I am wonderful. I am refreshed and I am rejuvenated and truly feel like I've just spent a month at a wellness spa, all due to my Antigua holiday. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and I just took a chill pill and enjoyed being home with my family and friends.
My first morning in Antigua, I woke around 6 am, to cocks crowing, dogs barking, birds chirping, and no duvet because it was and happily so - just too warm for that. When I looked out my window I was overjoyed to see an orange glow as the sun rose, with the silhouettes of coconut trees all around me. I stepped outside barefooted, in a lil tank top and shorts and was happy to be greeted by WARMTH and a mellow cool breeze.
With dewy grass and cool mud beneath my feet, I walked through the garden, admiring the tropical flowers I hadn't seen in a while, said good morning to the gentleman walking up the hill with his flock of goats, went back inside and listended to Antiguan accents on the morning radio talk show, chatted up to my mother, father and brothers while sipping some sorrel drink, Rushed (okay not really) to take my brother to work so I could get the vehicle, then took a drive through St. John's and just reacquainted myself with the pace of the island.
Oh Antigua, land of sea and sun. I fell in Love with Antigua especially different on this trip. There was something about those lush, green rolling hills, the water - an undescribable aqua, turquoise, kinda mesmerising type of blue ( I can't begin to tell you how pretty, pretty, pretty the waters are, or how soft and powdery the sand is.) Everytime I passed a beach, I was just in awe...Antigua really does have some of the best beaches in the world...I felt as if i could cry, like I had died and gone to heaven! If there are better beaches in the world than that, sexier beaches than that...which I can't possibly imagine... well...well...well...I don't even know what I would do.
And the sky was just so blue. So blue with the coconut trees in the background, and the humming birds, and the yellow birds, and the brightly coloured houses, all unique with their own personality and I was so happy they were not perfectly organised, but quirky and spunky, and the winding roads, and the man selling sugar cane by the side of the main road and petting the cow behind him...and the lady hitching a ride down the road and being given one by the driver in front, and coconut water sellers, and the man selling the newspaper on the side of the road, and then...discovering that after 20 odd years of living on an island, there are places that you've only now discoverd that just take your breath away.
And most importantly basking in the sense of community, of being an island girl used to saying good morning, and good afternoon to every one close enough to hear you, in an island, where if your car breaks down in the middle of say Five Islands, after say a post Christmas hike to Galley Bay, that you can bet your bottom dollar no less than six strangers will stop you and ask "Yuh OK". One will ask if you need to make a phone call to a tow truck company, one will get out their car and take on the occupation of a mechanic and one will give you a ride all the way to your house, and come back later with your slippers you forgot in their car. Antiguans are friendly with all the tooting horns and flashing car lights, and persons striking up random conversations with you...
I love Antigua, I love the potholes that remind you that sometimes in life you need to slow down and the hot bread and cheese that you need to have from one specific bakery, cause no one else can reproduce it....For me also I loved Christmas with family and friends, New Year's with family and friends, every day with family and friends...I had an amazing holiday, and as this post is getting very long, and I wanted to add some photos to leave you wishing you were in Antigua also, I will end right here.
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| overlooking a totally deserted stretch of beach...Deep Bay, to be visited on my next holiday |
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| Island life...and a visit to the Wadadli Animal Nature Park, Antigua |
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| How Green. Heading through Fig Tree drive, Antigua |
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| Halcyon Cove, Antigua |
I can't forget to say, I'm still basking in my post holiday glow, because I have returned to the UK where the weather is as close to perfect for this time of the year as anyone could ask for. It really is!! Today we had blue skies and double digit temperatures!!! (My flight back from Antigua was easy breezy...xoxo to British Airways for introducing me to life in Club Class...I soo appreciate the flat beds, and what I considered some real gourmet food for an airline, and the immigration officer at Gatwick, who realised that okay maybe she didn't follow the maze to get to the top of the queue and is at the wrong desk but oh well.
Right so even though I'm not currently in Antigua, I am in heaven ... eating a wicked (that means good) lasagne from a local restaurant, sipping some wine under my cosy duvet, and listening to sexy british accents on the telly...bliss, ahhh.
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| So ready for 2012, thanks to my rejuvenating Antigua Holiday!!! |
My first morning in Antigua, I woke around 6 am, to cocks crowing, dogs barking, birds chirping, and no duvet because it was and happily so - just too warm for that. When I looked out my window I was overjoyed to see an orange glow as the sun rose, with the silhouettes of coconut trees all around me. I stepped outside barefooted, in a lil tank top and shorts and was happy to be greeted by WARMTH and a mellow cool breeze.
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