While I’ve been out and about Barbados again, I’ll share a few random snippets of where I got to, what I’ve seen, what’s been happening etc – as per usual, here’s the first batch.

Holders Hill Farmers Market

I’d heard quite a bit about this market months before planning this trip and added it to the list of things to factor in. Sellers said it was a bit of a quiet day when I visited – usually there’d be more stalls, but things would pick up soon with the busy season starting up and cruise ships set to flood tourists onto the island. I was pleased to have avoided the crowds and masses of tourists to be honest.

Quite a few reviews said you can get cheaper fruit/veg from roadside sellers, and that Holders Farmers market is geared more to tourists with prices to match.

Everything seems to be hand crafted or grown in someone’s garden/farm and you get to talk to the creators themselves most of the time – unless they’re selling on behalf of a family member or friend.

I saw the biggest papaya/paw paw I’ve ever seen in my life – huge. More like the size of a honeydew melon.

I must say – I didn’t feel any pressure from any of the sellers to buy anything, it was lovely to be able to browse at leisure and not be harassed or heckled to buy/look.

One seller had lots of little pots of cherry tree plants for sale – I wonder how well they grow. I know someone in the UK who grew them in a London allotment and they seemed to do extremely well – but the birds (or something) got to them first so they were turned into a cherry jam rather than eaten fresh. 🍒

I wasn’t thinking straight when I bought an almighty x3 jars of these Moringa seeds that I probably wouldn’t be able to take home with me, since the packaging isn’t properly labeled for customs to inspect. 🙄

I did consider just ‘declaring them’ when I got back to Heathrow to see if they’d let me keep them but ended up just leaving them in my hotel for the staff in the end, so nothing went to waste.

Artsplash Cafe, Farmers Market & Art

Artsplash is a mixture of things, including a wholesome cafe and gallery of art work for sale.

“Homemade, home grown or created in Barbados…” this is what it says in the cafe, regarding everything they sell, love this 💛

I made fast work of my Tropicana smoothie after deciding to walk up from St Lawrence Gap to Artsplash in the crazy Barbados heat. I also sampled the ‘Green Heaven’ juice to get a good dose of green inside me as well lol 🥬 🍏

Behind and around the outside of the building there are usually farmers market stalls selling all sorts, three days per week, including fresh fruit/veg – I was there when it was fairly quiet. There’s also a building next door where a lot of people take their children for art classes of some sort.

If you need a book and where you’re staying doesn’t have any, I think you can take a book from the bookcase and leave a donation in the hand-made money box.

Gun Hill Signal Station: Random Stop

Apparently, before technological communication came about, this high point used to be where Bajans would shoot out signals to warn of any approaching dangers, incoming vessels etc to the island. The views from up here are vast and far reaching.

You can pay to go into the building for tourists nearby, where you can get a better unobstructed view for photographs. My photos were taken a few meters away from that building, at no cost lol, thanks to a savvy driver who knew where to take a peek.

Walk about

When you’re on holiday, especially in a hot humid place, it’s not always easy to drag yourself out for a dedicated long meditative walk, but it’s always worth it, you feel better during and after, physically and mentally. I talked about the benefits of walking in a previous post – never gets old.

Go early in the morning or towards the end of the day to avoid the heat.

Nosing around on a walk also has a habit of providing some great photo opportunities and unexpected conversations.

Above: the shop that was never open, despite saying open.

Queens Park Gallery

I walked through Queen’s Park in Bridgetown to find this prominent Bajan art gallery that was on my small tick list for this trip – it’s a much quicker walk from Bridgetown centre than it looks on Google Maps – about a 5 min walk from the government bus station, really quick.

The park is a stark and refreshing contrast to the rest of the Bridgetown shopping area. If you’ve been to Bridgetown you’ll know exactly what I mean……it can be quite exhausting tbh, then add the heat on top of that.

Queen’s Park Gallery is pretty much one large room space that hosts dedicated exhibitions for limited periods before switching to the next.

While I was there, Cy Hutchinson’s exhibition was displayed all around the room, bar two pieces that had been sold to tourists flying out of Barbados.

I had the place to myself and took a long time to ponder and think – particularly on the blurb Cy had written, explaining where his thoughts, emotions behind the pieces came from – quite thought provoking.

Cy asks us to try and decipher whether we are seeing life or death, femininity, ancestral memories and more in each piece. “The Protection series started as a response to long held feelings of resentment and negatively charged emotions ……”

I thought some of the pieces gave an aura of a soothing, calm, smoothness, lovingly made and unassuming to look at, while others felt vicious and deadly with what appeared to be a frenzy of random jagged and multi-shaped blades or spikes.

Anyway – what am I like, turning this into an art post; the facilitator actually confessed that she hadn’t read what Cy had said about his art and that the points he made were now starting to get her thinking differently about art in general and the pieces on display.

Part of the draw, and beauty of art is that there is no definitive interpretation, so hearing how others interpret a piece and trying to see if you can also see it through their lens….is always interesting.

Lost photos and footage

Despite slowing down with whipping the camera out, I still managed to capture a lot. Disaster struck toward the end of the trip when one of my memory cards decided to stop reading or reacting 😫 absolute worst thing.

I’d uploaded some of it to a Nikon app but it kept stopping mid-upload (which I think corrupted the SD card) so a lot of data didn’t transfer. After that, not a single device or card reader would read the card.

It’s my own fault.

I shouldn’t have let so much footage build up on the camera before backing it up…..seems I really really slowed down this time lol. Next time I’ll set it up to upload to the camera’s app automatically via wifi – a bit like auto uploads to Google photos from your phone.

A tech expert told me that in future, the safest way to access your photos from your camera is to not touch the memory card at all, and just connect your camera to a laptop or whatever device, using a good old fashioned cable. Noted.

As we speak, that memory card has been sent off to one of those data recovery companies as a last resort, to see if they can retrieve anything for me…. 🙏

The same expert told me about a couple who came to him, unable to retrieve any of their wedding photography, and it ended up costing them over £900 just to recover the pictures digitally through specialist recovery services 😯

Have you had any digital disasters?

Thankfully I have enough material to press on with planned blog posts, from what I managed to back up and from other bits on my phone – but I really hope I can get all that lost data back too (without breaking the bank) then I can share much more.

I still have plenty to share from being out and about Barbados, so stay tuned!

Best wishes and take care 🙏✨x