Holetown Festival Barbados

It is a week or so since I wrote in the blog. Last Friday, Feb 20, 2009 around 4.30 pm Tony and I drove from St.Philip, where we live, to Holetown, St. James to set up a 'tent' in preparation for the following 2 days.
I shared a spot with two other women. One makes various gift items from homemade paper....made from banana leaf fibre and other vegetable fibre found locally. the other makes ceramic tiles imbedded with dried leaves and flowers from her garden.

Setting up the tent was quite interesting!! I had borrowed it from a friend and Tony and I had to figure out which poles fitted which!!....Ha Ha!! We were finally helped by this guy who walked by and took pity on us. I was so glad as Tony was beginning to lose his patience....of which he has very little!

Finally when we were all set the other two ladies came along!! The two days ...Sat. and Sun were very interesting. There were lots of overseas visitors as well as locals and my prints on canvas generated quite a bit of interest. However, it was evident that the recession is taking hold everywhere. The Brits were not spending and neither were the Americans or Canadians. I did actually sell 3 prints and was happy with that. I consider I am in a learning mode right now . I am finding out what people like and also how to display my work. I did meet quite a few other artists who are well known and successful here in Barbados. Without xception they admired my work and one said she felt I should charge more!

On Tuesday Tony and I went to the cat lady in St. Philip and managed to get two tomcats into carriers for their neutering the following day . We got home and transferred them into the ouside holding cages where they sat and glowered at us. Yesterday morning we transferred them back into the carriers for their ride to the vet. As we are doing this they are spraying in midair. If you know what tomcat smells like...then you can imagine!!!!. The hood of my car was covered in bright yellow noxious droplets as was the inside of the carriers. We had, of course protected the back seat of the car with a large shower curtain and the sides and backs of the carriers were encased in black garbage bags ...only an opening in the front of the carriers was left for air.

When we finally got to the vet for the required 8.30 arrival time the smell in my car was amazing. I just kept praying that somehow it would not be permanent! We stumbled in with our fragrant loads and the look on the receptionist face was one of horror. You may think that they smell this all the time at a vet. office but this was exceptional!...oh yes, by now one of the boys had pooed. Th vet came out to reception and said something like,"Oh my God, bring them through to the back, fast. Once they were handed over Tony took the carriers out to the back of the premises and with the help of wipes and paper towel he cleaned them up and relined them with newspaper for the journey home.

Within half an hour the boys were no longer boys and we were on our wayback to their home. My poor car is making such terrible noises I am wondering if I shall be able to take the other two males next week. When we got back to our home Tony had to dismantle the hoding cages and scrub them with bleach, along with the carriers. I put the shower curtains in the washing machine with bleach and actually have just brought them off the line and back in the house. The car does not smell at all thank God but I am so worried about it otherwise. Our pensions have been so affected by the exchange rate between Britain and Barbados that our monthly income has been cut in half. There is nothing left over for car maintenance and my volunteer work with Hope animal sanctuary will be really curtailed without a car....I am so tired right now so will close and write more tomorrow.