Martinique

I have finally managed to go on holidays!!!! Wohooo

2 weeks of total bliss, relaxation, meetings with my granny (yep, she lives in Martinique) and a hell of a lot of food and rum.

Rum comes in so many variations in Martinique, there are at least 10 – 15 distilleries on that tiny island. You can drink it pure like a matured whiskey, with exotic juices, aromatized with ginger, vanilla or tangerine peels (Shrubb) or the classic ti punch: rum, lime, sugar cane

We had this really lovely studio in the south of the island where there are only white sand beaches. And because we came off season, we had the whole beach to ourselves, as locals hardly ever go to the beach. I just loved trying out recipes I would never ever have thought of, like papaya salad, shark soup, boudin, accras or a typical local dish “Féroce” (translation: fierce): mashed avocado, manioc flour, chilli, oil, salt and pepper, cod

We spend the second week in the capital Fort-de-France and went to visit the North side of the island which has black sand beaches because of the volcano Montagne Pelée. There are so many things to do in Martinique that, should you ever consider going there on holidays, you need at least 3 weeks in order to adapt, relax, visit all the sites that are to be visited, swim, try out the local cuisine or go diving. But I will go back there, I haven´t had enough red snapper yet. 😉

I wish I was a Mermaid

When I was a little girl I was fascinated by Hans Christian Anderson´s Little Mermaid

Then came Esther Williams…

… then a movie called Mermaids, where Katie gets a blue room with fish on the wall  to know how it feels to live under the sea.

I wanted that room so badly, I ended up cutting out slices of green crepe paper and sticked them with tape on my ceiling (supposed to be algae…)

Anyway, I grew up and I started to be very communicative; I talk a lot!

The only way to make me shut up is to put me in front of the telli and make me watch a 4-hour documentary on giant squid or you take me to an aquarium like the Aquarium de Paris.

I love the silence, the colours, the different types and shades of fish, the light breaking through the water…. there are so many more reasons why I would like to be a mermaid and be able to swim with the fish (even the sharks)… but I can´t tell you, because Gingerbread Boy will get mad at me for saying that my breast will never fit in a shell or my hair does not look like it could star in a Pantene commercial… 😉