Continuing to ramble random thoughts here so bare with me….
For those of you who don’t know my family there are four of us. My husband Cam, my 14 year old son (who eats us out of house and home these days) and my 11 year daughter (going on 30 and knows everything)…. First day after we arrive it off to get groceries. Value Master is the place we usually go and load up for the main stay then for fresh veggies it is off to Sav market to get as much as we can in bulk. Taxes for groceries are seriously becoming off the chart and it pains me to think about how many people cannot afford to shop the way we do. Almost to the point of sitting in line at VM and wondering what everyone in the store thinks as we pull up with an overflowing cart. We have a freezer at the house and we purchase 4 breads at a time so we don’t have to go every second day. It’s funny how most of our friends don’t eat bread the way we do… So VM is done for the day and back to the yard to chill a bit.
Next is off to Sav for veggies. I purchase normally about $40.00 in veggies for the week. The vendors love to see me trust mi! 10 pounds of potatoes for the week at 80J a pound. Tomatoes and sweetpeppers were 200 J per pound which had just come down from around 400J CRAZY! Need our scotchbonnets, cucumbers, green beans, onion, scallion etc… Last year we tried out the brand spanking new plaza in SAV which has a fantastic grocery store, hardware and fish shop and Juicy patties included. The fish shop has frozen and fresh fish. I cannot afford to purchase fresh fish anymore not with the family getting bigger. It was ok when the kids were little but no longer. So, we purchased a 7 pound bag of frozen butter fish for approx 1200J (if my memory serves me). Amazing fish! Of course, it helps to have Felix the chef in the house LOL! But we all agreed it was a great price and a nice light tasting fish which you can do anything with. Oh it was fillet. We also got frozen snapper slice fish which was also a great price. For about 2000J we were good for the month. Oh back to the market, I was with a girlfriend who was buying some beef and pork so I went with her. Got a couple pounds of both which wasn’t a bad price at all. I figure it is more expensive for veggies then meat. Miyard was selling a large bagged ice for 100J so we usually stop there so we have ice for drinks and smoothies. The 100J was pre Xmas prices during Xmas week it went up to 130J and stayed there. Back to the yard to unpack and get to the beach for the day.
We love hanging at YellowBird. It has kinda become our beach home, the people there are great. The first week of the 15th the beach is beyond dead. For someone who normally goes in Feb this was kinda shocking to me, since I figured Dec would have been slow but not that slow. The higglers weren’t that bad. I bought a little of this and a little of that. No, I’m not paying you 500J for your embroidered bracelets, but I will give you 200. Don’t bother putting my name on it since I don’t want it I am just trying to help you out. The water is its usual beautiful warm, blue, healing self. And I can’t wait to get in..
Did I mention the cold front? The day we landed at 2:00 p.m. it was 22C. Lordy it was chilly and everyone was complaining about it. I was wearing Cam’s sleeping pants to bed and getting up to put on a sweater around 3:00 a.m. for about a week. I must be climatizing very quickly now because all our Jamaican friends couldn’t understand why I would be as cold as them.. LOL! After the first night I got the second sheet out for the bed. This lasted a good week and a bit but we really didn’t care, we were in JA and that was all that really mattered to us.

Winni sounds like you had a great time at home this reach. Question for your veggie have you ever considered getting on the list for the green grocers who travel, they will come to your yard to deliver, and they wouldn't mind because they could make money from others on your lane also. If you want I could give you the number of my guy. He comes to Negril on Tuesday and Friday. Always carries fresh, tasty and good veggies.

Also I've been trying to reach our mutual friend, your neighbor B. but have been unable. Did you see him or have any info on how he's doing?

Also did you buy a BBQ pit, if so where did you find it?

I also meant to contact you while you were here, because I would have loved checking out your place, as we talked about last year.