Being Grateful

As you know, I have been spring cleaning my home. I have also been “spring cleaning” my computer. You know, backing up pictures, documents and such. During this process, I came across a file with a post I had written last year when we were on our way back from our cruise.

It was December 20th, and we flew from San Juan Puerto Rico to Atlanta, Georgia, where we proceeded to get stuck, as there was a blizzard in Boston, our final destination.

As most of you will remember, ( HERE & HERE ) this is the trip where my retina detached at the airport in Atlanta and Hubby had to drive me back north, dropping me with my sister in Connecticut who brought me the rest of the way to the hospital.

Anyway, I digress.

Before the retina detached, while we sat waiting for a plane to take off out of Atlanta for Boston, I was sitting in the terminal with my trusty laptop writing my next entry of Dackel Princess, and it was this entry that I forgot all about until I was “spring cleaning my computer. Gosh, this is a long winded explanation!

Here is that entry:

We are on our way home from Paradise! Our trip was so relaxing and both Hubby and I had a good time. I am still worried about his foot, but I was able to call the doctor from St. Thomas and arrange an appointment for the 24th at 10 AM. The consensus on the ship is that it may be a bone spur, but we shall see. (It wasn’t he had a small piece of metel in his foot!)
We were so lucky to have excellent table-mates for dinner. They were a couple from California. He is an ex-Marine and she is the former editor and chief of McCalls, who is currently freelance writing for food magazines. We got along so well.
I was quite careful when I was out in the sun and only just got a wee bit. Enough so I look healthy, but no sunburn at all.
We had a bit of a go round with the customer service when we were trying to arrange to get off the ship early so we could make our flight. Everyone said it could not be done, but….my young German Purser told us where to go this morning to await the early disembarking. We were there, and sure enough we were able to go ashore before anyone else, and get to the airport for the early flight to Atlanta. Currently, both New York and Boston airports are closed, but I am hopeful that they will open later and we can get home. If not then we will spend the night in Atlanta and try to get up to Boston tomorrow.
Okay, now down to my favorite things about this trip. First I loved the linen shops. I bought several new embroidered table clothes, with matching napkins. They are quite lovely and were very inexpensive!
Tortola was a truly impoverished country and that made it a bit tough to see. If you have money then your house is nice and you have hired help. If you have little or no money then you live in a lean-to shack. Tortola is quite mountainous with more hairpin turns than I have seen in a while.
Antigua was interesting and we learned quite a bit about it. We had a wonderful tour guide who told us all about the history of the island as well as showed us around. For those of you who follow rock music, we got to see Eric Clapton’s home, as well as the rehab facility that he built to help his music and acting friends. Our guide Christine told us all about Christmas on Antigua and that was quite interesting, too. The Antiguans are very family oriented and their celebrations are centered around that.
Antigua was also a major area for ship repair for the British. The interesting thing for us was that the trees cut down in the New England area would be brought to Antigua and made into masts for the British ships.
St. Lucia, although not my favorite island, offered us a chance to go to see an inactive volcano. It is still steaming and bubbling, but has not erupted in hundreds of years. We also observed two spherical cone mountains. The Botanical gardens were beautiful and I took the time to snap a lot of pictures of the flowers there.
But my favorite island continues to be Barbados. In Barbados, the Bajans work hard and their island is clean and tidy. Buildings are freshly painted and there is no begging. They are a friendly and polite people and I truly love it there. We did not take a formal tour there because we have visited the island before and driven all around it. This time we simply walked the downtown area of Bridgetown and observed Bajan life. I was not disappointed.
Our day at sea afforded us time to kick back and relax, pack our bags and even go for a swim. Then we went to bed early and got up in time to eat breakfast before leaving the ship.
Of course, currently the airports up north are closed due to the snow, but sometime in the next 24 hours we will get home.
Meanwhile I will read magazines, type some stories and generally try to kill time until I can send off a few emails.

Now, after I wrote that, we ate lunch, and then as we walked through the terminal, my retina detached and our plans changed. Looking back, I am so very lucky, that the doctor could repair my retina and that I have vision.

I guess if it had to have happened, after the cruise was better than at the start!

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