Goodbye House

We have moved out to renovate the house. It's strange to look back at this photo because the mango tree has been gone for some time now. What I am struggling with at the moment is saving the plants that are living through the renovation. By and large we have left most of the beds and our temporary space is a big large garden.

The sealing wax palm moved with me and when we are ready to go home, it will come home with me again.

The upside of all of this is that I get to start all over again in many areas. The garden has been surprisingly resilient and many things are blooming (even though I know that this is a sign of stress) and there are areas that still look lovely.

The house will never look like this again and that is kind of sad, but she was a bit like an ageing dowager, badly in need of an overhaul. She looked good at a distance but close up the cracks were beginning to show - literally so.

Growing Orchids with the Experts

Orchid growing is not for the fainthearted. So I have the greatest respect for people like Sandy Gibson who grow from seed. The seedlings above are grown in a sterile environment in flasks until they are ready to face the new world. It is a very time consuming business and you are not guaranteed to harvest every seed. A single cattleya seed can take up to a year to get to a viable stage in the flask. Breeding orchids is like any other lining. It is the crossing of plants for the purpose of isolating the best genes. Sandy has been doing this since the 70's and he has documented every cross. It is all recorded in ledgers like below. All neatly dated and referenced.

This is our famous Cedros Bee (Oncidium lanceanum) which was indigenous to the Cedros Peninsula in Trinidad. It is also found throughout the Guyanas. It has been heavily harvested with the most damage being done when thousands were pulled out to be shipped to the States when the American troops were here during WWII. It is an absolutely beautiful flower. My mother always called every Oncidium a Cedros Bee so I was quite shocked and very impressed when I first came face-to-face with this beauty. The one below has been carefully bred by Sandy and is about a fourth-generation plant hence its sturdy shape and excellent colour.

The Asco. below is not remarkable for it pedigree but I loved it all the same.

The orchid below is Colmanara Wildcat and it does have a kind of jaguar-ish feel about it.

The one below is one of my favourites. It reminds me of birthday confetti. It is known as Epidendrum stanfordianum and it actually frilly.Don't be confused by the shy look of this orchid. He's a big gun. This is Caularthron bicornutum "Galeota". He is what we know commonly as the Virgin Orchid but he is not white, but pink! And all his seeds have bred white. So more respect to you Mr. Galeota. Perhaps there are more of you in the Galeota forest but chances are that I will never see them so it is a privilige to meet you.

Flower Power

Montpelier Inn Nevis

There are some places in the world that are very magical.

Montpelier Plantation Inn in Nevis is my magical spot

I love Nevis. And they are in real trouble with the tourism economy being hit very hard. The Four Seasons Hotel, which was the bread basket of the island, was damaged in last year's hurricane and has remained shut for renovations ever since. The result is a country with lots of people out of work. If you choose to go here for Easter, I wish I could come in your pocket.

This is the spot (well roughly) that Horatio Nelson married Fannie Nisbett. Big wedding in the seventeenth century. I like to imagine that some of the trees who witnessed this union are still standing today. The excitement, the bride, the good wishes must be branded on this spot.

These photos are slightly overexposed but they suit my mood for this place. Dreamy and out of focus.

I quote this from the website : http://www.poppyland.co.uk/nelacts/letters/lett2.htm

From Nelson to his Fiancee
"Boreas," English Harbour, August 19th, 1786
My Dearest Fanny,

Having seen in this day's newspaper, that a vessel cleared out from St. John's to Nevis a few days ago, I feel vexed not to have had a letter in the office for you: however, if I can help it, I will not be behindhand again. To write letters to you is the next greatest pleasure I feel to receiving them from you. What I experience when I read such as I am sure are the pure sentiments of your hear, my poor pen cannot express, nor indeed would I give much for any pen or head that could describe feelings of that kind: they are worth but little when that can happen. My heart yearns to you - it is with you; my mind dwells upon nought else but you. Absent from you, I feel no pleasure: it is you, my dearest Fanny, who are everything to me. Without you, I care not for this world; for I have found lately nothing in it but vexation and trouble.
These, you are well convinced, are my present sentiments; God Almighty grant they may never change. Nor do I think they will: indeed there is, as far as human knowledge can judge, a moral certainty they cannot; for it must be real affection that brings together, not interest or compulsion, which make so many unhappy.
Your most affectionate

HORATIO NELSON

Scary LIzard

I am really afraid of lizards. I would probably drop like a stone if I came face to face with this beauty in the confines of a room. But they fascinate me with their colours and reptilian noses and ears. The colours on this one were particularly lovely and his pink mouth is almost scandolous in its pink-ness. Godspeed Lizard. Just not in my path

More Lizard

LIzards

Panorama

When I was at school in the late 1970s, steelpan was part of our curriculum. We had to learn how to "beat pan" in Form One. We didn't know how fortunate we were to be exposed to our indigenous music. My generation grew up on pan. It was ubiquitous at Carnival time and from January to the end of February every year it was the soundtrack of our lives. Certainly we were told of the dramatic evolution of this music form; how it was born of oppression and a struggle for cultural supremacy. But by this stage it was so much a part of our lives, that I for one, certainly had no appreciation of the extraordinary genesis of this music form. At its heart it is the drumming of a nation. Social unrest and emerging nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th century provided a fertile environment for the development of the musical instrument that would come to symbolise our national identity. Most steelpan historians agree that pan was born of the strong African tradition of drumming that travelled with displaced Africans across the Atlantic. Drumming was recognised by the colonial government as a powerful force and was subsequently banned in the late 1800's. There ensued a battle for the very soul of Carnival. The French planters with their traditions of masquerade fought a cultural war with the emancipated masses who incorporated mimicry, lewd dancing, ribald revelry, and general "get-on-bad" behaviour as a way of making their mark on a new homeland and as a distinct "thumbing their noses" to the pretensions of the socially conscious upper classes. Ultimately Carnival as we know it today is the product of the rocky marriage of these social groups with influences from Indian and Portuguese indentured labour and the cocoa "panyols" from the mainland.Each wave of immigrants would bring their magpie offering to the Carnival.Today Carnival belongs to all Trinidadians - each year it expands and breathes a healing breath into the nation's pysche. Pan made it rudimentary appearance in the 1930's.
From Wikipedia.
The steel pan evolved out of earlier musical practices of Trinidad. Drumming was used as a form of communication among the enslaved Africans and was subsequently outlawed by the British colonial government in 1883.[1] African slaves also performed during Mardi Gras celebrations, joining the French that had brought the tradition to the island.[2] The two most important influences were the drumming traditions of both Africa and India. The instrument's invention was therefore a specific cultural response to the conditions present on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The first instruments developed in the evolution of steelpan were Tamboo-Bamboos, tunable sticks made of bamboo wood. These were hit onto the ground and with other sticks in order to produce sound.[3] Tamboo-Bamboo bands also included percussion of a (gin) bottle and spoon. By the mid-1930s bits of metal percussion was being used in the tamboo bamboo bands, the first probably being either the automobile brake hub "iron" or the biscuit drum "boom". The former replaced the gin bottle-and-spoon, and the latter the "bass" bamboo that was pounded on the ground. By the late 1930s there occasional all-steel bands were seen at Carnival and by 1940 it had become the preferred Carnival accompaniment of young underprivileged men. The 55-gallon oil drum was used to make lead steelpans from around 1947. The Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), formed to attend the Festival of Britain in 1951, was the first steelband whose instruments were all made from oil drums. Members of TASPO included Ellie Mannette and Winston "Spree" Simon.

This news just in from http://whensteeltalks.ning.com/forum/topics/the-eight-8-finalists-in-the

The Eight (8) Finalists in the Small Bands category
Posted by Pan Times on February 9, 2009 at 4:43pm

Arima Golden Symphony performing “A Blue Crescendo” amassed 432 points, some 13 points ahead of its nearest rival, Tornadoes, also playing “A Blue Crescendo”.The other six qualifying bands making it to the “big yard” on Wednesday 18th February along with the finalists in the Medium Band category are:-* Laventille Serenaders Wild & Wonderful Olatunji - 418* San City Steel Symphony A Blue Crescendo De Fosto - 417* Panosonic Connection A Blue Crescendo De Fosto - 413* Casablanca Dangerous Anslem Douglas/Colin Lucas - 399* Tunapuna All Stars Melosian Rhapsody Baron - 397* Fascinators Pan Symphony Signal To Lara Superblue - 393

Medium bands’ finalists will be announced on Wednesday.In addition to sweet pan music, patrons attending the Finals on Wednesday will have an opportunity to win two (2) airline tickets to any North American destination courtesy Caribbean Airlines.In other related news the Tobago leg of the National Panorama Semi Finals will now take place on Tuesday 10th February 2009 at the Dwight Yorke Stadium, Tobago, from 8:00 pm.This change was due to the premature end of last Saturday’s event.As a result, the Tobago House of Assembly Conventional Champs competition scheduled for Tuesday 10th February will be held on a date to be announced.
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