The sleep thing was not to happen last night. At 6.45 p.m. I had a call from the head of the open campus of the University of the West Indies, (someone Gracelyn had given my details in terms of developing some course on parenting), asking whether I would be able to join him and a few other colleagues for a meal at the famous Tapas restaurant at Hastings, as he may not have another opportunity to meet with me before my departure on Monday. I naturally said 'yes' and was rewarded with a most splendid night of gorgeous food and lovely company.

On Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting the Director of PAREDOS, the organisation for parenting education and development in Barbados. It's a voluntary organisation whose motto 'building strong communities one family at a time' is lived in its day to day operations. It reminded me very much of the National Children's Bureau and of my time there, of people who put children at the centre of everything that they do.

Yes, Wednesday night at McBride's in St Lawrence Gap is Fully Loaded night, the eight piece reggae band that rocked the night through its transition to morning. We were invited by Elvis, the base guitarist who also played with the three piece jazz band at the Plantation lunch on Sunday. What a difference. To encourage people out everything was two-for-one before twelve o'clock. Two admissions for one, four rum and cokes for the price of two and we were set for the night. We began grooving to the recorded beats about half an hour before the band struck up their own brand of throbbing and pulsing tunes.

Yesterday I spent pretty much the whole day in Bridgetown. I began by delivering the books to Pages Bookstore warehouse on White Park Road. Then I met David Goddard who took me to meet the journalist at The Nation, with whom I left a copy of my book to be reviewed in the paper some time in the new year. David then spent time showing me his Capital. He showed me streets that could easily have been parts of Georgetown, the only thing missing was the stagnant water. Then he showed me the other, more well known Bridgetown. Cave Shepherd, and the rest of Broad St, the churches and other splendid buildings, including the Houses of Parliament; the marina with its million dollars moorings.

My sleep pattern's all over the place since I got back from Montserrat, went to bed at 8.30 last night, up at 2.30 a.m to face a full day. Going to Bridgetown to meet the editor from The Nation about featuring the book. Also received the order from Pages Bookstores which I'm hoping to deliver today if I can get a lift. They will receive them just in time to still feature in the Independence month celebrations of writing by or about Barbados. Everywhere the Barbados flag and colours abound. The radio and TV calls for Barbadians to show their pride in their nation. This is the bandstand at Brown's Beach, where we do our Tai Chi on Saturday mornings, bedecked in the Barbadian colours and The Nation Newspaper's posters for the National Fun Run/Walk which took place on Sunday.

The Travel Club of Barbados had it's annual lunch today at The Plantation, a venue that features in my novel. It was interesting to see it in the daytime, and also to assess whether my descriptions in the book were accurate. I'm not sure if the event was part of the month long Independence celebrations, but it was certainly well attended, mostly by retirees with time and money on their hands. The food was delicious and plentiful The entertainment comprised mainly of singers, young and old, backed by the police band. The non-singers were a 3 piece band (keyboard, base guitarist and drummer) and a line dancing group. The whole thing was ably and amusingly compared by a man having a bit of a blonde moment.



It was a lovely atmosphere. We got chatting to Elvis, the base guitarist from the band, who was highly amusing. It would have been nice to have carried on relaxing but the tables were being cleared away in preparation for another function. Elvis gave us a lift home only to find that Camella had been having a very blonde moment of her own. She'd left the house keys in her partners car. Elvis very generously took us to find them, which gave us a bit more time to hear about his travels with a whole range of bands. Think we'll be going to see him play with a reggae band at McBrides on Wednesday night.

Still on Friday. Moved to the night now. The plan was to go to the annual wine, rum and food festival at Limegrove Lifestyle Centre in Holetown, then go on to the after party at the Beach House a little further down the road which was due to finish at 2 a.m. I was a little apprehensive when Camella suggested taking the bus there (because she wanted to fully partake of all the alcoholic beverages on offer), and coming back by taxi. Not because I have anything against buses - (I'd taken ZRs, the local private mini-bus service in Barbados to and from my massage appointment) - but because I intended to wear heels. After all, it was a dress-up night. In the end I settled for jeans and dress-up top, looked great with my strappy high heels, but not the ideal footwear for trekking. I was mightily relieved when her partner offered us a lift to the bus stop.

Although it's Saturday today its yesterday I want to write about. Sometimes, just when I'm beginning to think I have everything under control, when I begin to believe in the marvel of my own planning, and my ability to execute my plans with precision, something happens to remind me that a force way superior to me is a better conductor, a better orchestrator than I can ever be. This is a long one so settle back. Grab a drink in if you need to.

Five of us were taken on a tour of the island by Cecil, a most delightful tour guide. His experience of growing up on the island, of living through the volcano eruptions, of providing shelter to the refugees from the south to his homeland in the north, and of watching the rebuilding of the island on the north, was shared with colour and charisma.

Sunday evening's event should have been a play, but due to lack of funds to bring all the players, two were selected to act out certain scenes while David Edgecombe narrated the rest. He was brilliant at setting the play in context and linking the scenes, so much so that we hardly noticed that we were not getting the full Monty. There followed a discussion on what obeah represents in the Caribbean. Is it left hand or right hand magic? Will it work if you don't believe in it? Is it a religion? Has it ever been well represented in work for the stage? The general concensus was that it depended on where you live, and no, there has never really been a great play about obeah.

30 participant turned up for my workshop on parenting on Sunday, lured in part by the possibility that their child can be 'fixed'. It was the biggest workshop attendance of the festival with parents from all walks of life, including some of the teachers I'd presented to on Wednesday. I began by asking them to break into groups and to write a job description and person specification for parents, including renumeration, benefits and retirement age. The exercise worked as an ice breaker and the energy in the room reflected the level of engagement.

The afternoon session was lead by Jamaican born Olive Senior, who showed us how to vary the way we write our poetry, and also read from her new novel.

The evening entertainment for Saturday night was Ricardo Keynes-Douglas (yes brother to Paul) I arrived a little late (my lift working on Caribbean time), but by all accounts he was just getting into his stride. The man has energy, it was nearly a two hour set, and people turned out to see him. The auditorim was respectably full. There are so many ways to tell 'the English man, the Irish man and the Scottish man' jokes. Just change them to 'the Guyanese, the Trinie, and the Montratian'. He was real breath of fresh air and I laugh out loud with everyone else.

I leave Montserat today to go back to Barbados. The last few days were a blur. After the opening on Friday night, the festival went into full swing on Saturday. It started with Ian Thompson's workshop on writing about other people. He tackeled some interesting issues such as whether you need to get the person's approval or of others close to them, whether to record or to take notes, and whether to leave out sensitive material. His book 'The Dead Yard - A story of modern Jamaica' caused an outcry in Jamaica as people complained about his depiction of its peoples. He was threatened with law suits from Edward Seaga (former Prime Minister) but nothing came of it. In the end his book has been accepted. I believe I needed to hear this as my next novel may ruffle a few feathers.

Last night (Friday) the festival opened with a coctail reception at the Govenor's house. About fifty people networking and enjoying a few drinks at the Govenor's hospitality. It was a lovely house, with a pool overlooking the sea. The Appleton Overproof soon gave way to white wine (which incidentally continued through the rest of the night) before we moved to the Cultural Centre at 8 p.m. for the official opening and the launch of two books, Professor Ferguson's Poems from behind God's back, and Jo-Annah Richards The Ill Concepts of the Caribbeab Woman. The two were interspersed with a fashion show of tie-dyed fabrics. The evening was rounded off with a Soca Music Explosion with Scrappy and Volcanic Vybz. That's me and Scrappy in the photo.

Presenting to teachers yesterday took me straight back to my consultancy days. It could have been any staff room in any British school. The fears and concerns were the same. The resistance to change, the challenges of balancing the pressure of delivering the curriculum with the pastoral element of the job. The condemnation of some children by some teachers, the lack of understanding of how profoundly teachers affect children's lives.

The journey from Barbados to Montserrat took me via two other islands, Dominica and Antigua. The Liat aircraft took off on time. It was a bit like boarding a bus. 'Sit anywhere but the back seats', the chief cabin crew said as we filed on with our varying sizes of carry on bags. I snuggled into a window seat right by the wheels of the aricraft and listened to the safety talk. 'We have oxygen on the aricraft if necessary', replaced the usual 'in the case of cabin pressure dropping oxygen masks will drop down'. Watching the wheels I could tell exactly when we took off, and knew we were staying up when they folded like giant exotic umbrellas being cased.

The lushness of Dominica reminded me of Guyana, but with more contours. I wanted to stay longer than the twenty minutes it took to pick up new passengers. I know I'll be back. The seat next to me which had been vacant was filled by a base guitarist, about fifty five, who had been to the international music festival and was on his way back to Tobago.

I've been to Antigua before, but the dry arid landscape that I remembered from twenty odd years ago was now covered in green. When I queried it with my friend she said the ash from Montserrat has spread far and wide across the Caribbean, bringing some unexpected benefits.

I was the only person checking in at the Fly Montserrat desk and was informed that we would be leaving early if all passengers checked in early. Having paid 28US dollars for my departure tax, the customs officer sent me back for a refund as I'd not been in the country for twenty four hours. This was a pleasant and very welcomed surprise, as the last time I was in Antigua someone relieved me of rather a lot of my travelling funds from the hotel room.

The airport is the biggest and busiest I've encoutered so far on this trip, and again, very friendly. The member of staff on the departure gate was a Jamaican woman from my parish of Clarendon in Jamaica. She was surprised by my surname. 'Dixon isn't a Claridonian name' she declared. Then, 'Oh I knew it had to be something like that' when I explained it's my married name.

We did, indeed, leave early, with a full flight of seven passengers and a pilot. One person's bags had to be left for the following flight as the 10kgs would have been too much for the safe flying of the aircraft. No amount of cajoling could budge the pilot. I got some amazing footage of the take of and landing. I didn't think it possible, but Montserrat is even more lush than when I was here twenty seven years ago, and is, in essence, a different island. Most of the south has been devastated by the volcano and the newly developed and developing north is emerging as a splendid alternative for what was lost. Survival is stamped all over the island.

I received a warm welcome at customs and a welcome pack from the festival organisers containing lots of goodies from the various sponsors. Unfortunately Colin Channer won't be coming but there'll be plenty of other great writers and readers to meet. By some strange quirk of fate I'm going to be doing a presentation to a group of teachers today on using the ABCapproach to behaviour management.

My friend here lives in the mountains. Peace, tranquility and hungry mosquitoes.

Although it may look like I've just gone from one party to another, quite a bit has happened in between. I've reaquainted myself with Miami Beach and it regulars, who welcomed me back home and wanted to know about my trip to Guyana. I got a long lecture on the family links between Barbadians and Guyanese, along with another swimming lesson. The tables are now reversed, years ago it was the Babadians who were going to Guyana to look for a better life. They married, had children and so the connections were formed.

Pages Bookstore is definitely taking Dare to Love.

Camella's sister called to say Radio Montserrat is already advertising my attendance at the literary festival, and in particular my workshop. YEY!! I've been giving the content serious thought, working on the finer details now.

Yesterday the second Starbroek News article came out. The focus was on my lost purse. Who would have thought the incident would be newsworthy? but it formed part of my TV and radio interviews, and now part of a newspaper article. The article prompted me to contact The Nation newspaper here again, as they still have not responded to my request to do a piece on the book in their magazine.

Last night we partied. A lovely beach front house affair with music and food to die for. People were really getting down.

Arrived back in Barbados this morning, desparately needing sleep. We went to The Edge nightclub last night for some final revelry. It's an ultra modern club that looked and felt like the inside of a freezer chill room when we arrived. Mist floated around and the temperature had Camella reaching for her shawl. The long rectangular dancefloor, modelled on the one in Michael Jackson's Billy Jean video flashed red white and blue under floor lights.

A few hours ago Mr Austin, the owner of the renouned Austin's Book Services said yes to stocking Dare to Love. It was a timely agreement, given that I'm about to do a radio interview in two hours. I can now confidenty say that the books will be available in the largest bookstore in Georgetown. While I'm extremely happy about this, I am happier about the nature of the transaction. Mr Austin is an exteremly charming person with a great sense of humour and a very sharp wit, a shrewd businessman but seems fair.