It's a Rum Life

Recently we have had two events in Barbados to launch the Authentic Caribbean Rum Marque. The Marque is a seal of quality and provenance which guarantees that the rum associated with it is genuine Caribbean rum which meets the necessary quality standards.

The campaign has been running in the UK, Spain and Italy since mid 2008 but we have only just got around to formally launching it in the Caribbean. In the first event at the end of May, 18 producers from around the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, Grenada, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Antigua, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Belize) displayed their main brands to media from the Caribbean and from Europe. The second event was a rum tasting for Ministers of Trade in mid June, which is where the pictures below were taken.

The campaign features the faces of persons who work in the industry, Coopers, Master blenders, etc., they're real people and the campaign is all about true rum, real rum, real people (www.truerum.com).

We also recently filmed a web TV production in the UK which is worth watching, feel free to send the link to the show around.
http://webchats.co.uk/chat/an_authentic_taste_of_the_caribbean

Pan Pun De Sand

Another Crop-over event, featuring Steelbands playing on their own and also backing some of the season's top performers and hits. This is the Mighty Grynner, 63 years old and still sounding strong. It all happened at Brighton beach. Thousands, yes, thousands converged on the beach for the event, yet it was all so orderly in the way it could only be in Barbados. This picture is what it is because it was taken from a distance of about 150 feet...

Lili waits for her order of fishcakes, smothered by smoke from the grill and wondering why she was chosen for this special task :-)

AS the day ends, the hawkers move out of their booths to flog the last trinkets before all the kids are carted home to bed. The pictures are dark because they're all shot in natural light (no flash).

All good things come to an end and we make our way along the highway back to the car. For some odd reason, Lili can't stop smiling.."I can't stop smiling..." she says, as I try for a serious shot under the street lamp. For once, Varia isn't.

The Pork Lime

The Pork Lime is a Friday after work affair which goes till late, geared to take advantage of the crop-over party spirit. About 15 tents cater to providing pork every which way, from souse to BBQ pigtails. The bar alone is about 50 feet long, designed for fast service. We got there about 6pm when it was still pretty empty. It was a spectacular sunset, well hidden from us by the hills, so I contented myself with a shot of the green lit trees, pink lit building and darkening blue sky.

When the rain started to fall Varia decided to stay out in the open and enjoy the music, while every single other person ran for shelter.

Baby's first Steps

We live on something of a farm, or perhaps more accurately, a bird sanctuary. It feels like that anyway. In the evenings, as the sun sets, the birds - doves, pigeons, sparrows and a few others - settle in the trees for the night, and the bats come out. Come out of our attic actually. The attic of this old house is the home of hundreds of bats. Even though most of them are out at night, you can still here them falling to the ceiling from the rafters, with a plop, and squirreling around before they get back to their perches.

In the mornings, there is a mass feeding frenzy from just before dawn, when all the young ones scream in unison as they compete for food. The main bedroom, surrounded as it is by trees, gets all of this sound full force. Loudest of all are the parrots (actually ring-necked parakeets) which seem to think it is their duty to wake the dead. They circle the house shrieking at full volume, for no apparent reason.

Aside from Bats, the attic is also home to the intrepid parrots, who have recently founds ways to get in and lay eggs. They pick at the coral plaster, taking advantage of rotten boards to make just enough space to get in and out. Most of the time these eggs don't survive, but I have removed parrots twice previously from the attic and a third set have hatched and are growing now. To the uninitiated, young parrots can sound just like like rats running around, and make a noise not dissimilar to a distant jackhammer. Growing parrots in the attic are not condicive to sleep. The pictures below are of the oldest of three which are in the attic now. The oldest was apparently ready to go and amazingly managed to find its way out.

In this picture the young one has just made its way out of the attic to the edge of the roof. Daddy (you can tell from the ring) is coaxing it out. Come on, he says, you can do it! Ah cyan do it! the adolescent shrieks...

This goes on for quite a while without result so daddy does a fly round to show how easy it is.

And so it jumps with a loud squawk, feet sticking out ungainly, still looking for purchase, somewhere...

But it does manage to fly, and eventually after several rings round the house they settle on a branch of a mahogany tree...There, that wasn't so hard was it?....