As mentioned in the previous post, I went home for 2 and a half weeks at the end of September. The old saying about ‘the more things change, the more things stay the same’ comes to mind as I reflect on the break from work and England. Barbados, as a society, hasn’t really changed at all. A bit more modernised, a fair bit dirtier (litter), but on the whole, the same as 7 years ago.

Barbados as a country has changed dramatically compared to my memories. More cars, more litter, more houses, more buildings, more construction, more lights at night. Hotter too – several days were reported as 33C, feels like 40C. I don’t remember the ‘feels like’ value ever being that high, even at this time of year. Combined with 80%+ relative humidity and me being heavier than I should be, and I was quite warm most of the time.

It only took Mary-Jo and I most afternoons of a week or so to get Grandad’s computers all sorted out. There were some issues with the Speedtouch 546 (spontaneous reboots, interface lockups when online) that gave rise to Grandad and I visiting Sunbeach the Monday before I flew back to get the unit replaced. The replacement is (was?) functioning just fine.

Throw in some dodgy RAM that we bought as an upgrade, sprinkle liberally with a man who can break a computer faster than I can blink, stir in Windos XP Pro and you have a recipe for some interesting afternoons. At least with the ADSL connection we could get files down a bit faster than 56K. For those who think that paying 20 – 30 quid a month for a 2 Mbit line is expensive, a 1 Mbit line in Barbados will run you the equvalent of 100 quid a month, and a 2 Mbit line is close on 300 quid a month. Granted, the 2 Mbit line is 2 down 1 up, not 2 down 256K up. memtest86+ saved the day with the RAM – we had been seeing all sorts of stop errors (50 primarily), svchost failures, any_running_program failures and more. A quick pass with memtest86+ and the error showed up in the first 3 seconds. Replaced that stick of RAM and life was good.

On the touristy side of things, we hit up places like Codrington College, Bathsheba, East Point Lighthouse, Flower Forest, Orchid World, several beaches and a few other bits and pieces. Pictures to follow in the gallery later on.

All told, it was a very good break, even if I didn’t see as many of my friends as I would have liked to. Flew back business class on BMI, and it was well worth the cost. Economy on BMI is also damn decent – they offered ~2 major meals and 2 – 3 snack meals on the flight down. The seat was a bit to small for me though, so in the future I’ll probably have to travel premium economy unless I get rich and can travel business all the time. Business class, by the way, offers a chef who comes and asks what you’d like, free alcohol (which isn’t of interest to me), free newspaper / magazines when you board, and a ratio of 1 steward(ess) to about 5 people. Good headphones too, noise cancelling I think, based on how quiet the plane got. Oh, and best of all for me, seats that I can sit in comfortably, and recline to 160 degrees for sleeping. Brilliant.