Rhythm & Spice, it was nice!

Sorry to anyone who has checked the blog lately. We had more company to take care of but we’ve also been busy making plans for next year. We’ve decided to stay a second year so we need to find a new place to live. Our room mates are going back home so we won’t be sharing a big house & the rental costs. We’ve started looking at houses and condos to rent. It’s a challenge to find affordable places that also have a pool. We could find something close to the beach but it gets so hot that it’s nice to be able to take a quick dip in the pool before going to bed.
We’re considering one house without a pool but it’s very close to where we live now and just a five minute walk to the beach. It’s on a hill so the view from the balcony is pretty amazing. It would be the perfect place to watch sunsets.

Our son Deny is leaving home in September to pursue his Masters in quantum computing in Waterloo. So another big challenge for us is to find a place or someone to take care of our two dogs. We’re looking for someone to either take them in, or for someone to rent our house in Dieppe at a cheap rate, in exchange for taking care of the dogs. We might even offer whoever takes them in a free trip to St. Lucia :-)




We made a new discovery this weekend. It was an event called the Rhythm and Spice Festival. It was held at the Pigeon Island Historic site, a park where we often take visitors to see the lovely view from the top of the old British fort.
The event was put on by the Hotel and Tourism Association. It’s an opportunity for the local resorts to showcase what they offer in terms of food and entertainment. The best part was that it was very inexpensive. You could eat a plate of food for 5 EC’s…which is close to 2 dollars Cnd.






Some of the chefs also got to show off their amazing carving techniques.




















The two carvings were at the Sandals kiosque.

One of the resorts was serving red snapper. They’re quite common here but I’ve never seen one this big, already cooked and ready to serve. The choice was amazing. They were serving ribs, corn, conch chowder (which I got for $1 EC a bowl because it was the last bowl) crab cakes, fish cakes, mahi mahi cooked in banana skin or skewered on a piece of sugar cane, chicken & pork brochettes with mango or pumpkin chutney, banana ketchup, fried plantain, mango ice cream, the list goes on and on. We ended up eating several different meals between noon and 7:00 pm and spent very little.












Many of the resorts went out of their way to decorate their booths. One of them even cut dow a papaya tree to add as a decoration. They do tend to grow like weeks here. And there was an amazing display of fruit.






We were treated to a traditional folk dance group, the St. Helen Dancers and several bands played throughout the day. When it got too hot, we walked over to the beach to cool off and to work off an appetite. It was a great event that few of our friends knew about. I guess it pays to listen to the local radio station.