Betty Barracuda and Selma at the old gin house

Enjoying a chicken shoewarmer and discussing last nights events!

Lily

This Gloriosa Lily is so amazing. Not sure on the species yet. Its a climber and has tendrils on the end of its leaf. You can see the tip of the leaf curls round. The plant uses this to pull itself up something.

Baby Mangoes

Another month and these are gonna be good! This tree is in the taste arbour in the sensory garden. Mangoes grow all over the island though. The benefit of driving the pick-up is that someone can be stood in the back ready to swipe a few leaning over the road.

Lizard Love

This male and female overcome with the romance of the garden couldnt wait until they got home....

Sweaty mess

Weed whacking is probably what I do most in the garden. A big petrol strimmer, a hat, safety goggles, ear protectors, my headphones (usually with some motivational 90’s dance music), long sleeves, jeans, walking shoes and 35 degree heat. This is the perfect recipe for a sweaty mess. The thing that makes it worse is the vegetation that gets thrown at you from the strimmer sticks to your skin. By the end I look like a walking lawn.

Seeing the neat garden when you have finished though is very satisfying. Sadly a week later it needs doing again. Everything grows so fast!

My Humble bedroom

You only feel safe when inside your mozzy dome. Tucked firmly under the mattress, it keeps out the creepy crawlies and things that go bump in the night. I often wake up to banana spiders and cockroaches sat on the net above my face. It’s all good fun!

The date is set for my return!

I will be heading home and leaving Statia on the 28^th of July. I’ve decided to take the option of 3 months instead of 6 for several reasons. The cost of my visa and extended insurance and flight arrangements is enough to put anyone off. But mainly I’m hoping to apply for work within research on my return. If I wait until after the academic year starts up I could be reducing my chances at finding a job back home. Before I left I wasn’t aware that this was an option when I was here hence I was telling everyone it was for 6 months. Sorry folks, it looks like the red carpet is gonna have to be rolled out a little sooner than expected!

Pineapple swag

Here is our swag from the fruit garden this morning. Left to ripen on the kitchen windowsill  at the house.   

The coconut battle!

The coconut battle!

Here was my first attempt at harvesting coconut milk and coconut flesh. The small green coconut is full of the milk/water. It’s not as tasty as I would have expected but I imagine very refreshing when stranded on a desert island! This one can be drilled open and simply stick a straw in. I hear they are much better when put in the freezer first. The larger tougher coconut is the one which has dried out a little and the flesh has formed inside. This one was a real pain and took a good while with a machete to get to the nut inside. I’ve still got the coconut and plan to make a cake!  

The public pavilion

Here is the gardens public pavilion. In it we eat most of our meals and it is kind of our living room. It gets a nice breeze in the day and provides lots of shade. The hammocks are amazing and the perfect place to read a book. Here we see Emil, one of our garden volunteers, enjoying one. We share our pavilion with lizards, hummingbirds, bull finches and the visitors to the garden. The perfect hang-out.  

This whopper was under my bed this weekend. I think he had been living there for some time. I had to evict him with a broom. Lets just say the broom almost lost the battle. He was about 25-30cm in width and packed a punch. Im just glad I saw him before he saw my toes!
I had to shuttle him out the door and keep the dog away from him as he would have gotten his nose snipped if he got too excited. The Crab, very pissed of by this point backed himself up a tree and hasnt been seen since..... although I do keep checking to see if he has returned to his old home!
Apparently we can eat them........

First post!
Ok so here goes.
A bit of background to get you up to speed. Ive been here since the begining of May so just over 2 weeks now. I graduated from Manchester Unicersity in the UK last summer and this is my first job within my area of interest.
I found the job online and applied for it without a thought that it might actually happen! Sure enough I got an enthusiastic email back asking lots of questions then spent 2 days waiting in suspense to hear the verdict. After 7 months of job hunting it was a huge step and a scary one too!
I had 3 weeks to prepare to leave the country. The job is for 3 months with the option to extend to 6 if all is going well (I still havent decided).
The house is wonderful. I live in the garden in a small intern house/hut with a turtle intern called Erin. There are volunteers and researchers who camp in the grounds too. We all share the facilities. Most of our time is spent working, relaxing in the garden pavillion (in the hammocks), or at the beach. The island has some of the best scuba diving reefs in the Caribbean and many of the interns and volunteers do a lot of diving in their spare time too. Not being the best of swimmers ill stick to my plants!