12 Days in Barbados Part 1 (Mrs Browns Place)

A spur of the moment decision about 4 weeks ago, whilst out walking the pooch, to get ourselves back to Barbados & I made the call to Gabbie at Best at Travel. We were in luck and got a cancellation back at the Island Inn; we were last there in March 2020 just before Covid broke out so we knew what to expect & enjoyed ourselves last time. Our Son commented we should stop going to Barbados; last time a global pandemic followed & this time WW3 looks imminent. Thought bugger it, we’re off; what’s the worst that could happen….

Flying out of Heathrow we stayed the night before at Courtyard Marriot; a new hotel and great choice as it turned out. Flight was fine, bit annoying to wear a mask for the 8 hours duration but removing for drinks meant we rarely wore them as we enjoyed a great drink service on the Virgin flight ?? ???? Arriving at Barbados was a little painful as processing all the Covid documents was

slow and the queues long; all soon forgotten though once our taxi dropped us back at the Island Inn, located in the Christchurch adistrict 1 minute walk to Pebble Beach on Carlisle Bay. It seemed to have not changed one bit; we got the usual odd mix of surliness and friendliness from the reception; it’s a unique style I’ll elaborate on later. We’d requested the same room as last time, so Jeanette passed us our key and said you know where you’re going; no bell boy here!

Lovely to see Adam again as we checked in with a warm welcome & we were soon unpacked, freshened up & at the bar for pre dinner drinks. It was great to meet up again with our friends Maxine, Adam, Rene & Carmen again later; 2 years on and we picked up where we left off which I think is a sure sign of a good friendship, Maxine later calling us all her holiday family! ??Inevitably drinks followed dinner and a good catch up.

Friday 4 March - first day, as usual disoriented by the time difference and woken by the monkeys on the roof we were up early and walking into Bridgetown to re buy the travel adapters we forgot last time ?? Rest of the day spent on the beach, negotiating a 3 day discount deal with Thomas the sunbed guy and his “gang”, bit of a moment followed when I couldn’t get our room safe open to pay & the hotel reception whipped into action to help me, yeah right. After a few hours passed with no cash, despite the hotel lending me some, but not enough, after failing to open the safe I suspect he maybe didn’t believe me! I didn’t fancy falling into debt to these guys, who were frankly stoned on an open and regular basis. Once they got to know me, I did manage to haggle getting the best deals when eyes were most glazed and pupils dilated. The beach being west facing we stayed until sunset, hydrating ourselves with Banks from the car park bars.

Saturday 5th March - up early’ish again we did the lovely walk along the beach and boardwalk to Rockley. Proper white sand beaches here, not dissimilar to those we’d seen in the Maldives and chuffin hot. Afternoon on the beach again, where the highlight was a flashing Rasta man playing with himself in front of a group of girls next to us on the beach. He bit off more than he could chew though and they made a lot of noise in his direction, giving him some serious abuse. To be fair Thomas and the Coconut cocktail guy dibbed in to make sure he’d gone and the girls were ok. Takes all sorts. The car park by the beach has pop up bars with cheap ish beers and the renowned Cuz’s Fush Stand, always a queue for his fish cutters. Another lovely evening spent with our friends after dinner, but the hotel was struggling with no bar staff due to illness (not Covid which we suspected).

The hotel is very low key with “Entertainment” twice weekly, a singer on a Saturday and the legendary Mrs Browns Cocktail Evening on Wednesday. Mrs B is the hotel Manager and a force to be reckoned with; as per 2 years ago the coathanger is still in her jacket as she struts round, almost Queen like, with great presence and gravitas. The big change this time is the addition of the perfectly colour coordinated mask. Despite her clear leadership she’s pleasant and loves to chat, and enjoyed her traditional raggae dancing on said cocktail evening.

Other quieter evenings we had to make our own entertainment, other than overspill music from the kitchen, enjoying chatting and having a laugh with our group of friends. One memorable night the choice of one of us, remaining nameless, was 90’s Gangster Rap to which they gave us a fabulous accompaniment to; word for word.Firstly declaring, after a usual trigger of red wine, they were very drunk. Great fun though, lots of laughs and happy memories and were all sworn to not sharing the video taken ??

We often, during this early part of the holiday, had to resort to making sure we lined enough drinks up to keep us hydrated past 10:00 ???? The bar was manned by less than willing waitresses on occasion who tried but clearly just wanted to go home, I had to beg Elsie one night for a drink at 10:15 getting a telling off in the process! Bless her though, a different person with her hair down and a tale of her twerking will be recounted later.

Sunday 6 March - swam out to the shipwrecks today and was privileged to swim on my own alongside a turtle for some time, great to see him come to the surface for air right next to me. The afternoon was then happily spent sampling the bars along the boardwalk. Chilled out day, followed by another lovely evening with our friendly group; in turn followed by an equally chilled, but breezy, full day on the beach on the Monday 7th.

Part 2 to follow…