrees off our course, in fact now we were getting further away from Bequia. We were about 15 mile from Bequia, and 6 hours later we were 18 mile from it. There was nothing we could do. We had squall after squall come over us, with gusts of 30 knots so we had to reef the sails, and as soon as it passed we had no wind at all, so the boat was just bobbing up and down. We had to let the engine cool down, so after a few hours, me and dad filled the radiator, and put the engine on. We checked that water was coming in to it, yes that was fine, water was coming from the exhaust, yes that was fine, but we couldn't understand why it had overheated. Anyway the main thing was to get back to Bequia. We got in about midnight in the end, what a relief that was.

We had to cancel the pool whilst we were away, but soon got back into it, I'm not going to bore you with who won and lost in the second part of the tournament, but dad won the final, so he won the whole game. It was a close match between him and another guy, Clement, but in the end he won. The problem was that it was dad giving away the first prize of $100ec (about £20, more than twice the daily wage of a local), and second prize a bottle of rum, but he kindly gave the second runner up $99ec, and the third the bottle of rum, so everyone was happy at the end of the day.

Below is a pic of Danie and Corrie playing dominoes with Magnus, the Forman and his son Joshua. Dean with our mate Marlon.

Over the past month the guys have dug out for the foundations of the pool and house, we had a new guy join us to put in all the metal work, he had lorry loads of steel delivered to our site, and he hand cut with a hacksaw, and hand bent every piece. It took him ages. We lent him our grinder which cut through the steel in a few seconds, he cut so much steel though, that the grinding disk ran out really fast so he's back to hand cutting them now. We will have to get some more I guess.

You can see in the pic below that the foundations have been dug out nicely and steel and piping is starting to appear.

Whilst me and dean were making door shutter for the windows ( I will get some pics of these soon), corrie was varnishing the windows and dad was working on the floor and putting tiles down. After doing all the grouting in the bathroom Corrie moved onto grouting the floor in the chalet. She ended up with no fingerprints though, because her fingers became red raw from using them all the time. We have since given her a pair of gloves.

3rd Aug

Into the new month, and only three weeks left to finish the Chalet. Me and dean managed to finish all the eight sides of the canopy off Yay, finally, I was starting to get a bit fed up of all that wood work, and working at those heights, a little dangerous, but as long as you don't look down your fine.

You can see what I mean about the water tank in the pictures above though, its built under the actual house, its where the stonework is, quite good though because the bigger the tank the more view you get really, because the higher you are.

The kitchen is starting to take form now, in fact its starting to look like a kitchen rather than an empty space. As my chalet was the first to be built we have all learnt from our mistakes, and realised what works and doesn't work, this has allowed us to get Danies chalet just perfect. Dad does the majority of the work like the carpentry and the plumbing tiling etc, mum follows him around with tools and makes cups of teas when needed,  and Corrie, after grouting the bathroom last week, has become an expert on it, so claimed the job of grouting the tiles in the kitchen as well, very good job as well she did. Grouting for those who aren't sure of it, is filling in between the tiles with tile cement so they are smooth. (Very exiting stuff)

The pics on the website here are on the lowest quality, to save time loading when you first go onto the page. For any reason you want a large quality pic, then email me and I will get it straight out to you. I know how annoying it is trying to save a pic from a web page and its just really bad quality.

The past 3 weeks we have been trying to organise a pool competition for the locals working up the land for us, we had out first game last night at a local sports bar in town called the Salty dog. We managed to get 16 of us, but 2 didn't turn up. We put the names in the hat and pulled them out randomly. Poor mum was first and with about 25 people watching had to play three games of pool with one of the lads. Yes it did seem to go on and on and on, but in the end she lost. Next was Corrie and one of the locals, again the English lost, When it came to dean he got one of the better lads at pool, it was a tuff game and Dean lost, which was a shame as again the West Indies had won, they were seriously kicking butt. It was down to dad now, to win a game and yeah, he won. Thank god.

I didn't play as I was the ref, (well it was my only excuse not to play) I just couldn't stand being the centre of attention. It was dad who organised it and if he didn't win it probably wouldn't have looked very good. It was good fun though, and a nice night out for the lads, who rarely have anything to do in Bequia really. I think they were coming for the free drinks and food though, and not to mention the £25, first prize, which to a local is well over twice their daily wage, so a lot of money really.

So 8 players left, only 1 being English (dad), will let you know the winners of the next round when we play next Thursday, you go dad.

You know the locusts you get in the U.K, well they are quite small really, well the ones over here are about 4 inches in length, nice from a distance, but when you get up close they are a bit scary really. Our tool shed was full of them at one time. You went into to get a tool and you were greeted by at least 5 locusts, they don't harm you, but they make so much mess, I mean on average I'm sure they must make about 100 pea size droppings everyday, and when there are more than 10, that's a lot of mess. I suppose they need somewhere to live though and its better than having mice running around everywhere.

Not only is she a grouter, she's also a lady of many trades, including sanding. Yes its a door, to go on the bathroom, quite important really.

Well after the tournament was over for the night and everyone started to drift home, I thought that I would get a quick game in of pool with one of the lads for fun, to my surprise as soon as they found out I was playing, everyone crowded around, so I got more of an audience than anyone else, which I wasn't too happy with. I won in the end though, even though I didn't even get a ball down, the other player plotted the black to my luck.

September

Mum and dad are back from the U.K now, so poor Corrie is back to sharing with everyone again.

We all went out on Saturday night to a jump up and happen to meet Kyron Baptiste, a local Bequian who won the Caribbean Xfactor a year ago, so he's quite famous over here. When I was back in the U.K. though I heard his song several times on the radio its called I need a women by my side, some of you may of heard it. Anyway a year ago he had nothing, now he's earned over a Million £ from record deals and contracts with various business's over here.

Hes been non stop for the last year, so now he's returned to his home town (Bequia) where he plans to relax for a few months.

Hes looking to buy Deans quad off him for a present for his cousin, nice present is all I can say.

We have these cool swinging chairs on mum and dads balcony, I know they look uncomfortable, but you could literally fall asleep in it. There are only two of them, but we always end up fighting over them.

The view is pretty nice as well, in the summer months you can watch all of the cruise ships come into the bay and anchor, in the very busy season you can get up to 5 in the bay, and that's a lot of white bodies on the beaches.

Notice in the background behind me though, mine and deans nice balustrades, dad has this thing for Caribbean  cut outs, every piece of wood had to have some sort of a picture in it, whether its a lizard, fish, sea horse, start fish, palm tree or turtle, anything to give it Caribbean Flavour. Wait till you see our hurricane shutters for the windows, even more flavour. Will get those pics on soon.

The rails aren't quite finished yet though, we have to put tiles on the top, so that our pina colada glasses don't mark the wood, and rails in between.

The base is starting to take shape quite fast. I know it doesn't look a lot but the guys seem to be working super speed. I think they are keen to have a swim in our pool. They do love having their pics took though. Every day at 3, we give them a bottle of coke or sprite for an energy boost, this is when I normally take my camera with me, they all stop and smile though. The bald guy below in the whitish shirt and blue shorts, is the Forman. Normally foremen don't do a lot except order people around and double check things. We once had this one Forman, that sat down the whole day, ordering people around. He never left his chair, he couldn't even go and get a drink for himself. This Forman though is great because he gets involved in everything, he's constantly on his feet doing something, so we are very lucky to have him really.

Finally here are some pics of the new chalet.....enjoy

We didn't really have a party as such for Danies 21st. The original plan was to have a beach party here in Bequia, but as we went to Trini, we had to cancel it. For Danies last night though we surprised her by decorating the chalet with 21st banners and balloons, and a yummy chocolate cake, so she got her party in the end, even though it was just the family.

The pic to the left was took from Danies chalet on a rather gloomy day, if you look close you can see a squall in the middle of it, these squalls come over a few times a day, and you can see them on the surface getting nearer and nearer. They usually bring lots of wind with them, which is why when ever one gets near to us in the boat we reef quickly.

We are now living in the chalet. The boat it back on the hard in Saint Vincent and so mum and dad have now moved down to Danies chalet. Me and Dean have finally been able to move into to my Chalet at last after months and months of waiting. Poor Corrie has to take turns sleeping in my chalet and with mum and dad. But as soon as the pool house is complete she will have the whole new place to herself, so I guess its worth the wait. I tell you what though its so nice to finally be off the boat, up here we have water, a constant supply of electric, no worries about the boat dragging anchor, and most importantly the INTERNET, so Dean can work and I can do my school work and of course update this site.

October

Well after we had finished all the cabling and pipe work on the base, the guys covered it with concrete and started the walls to corries pool house. They are going up quite fast so its quiet exciting to see it taking shape already.

The view is looking back into corries house from the pool

The shuttering for the swimming pool walls are also going up as you can see in the pics below. The top of the sticks is the final height of the pool, so that's a lot of shuttering.

Me and Dean started some hurricane shutters for my chalet, as we hadn't made any yet, the more we did the better we got though, so by the time we made my shutters, they were perfect. Lets just hope we don't have to use them now.

 When ever I'm walking up and down the path to mum and dads chalet, I'm always met by loads of lizards, from all different sizes, some as small as 1inch which are so cute, and large one 15 inches long. Even the big ones are beautiful to look at, some of them are just so colourful. They are always scared of me, because if I stop to look at them, they start puffing up and shaking their heads. The other day when I was walking down the path, I happened to have my camera on me so took a picture, this little lizard though seemed to be posing though, look at that leg.

Nothings really has happened these past few weeks, so here are some pics to keep you all occupied in the mean time. Dean sold his quad bike and bought a little soft top suzuki for a run around, have to get a pic of that though.

Corrie Painting the rim of Danies chalet, no we still haven't completely finished it yet

Dad and mum on the base and Dean and Marlon                                                                                                                                

Corrie, dad and me on the base.

I promised Dean I would get a picture of the hurricane shutters he made on here. We made three pairs for each chalet. It was a challenge at first, but the more we did the better we got. In fact I think we can actually officially call ourselves carpenters now. One of the local guys working for us said to Dean that he should open up a workshop here on the island, because his work was so neat. Dean said he would hate to do it full time, and who on earth would want to. Of course we didn't know that it was the guys Dream job.

Dean made the frame work and the actual door. I then painted the backs in rainbow colours, cut palm trees out of some ship lap boarding and then cut them on an angle and glued them in. Beautiful.

I put this pic on for you liz. Its a papaya, these are really young ones though, When they are ripe they go orange and yellow and they are really yummy. They range from sizes from a fist to a rugby ball.

Here are some of the work guys on their break. Its quite a long day for them really, They start at 7.00am, have an hour for lunch at 12.00, and then finish about 6.00. I don't know how they only take one break in the heat of the day. You have no idea how hot it is on the base. I think the sun heats the concrete up so that's like having a heater under your feet as well. Notice the joint in his hand though, so maybe its the weed that keeps them going.

Its funny because they all take their lunch break about 8 metres from the chalet so when ever we go outside we get this huge whiff of weed. Its no wonder we don't get high as well, or maybe its just that we are used to it.

The guys have cast the base now, they have about a weeks work of putting in metal everywhere. It has to be hurricane proof so the metal does that job. Before they cast it though we have about 200 pipes to put in for the water mains, electricity, phone lines, swimming pool pipes, toilet pipes etc etc. It will be like spaghetti junction when we finish.

No no one believes that I took this photo, not even Dean. I took it with my new camera though to see how close up I could get. Of course I zoomed in with Photoshop but its still amazing what you can do with cameras these days. Its the moon by the way if you hadn't already guessed.

The view from my chalet is of Admiralty bay. The majority of the houses opposite are locals houses. Baring in mind most people live in tin shacks with outside toilets, these houses opposite us are nice houses for the locals.

Just managed to pinch some plans from dads computer. It just gives you an idea of what the pool house will look like when its finished. And yes it is so much bigger than the chalets, has a four burner cooker, an oven, a washing machine, a living room, breakfast bar, a big fridge freezer and walk in wardrobe (I'm so jealous of the wardrobe).

Corrie cant wait of course, and I cant wait, so I can move all of my clothes in. (haven't told her yet though)

For those who are wondering  where the steps lead to though, they lead into a mezzanine area, probably will end up putting a little gym here or something. I have a running machine in the chalet on the balcony, but it takes up the whole thing, so am keen to get it out. It also has a door up there, leading to the main house, so when Corrie is feeling hungry then she can just pop into the house to raid their fridge. (Well when the house is finished I mean).

November

Me and dean went out for a drive in his car today, and we managed to get completely stuck in the mud, dean ended up having to push from the front while I sat behind the wheel. Luckily after about 10 mins of pushing, we got out.

While exploring we came across this outdoor gym, in the back of someone's garden, a bit different to the gyms back in the U.K., but I suppose its out in the fresh air.

Corrie has her water tank cast now, on top of it is where her mezzanine is going to be, but my idea is to convert it into a little gym, so at least I can see my balcony again.

Me and Dean have been finishing off the roof, its a long process, firstly the roof trusses have to be put on, then tongue and grove boarding are placed on top of that, thats the timber that you see from the inside. Then the felt, then the ship lap, then the strips, then the tiles, so you can see it takes a while.

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Dad and Corrie made a cat ramp for the cats. You see the balcony is so high off the floor that they would have no way of getting onto it. Because we are in a hot climate we feed the cats outside rather than inside. They spend 99% of the time outside anyway, in fact its as though we don't have any cats really. Here's Coco trying out the cat walk. Rather posh I think.

We've also been finishing off the railings for Danie's chalet, the jobs are endless. It Seems to be all the little things that seem to take forever

Here are some more pics of the building work, I know they are of the same thing and may be boring but, but there is some difference in them.

This is the shuttering for the swimming pool wall, looking up from Danies chalet, you see the horizontal strips towards the top, that's the height of the pool edge. If you look closely to the right of the blue water pipes, you can see the old steps that we used to have to walk up and down. Every bit that was used to build Danies chalet, had to be brought down these steps, that's a long way, and a lot of steps. The worst of it though is that you can only see half of them in the photo, It kept us fit, is all I can say.

To the right is our shelter where we do all the woodwork for everything. The left part of the shelter is where we keep all the tools and fittings. You can see my chalet in the far left of the pic, so I don't have to walk to far to start work in the mornings.

We've had a mass of rain these past couple of weeks, in fact we had so much rain the whole bay in the harbour turned completely brown. There were palm trees, tyres, rubbish and everything in the bay, so we avoided swimming for a few days. At one point the patio outside became a pond and the steps became a water fall. Welcome to the rainy season

Me and Dean went back to doing the roof again on Danie's chalet, we had shingles the majority of it, but had been waiting for timber the past few months so we couldn't finish it off. Dad started to get quite a few leaks in the roof, so we thought we'd better get on with it. It rained so much though that this time we wore harnesses in case we fell off.

Here's Deans little car I was telling you about, managed to get a pic of it now. Although Deans missing his quad, this little run about is so much more practical, and you can fit an extra 3 in the back as well. I don't think we have got used to the soft top yet though because me and Dean decided to go for a drive around the other day and got completely burnt by the sun. No serious problems with it, although we haven't worked out how to get in the bonnet yet. We looked for hours trying to get the thing open, and find that little leaver for it, but had no luck. We were driving back from town the other day, a car beeped at us, every one on the island beeps at each other, rather than waving. So Dean beeped back and the keys feel out the ignition, the engine didn't go off, but it was rather funny driving without any keys.

We had a nice little BBQ on the beach on Sunday and met some lovely people who worked for the charter yachts Sunsail. For those who thought all we did was sunbath and drink pino-coladas all day out here, this pic to the right proves you wrong. You can see how much sun me and Corrie actually get, from comparing us to the nice tanned lads in the back. We are white as snow. I didn't say we didn't drink rum though lol.

When we do work up the land though, we are covered from head to toe in sun tan lotion, trousers, sunglasses and hats, so not to get burnt. You have no idea how strong the sun is in the heat of the day. And when your up on the roof with no shade, tiling, its not nice at all. In fact you actually start to hate the sun, because you get so much of it.

The walls slowly going up, notice the wheel in the right wall, that's  one of Corries windows. Dad really does love his rustic looking things.

Me with my camera, mum and dad and Corrie chilling in the swinging chair.

December and January

Well I have to admit I haven't done much on this site for quite a few weeks now, but with Christmas, a holiday to Disney World and two birthdays, its been a busy few weeks.

So where are we with the building work I hear you ask, well things are slowly going up, Corries base doesn't look that much different so i'm not going to bore you with pictures of that. Instead i'm going to show you some pics of over Christmas and our new lovely board walk that we have been making.

Ohh but before I do that, I just wanted to say that we finally made it up the Volcanoe in Saint Vincent, on the main land next to Bequia, It was a good 6 hour hike, from top to bottom, a killer but so well worth it. We didn't just get to see the recent volcano that erupted in the past 20 years, but we also got to see the crater of a much older eruption, which has now formed into a lake. It was so cold up there though, it was like being in the U.K. again.

Corries friend Sophie came to visit us for a month, so she joined us on the treck, as well as our friend G.The trail consisted of walking through a jungle at the base of it, then steps and a steep slope half way up then lots of slippery gravel up to the top. There was so much moisture up there in the air that we could ring our hair out. The pic to the far left is right by the new crater edge.

The newest eruption had left a mass of dried magma in the middle of the crater, I think I was expecting a big black hole that you couldn't see the bottom off, but the whole are was so much bigger. Just to walk around the crater would have took another 2 hours.

The old crater was a salt water lake that was warm to swim in because of the heat of the volcano.

Me, G, Dean, Corrie and Sophie at the crater.

We spent Christmas in mum and dads chalet, eating lots of unhealthy foods and drinking of course, Corries friend Sophie was with us too.

For those who don't know what Danies been up to these past few months since arriving out here, she been setting up a new spa at a restaurant just off one of the beaches. She specialises in Aromatherapy, hot stones, facials, massage, lymphatic drainage, waxing, eyebrow and lash tints and loads of more things that have complicated names and I cant remember. She has a part time assistant working for her doing the pedicures and manicures, as she's not really into the beauty treatments herself. I'm quite liking it though because when ever they practice a new routine or have a staff training day, I'm the lucky one that gets to be the guinea pig and get all the lovely massages and treatments, for free, YIPPEE.

This photo doesn't really do the spa justice though, so I will try and get some more pics on here of the building and treatment room.

If you want to check out where danie is located go to www.jacksbar.biz to see where she works.

I have been emailed so many times by people asking where is Bequia? and can I put a photo of the island on here, so I got these two pics below from the internet and marked where we are building.

On the inside of Corries house, things are taking shape, walls are going up, block work is going between the rooms, door frames are going in. Whiskey our Carpenter constructed some steps, which lead up into Corries Mezzanine (or my gym as I like to call it lol) The guys also constructed a concrete table in the middle of Corrie living room, around the support pillar which helps hold up the roof.

Check this moth out below, they are huge here, I mean the size of your hand huge. Up close they are covered in hair, but I didn't want to gross you out with a close up of one. They are pretty scary, but yet so beautiful in their own way.

Here's some pics of the boardwalk that me, Dean and dad have been working on the past month or so, it consisted of digging out 22 very deep holes and several tonnes of concrete. We haven't put the hand rails on the sides yet, but it beats having to walk down to mum and dads chalet and slipping on the gravel going down.