Sacre Coeur and Mon Dieu, the restaurant we had booked was open.  It is called Josephine (yes that one, the “not tonight” one, she was born in Martinique) and has at least two pages of the Martinique Restaurant Guide devoted to its charms, its decor, its views, its contemporary twist on creole favourites etcetera.  We were looking forward to our gala dinner!  We entered a second floor dining room, really quite elegant with linen tablecloths, polished glasses and the most god awful smell.  We chose from the menu, prawn cocktail for Bob and goujons in sesame seeds for me, then lamb for Bob and prawns in rhum vieux for me.  A quick look ahead told us that there was our old favourite, banana flambe on offer for pud.  We sat back in the uncomfortable chairs that were giving us both a numb bum, and watched in increasing horror as the dishes arrived.  Bob’s prawns, patently fresh from the microwave, arrived warm.  My goujons were like rubber.  The main course was even worse.  Bob’s lamb was like Morrisons basic range chops and served with potatoes “in a saucy thing that wasn’t too bad” to quote himself.  My three large prawns (impossible to remove their coats because they had gone soggy in the microwave and there was no finger bowl) were accompanied by a pile of plain rice, a scattering of boiled potatoes a la school days and a lettuce leaf, just the one.  We hoped that pudding would redeem this sorry affair but the banana flambe arrived, without flames, and sat on our plates looking like penii flopee, it really is the only description I can give. 

This morning we arose really bright and early to commute over to Trois Islets and join, with trepidation I confess, the mangrove swamp tour.  A lovely boy who spoke wonderful French but only a smattering of English, gave us the tour.  It was fantastic.  With the help of the other participants, who translated where they could, we were able to get the gist of the fauna and flora and the four different varieties of mangrove tree.  We saw lots of crabs, birds, even an eagle thing clutching a fish in its claws and learnt how to catch crabs, the land crab variety of course.  There was some confusion over the translation of what the loud plopping noises were that could be heard regularly.  “Mitan” I was told. “Is that a bird?” I enquired of the lovely old lady, covered in head to toe to keep the mosquitoes out, “It is methane” she replied trying to keep a straight face. We dropped into an uninhabited island on our return where they have a collection of native trees and plants that we were shown around, touching the sensitive grassy thing and making it play dead, tasting the various fruits (the mandarin was not yet ripe and the purple berry really rather dank) but it was great fun.  We then sat together and bonded with our group over some rhum agricole which proved to be perfect cough medicine for me, and a slice of delicious cake that I nearly had to share with a very forward chicken who was very keen to join in.  It transpired that the others, people not chickens, came from France and one couple from Germany and we were a very happy and close knit group after only a few hours together.

The trip was the highlight of our day but turned out to be rather tiring to the old and frail crocks not in the best of health.  We have spent the rest of the day doing what we do best, relaxing and watching the world go by.