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Guadeloupe Flowers - Part Three

And yet more flowers! These were all taken on our walk at Petit-Canal - I just think flowers make such great photos and they are always so readily available. Whenever. Wherever.

 

 

A Portrait of CassCass

For anyone who has read this blog for a while knows CassCass is not traditionally a girl who likes to be photographed. Mostly, pulling a very sulking face if indeed you are lucky enough to have her look in the camera's direction. Not much has changed and she is still like that but the other morning we had something different - she was eating an apple and telling me it looked like a butterfly (the bite pattern) and I asked if I could photograph it and she let me.

When I showed her the photo something seemed to click and she was ready to 'perform' to questions such as can I have a smiley face, and can I have a funny face (for the record she couldn't pull funny faces - she just looked good in all the photos).

CassCass seems to have changed alot more than her sister, whereas LissaLou has pretty much had the same face since she was a baby that has just grown older - Cass actually looks alot different from when she was a baby and indeed for when I saw her last year. Her speech has just come on amazingly and speaks lots in English and French. The girls put me to shame with their fluency.

She seems to have a very logical mind and enjoys patterns, symbols, numbers, order etc and she also enjoys drawing on the walls! She is developing a sense of fashion and loves to change at least once if not more and owns 5 swimming costumes. Maybe for every week day...

Well here are the fruits of our labour!

 

Petit-Canal et Porte d'Enfer

Yesterday (Wednesday) we were very fortunate to join Heather Alberto and family go for a walk and then to the sea with their house-church friends.

The walk was very lovely and very hot and gave me and mum both a bit of sunburn, she on her face and me on my feet - go figure. We walked along side alot of sugar cane (pictured below) and my brother in law picked some for us to enjoy my first time eating sugar cane so very exciting. Although now as I write, I am remembering part of the cane process is that you use a knife to strip the outside and I am continually admiring the Guadaloupeans habit of having huge sharp knives with them at all times. At pika they even have machetes! I'm not sure I have ever even seen a machete close up before

Sadly LissaLou was not so keen on the walk and cried for the latter 3 quarters of the walk I felt so bad I carried her some, who would believe she was 5?

 

After the walk we drove to the east side of the Island to Porte d'enfer, which apparently means Gate of Hell. Nice name, I think we should rename Dover that... I think the name may possibly refer to the ferocity of the waves out beyond the wave break walks. Anyway the beach itself was idyllic as you will see from some of my many pictures that I took. I even took a dip, albeit a short one as the opportunity to take many many photos was too tempting to waste. One of the guys from the house-church had a nicer Nikon than mine with some really nice lenses which I got to play with as well. Claude also took me and mum to the top of the cliffs to get some more photos, I wish now I had taken a picture of the path so you can see what Mum achieved in this, for a woman who has had two hip replacements and likes to keep her feet firmly on the ground - it was a treacherous path she neither complained nor slipped. Good Job!

 

 

 

LissaLou making faces, makes a change from all these really beautiful photos I have of her!

Cass looking as Cass often does, thumb in mouth and hair in fingers - self comforting..

 

Jojo in fits of giggles, when he is really really into it he gets a very cute crease between his eyes:)

 

Flowers of Guadeloupe, part 2

This afternoon, Mum and I took a walk back the way we went the other day. Just by ourselves we were at leisure to take our time taking photos and I took these flower shots. It gives you a good idea of the beauty of creation on this small island when you realise I took all these flower photos in such a short distance.

 

These photos are some of the ones from Mum's camera, me - enjoying the opportunity to wear pretty summer clothes (big thanks to anyone that has lent or given me summer clothes!) - no long sleeves necessary here. Cute one of LissaLou listening to my ipod and holding a little big of Hamy stuffing, shortly after this she disappeared.I found her in bed still listening to 'God's Wonderful World' on the Ipod and in bed with Hamy - the real thing. Poor child really misses Hamy but she is adjusting well to him having to stay in bed.
And there is the picture from the plane, just cos its cool and Mum was nearer the window than me...

Fruit and Flowers

One thing that doesn't seem in short supply here is fruit. Yummy, scrumptious fruit! And we are not just talking apples and oranges but pineapple and mango, coconuts (as pictured below) also guava, bananas, passion fruit and star fruit. Exotic indeed! For more info and photos on the particular fruit check Heather's blog www.goinggwada.blogspot.com for her A-Z of Pika posts.

 

 

 

 

With the bouquet of flowers lovingly picked and presented to her for her birthday by her Papi. All the flowers are from his farm Pika where we were having a barbecue.

Trouble in Paradise

Last year I wa in Hawaii and struggle to take decent photos oweing to the ever present presence of clouds. Guadeloupe I am happy to say is quite the contrary and despite the occasional rain storm most of the day seems to be blue skies.

Today we took a walk down to the sea, we are not really close to the beach but we can come to this area and see the sea on the other side of the mangroves and palm trees. Just idyllic.

 

A ship wreck which no one apart from me likes. Amazing photo opportunities here!

 

1) Sadly this is getting a common sight as the street cleaners are on strike, this in the children's playground.

2) On her 5th birthday LissaLou was told to leave Hamy on the bed - she has known about this for a while but still it is a bit of shock so occaionally she goes back to the bed for a little Hamy love - earlier I caught her for this photo. She also has got a little bit of his stuffing which she carries around hidden in her hand.

   

Guadeloupe

Well here I am, finally in Guadeloupe visiting my favourite people!
Guadeloupe is still on strike as they have been for three weeks so far. What this means - most shops are shut. Schools are shut too so Liss is getting a little home education. One of the presents I brought for her was a children's sudoku which has been received very well and here she is very hard at work. For more in the intricacies of the strike check out www.goinggwada.blogspot.com...

Today was LissaLou's 5th birthday. 5 years have gone so quickly! So to celebrate we went along to the famous Pika, its quite odd to see something you have seen in so many photos and heard so much about. I got to see the cow that runs off and the new piggies. The girls spent loads of time fighting and enjoying the swings and playing with their cousins and I got a few photos of Guadeloupean vegetation.

Thankfully it doesn't seem to rain all the time, contrary to the weather reports although there are occasionally rain storms which quickly pass. Its 28 degrees which is quite a shock coming from a 10 degree or less climate. C'est chaud!!!

Apparently thousands of people are abandoning or cancelling their holidays here due to the recent troubles. It seems a shame as some people just can't up and leave and seem to be doing a grand job of making the best of this difficult situation. For my part I am just so glad to be an aunt again that a few obstacles is fine - here is hoping the only way is up and that the shops and jobs will start to open  again and maybe we can see Guadeloupe at its best rather than its worst.

 

The birthday girl..

 

CassCass, she does smile but I just love this photo - her eyes are amazing!

 

Dirty face, wonderful smile!

ta da!

Next post from her shall hopefully be from Sunny Guadeloupe in the Caribbean and include photos of the much loved Lissa Lou, CassCass and Jojo (as seen on www.goinggwada.blogspot.com - my sister's blog).

See you soon!

Because, even the smallest of us need Friends