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De Mudda Sally At Oistins

Have some Laughs

Trip Wow : A Plus Tours & Events

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Randoms from After Oistins In The Gap

Elton Playing in Reggae Lounge 

Do you know this guy? I don't...he was taking a photo of me and the teddy and then started taking selfies... WHO IS HE??

Me and This bad boy right here!! in Hal's Bar 

I want his teddy!

To Tourist ? Or Not To Tourist?

So before I could even get to Oistins on Friday night for the Fantastic Fish Fry Friday Tour that was about to go down, I had to take some kind of Transportation there!

So there I was standing at the bus stop hoping that ANYTHING...would pass and pick me up, and I should have really known better due to the fact that it was 7:00 on a Friday night...going in the direction towards Oistins. But I was hopeful!

After 2 Transport Board Blue busses and about 5 small Zr Vans (also known as Reggae busses to most tourists) passed me by, finally i had a winner. But as the van pulled up...I was a bit skeptical about if I would be able to get in.

But as it is known ...space is never an issue in the "Sardine Cans on Wheels" (Zr Vans). The van conductors manage to find space from ...somewhere to always fit just one more....and then one more....

When the Van rolled to a stop at the bus stop, I could see people, tourists and locals, piled up on top of each other in all of the seats. In the back seat alone there were 7 people (it normally sits 3 or 4 if the people are smaller and squeeze together). However at this point in time I wasn't partial as the traffic only seemed to steadily increase, worsening by the minute.

So I held my breath and hopped in. Dub Music (Native to Jamaica and most Caribbean Islands) was blaring through the speakers and the entire van vibrated as the bass shook and rattled the frame. There were 3 friends it appeared, in the front of the van who were yammering on in some undetected language. They looked scared out of their mind, whilst one man in the backseat waved his hand out through the window, clutching on to his beer, mind you, in time to the music.

At this point in time I was sitting on some strangers knees in the most uncomfortable of positions, trying to hang on for dear life. But I won't lie...the experience was exhilarating to say the least. But I was even more surprised when all of a sudden the music went off and the driver shouts out, "Anybody getting out on Maxwell Coast Road?"

Apparently no-one was.

And then came the next surprise. The conductor turned off the ceiling light in the van, and everything went dark and they decided to duck out of the long winding traffic trail leading up the coast road and beat the system with the many small curving backroads.

After that momentary lapse of silence... The pounding music was back on and the normal bus route was ditched as we twisted and zoomed through the back roads of Christ Church.

It seriously was a great experience. I felt as if I was a tourist experiencing the crazy driving of the Reggae Vans.

By the time I arrived in Oistins, my heart was racing and I had a huge smile on my face...
Needless to say it was an interesting beginning to an interesting night!

Fantastic Fish Fry Fridays

OISTINS FISH FRY FRIDAYS 

Great atmospheric area on a Friday night. Plenty of stalls selling gifts and local craft ware. Main stage area with pumping music and impromptu dancing. 

A good mixture of locals and tourists eating alfresco from the plentiful small kitchens. 

Good choices of different fish dishes . On week days you can find a tranquil fish market and often hear the calls of vendors pedaling their fresh catches of the day. But on Friday and Saturday nights, this sleepy little fishing village transforms in to an all night Street party! One that you shouldn't miss.

Enjoy a nice local dinner. With A Plus tours, we guarantee you a fantabulous night out. Primarily,, hotel pick-up, always expect friendly staff and smiles from ear to ear! We carry on to Oistins where we have reserved seating. 

After all of the fun and excitement that Oistins has to offer, we shuffle you along to St Lawrence Gap, the beating heart of Barbados' Nightlife. 

Finally, on the way back to the hotel, a scenic nightlife drive back. 

This tour commences at 7:00  

Check it out! 

New Trend? Pudding and Souse Thursdays?!

I don't know about you but I'm on this pudding and souse vibe... Don't tell me that I have to wait all de way till saturday to get sum....Man no mann!!! 

Does anyone know the History of Pudding and Souse? 

Pudding refers to Black Pudding (think British Blood Pudding). 

In Barbados and some other parts of the Caribbean, pudding with blood is not made at all, rather, there is a steamed pudding made of spiced sweet potatoes and darkened with browning to give that signature dark look of a traditional blood pudding. This version of the pudding is served two ways - stuffed in a casing such as a sausage casing or it is served as is.

Blacking Pudding is an influence from the Colonial days.

Souse is a pickle. It is a pickle made of pig-trotters (pig's feet), pig's face, pig's ears pork shoulder (pork butt), chicken feet or cow's face. Along with the meat there is a slightly vinegary sauce that it spiced with minced hot peppers, loads of cucumbers, herbs, such as parsley, and it is seasoned with salt.

Recipe

Souse 

• 2 lb pork shoulder cut into 1 inch pieces, or the traditional ear, snout and tongue cut into bite-size pieces.

• One large onion, diced

• Two cucumbers, grated

• Scotch bonnet pepper (or chilli of your choice), finely diced

• Juice of 3 limes

• Chopped fresh parsley

Pudding 

• 1 ½ lb grated sweet potato

• ½ tsp thyme

• ½ tsp marjoram

• 1 tsp chives, chopped

• Scotch bonnet pepper (or chilli of your choice), finely diced

• Pinch of sugar

• Pinch of salt

• 2 tsp oil

• 2 oz butter

• Coloring (optional)

Boil the pork in salted water, until tender.

Combine the cooked pork with the grated cucumber, onion, pepper, lime juice and parsley. Add salt to taste.

Refrigerate and serve cold with the pudding.

Diced sweet potato or pickled breadfruit is usually served on the side.

Combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Colouring (browning) gives the pudding a characteristic dark brown colour but can be omitted.

The pudding may be steamed in a bowl over a pot of boiling water, or baked in a greased baking dish, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. 

Enjoy!

Island Time

Don't get dis one Tie UP!

10 Random Facts about Barbados

Barbados is an island country that belongs to the Lesser Antilles. The country is located in the western area of the North Atlantic Ocean and is approximately 100 kilometers east of the Caribbean Sea. The country first came under the rule of the Portuguese, but later in 1625 was passed on to the English who back then converted it into one of their many colonies. In 1966, Barbados took over from the British, when they became an independent country. However, the country still has Queen Elizabeth II as its Head of State. Barbados now is one of the most popular and most preferred tourist destinations of the Caribbean. Let’s take a look into this island nation through 12 random facts below.

The Barbados Flag

1. The name “Barbados’ was originally Los Barbados, Portuguese for “the bearded ones”, which is derived from the Bearded Fig Trees once found in abundance on the island. From afar, the trees looked like they had beards, and the country was thus named by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Campos.

2. There are about 270,000 people that live in Barbados.  It’s located in the Lesser Antilles, with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the west, Saint Lucia to the northwest, and Grenada to the southwest.

3. The largest city or town is Bridgetown with about 100,000 people, followed by Speightston, Oistins, Bathsheba, and Holetown.

4. The capital city is Bridgetown. Both Bridgetown and its Garrison is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

5. “Pride and Industry” is the Motto of Barbados

6. Barbados is one of the more populous and prosperous Caribbean islands. It is also a famous tourist       destination and plays host to about 500,000 visitors every year.

7.The national flower is the Pride of Barbados or Caesalpinia Pulcherrima which grows all over the island and can be seen in yellow, orange, or red. The leaves of ‘the Pride of Barbados’ are given to crying babies. The leaf is supposed to help make a baby stop crying. It is dipped in breast milk and then given to the crying child.

8.The country is also home to a large Mongoose population.  Originally imported from India to take care of the rats in the sugar cane fields.  Instead they ate the snakes, which was the original predator of the rats. And surprisingly, it is considered good luck if a mongoose crosses your path.

9. Barbados now is the most developed island country in the Caribbean. This scenic island also enjoys the distinction of being the third most developed country in the Western hemisphere, after the United States of America and Canada.

 10. Barbados can be known as the “the land of the flying fish”, with flying fish being a common sight around the island.

Food For thought !

IT'S GOOD TO TALK!

There's an expression that rolls off the tongue, oh so easily: `Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you.' Nothing could be further from the truth. What you say to another human being and what they say to you has the most profound effect on you both. We're truly able to move mountains with words. And the power of words can destroy people's lives. It really does matter what we say to each other - and how we say it. 

In all our lives we've all had moments, when we can honestly say, it’s been good to talk. 

A conversation when we felt emotionally connected to another human being. 

A conversation which gave us both a deeper understanding of each other. 

A conversation when we felt totally in tune, totally in harmony, totally safe. 

We knew we were both being heard. 

Whether we were the speaker or the listener, we engaged in an exchange of thoughts and emotions. If we were doing the talking, we said thought by thought what was in our mind. Our friend echoed our every word and tone under their breath. Silently listening by saying it with us. After each thought, we breathed together and both experienced the emotion of what we'd just said. By watching our friend’s face and body we checked them out, to see if they understood. Not just understood, but felt the feeling in our words. Our friend nodded as if to say, they’d heard us. So did we, as if to say 'I heard it too’. We both experienced what we said at the same moment. Both joined through the breath to the thought and to the emotion. Magically there in our mind was what we needed to say next,  ready to be spoken.

When we completed the cycle of thoughts, we both reviewed them as a whole. And in that moment, as we both breathed, we decided between us who was to carry on talking. We stayed in step with each other, as if only one person was doing the talking. Sitting or standing the same way. Moving and breathing together. Even if we were doing all the talking, our friend was always part of the process. Neither of us owned the conversation.  

It belonged to us both. 

With our true friends we feel as though we could tell them anything and still remain safe in their friendship. It makes us feel good, it makes us feel well. It makes us feel safe!

But what about when we meet someone for the first time? Every new person a new possibility. Maybe they'll become our best friend. Maybe they’ll become our lover 

Maybe they'll hurt us in some way. Maybe they'll beat us up. Maybe they'll cheat us in business. Maybe they'll be the person we've been waiting to meet all of our lives. Maybe they’ll be the person we’ll wish we'd never met!   

Even before the other person speaks, their very presence has an immediate effect on us. We try to feel exactly where they're 'coming from'. But who's going to come out of hiding first? Whose going to make the first move? Whose going to disclose a part of themselves, to let the other person feel safer? Which bit will be opened up to scrutiny and by whom? ‘‘Why do they want to talk to me? What do they want from me? Who are they really? Is it safe to tell them who I really am? Will it help me survive?’'

What I'm describing can feel like war. For so many, people that's just what it is. 

For them, meeting people is not about love and affection, it’s about basic survival! 

You know how sometimes when you meet someone and you know they’re judging you? Deciding whether you're worth knowing. Checking you out. Will you help them climb their ladder of success?  Now, if you don't immediately come up with the goods 

to reassure them that you’ll improve their chances of survival, they move on. 

However well camouflaged they are, however magnificent their mask, behind it, they’ll be living their life in a state of total hysteria. 

They’re so terrified, they don’t hear or see anything, except what they believe they need - in order to survive! Yet we can all see and hear through their mask, right through to their fear.  If we really look, if we really listen. Listen to what they’re really saying. It may not be in the words they use, but it’ll be there in the way they stand, and the way they move. It'll be there in their face and in their eyes. And most of all it’ll be there in their voice. Yet all too often we’ll conspire with them to pretend that the person they’re presenting to us is who they really are, on the one proviso that they pretend that what we’re presenting to them is us. Neither is really talking, neither is really listening. A veneer of acceptable civility that’s wafer thin. We could strip it away - but we don’t? 

But wouldn't it be wonderful if we did. If we felt safe enough to drop the mask and talk and listen as the person we really are, instead of remaining in emotional turmoil, 

living an imitation of real life. An illusion that’s based on fear. 

Why are we so terrified to talk openly and honestly without fear?

For the first few years of our lives the adults around us thrilled as we developed the ability to talk. They clapped their hands in glee, as we started to make more and more sense of the language we were learning. And then all too soon 

it starts to go horribly wrong. Instead of smiles of joy we get: 

‘‘Button your lip’ ‘Shut your mouth’ ‘

‘Don’t  you dare speak to me like that’. 

‘One more word out of you and you’ll go to your room’. 

Then once we’ve been silenced we’re told: 

‘Well spit it out then, come on’. ‘Cat got your tongue’ 

‘Stop bloody mumbling child... ‘

Or maybe the cruel sarcasm and public humiliation of: 

‘‘The floor is yours Jenkins, what pearls of wisdom do have for us today... em?’ 

It’s not very nice, even now, to be talked to like that. What did it feel like, say, when you were four or five or six or seven? Maybe what was said or done to you was worse, even more cruel, even more unkind and destructive to your confidence, to your belief that you have a right to be heard. How did you deal with the feelings of confusion and hurt? How did you decide how to cope in the future? To cope with the belief that it wasn’t safe to express what you really feel - any more?

Every day I see people who’ve been de-voiced by someone during their childhood. 

Their ability to talk openly and honestly without fear has been crushed with words. 

Not just words, but the way they were used as weapons to wound. 

You could say: ‘’Well, it happens to us all. We all get over it.’‘... Do we?

‘’The middle aged woman who speaks with a little girls voice. The man who tries desperately to get across what he’s trying to say, but it just won’t come out. 

The woman who speaks in bullets, trying to be assertive, but knows that she's failing abysmally. The young man, desperately trying to be cool, but his terrified eyes always give him away. The woman who mumbles and just can’t look you straight in the eye, 

because she’s too terrified you’ll probe her pain. 

All of us are trying to cover up past pain. Trying to keep it hidden from prying eyes. But it leaks out every time we open our mouths. The truth is, we don’t talk to each other, not really - not most of the time. We exchange at best pointless pleasant platitudes. 

Talking has become for the most part a necessary function to achieve our needs in order to survive. An empty experience that diminishes us all. And we talk and listen 

from behind a public mask that hides our private pain.

Yet from behind that mask, most of us, most of the time, are searching and longing to hear something that reassures us that we belong, that we are included, that we are part of the whole, part of the community we live in and that our voice is truly being heard. Talking is always emotional - always personal. 

You have a choice. If you want to stay trapped in a vocal time warp, continue to convince yourselves as others do, that emotion is not very professional. That you as a person are irrelevant. Convince yourselves that all the education and knowledge and understanding you’ve  received in your life is to be used merely as a service industry to other people’s need to survive. Convince yourself that you’re OK to be just another widget in this world, indistinguishable from the next, except for your particular knowledge data base and grades. Support the suppression of an individual’s need to be heard and talked to as a person rather, than as a function of their job title. 

Continue to believe that the mask works. 

But what if you don’t? What if you want to be released from the confines created in your childhood?

Break down your barrier of fear - before it’s too late! Listen past another person's fear to who they really are.  Believe it’s the people you meet and talk to, I mean really talk to, that matter most,  as you try to define who you are - as you search to find your place and purpose in this world.

Know that you have the potential to form that future, by what you say and how you say it. Begin to talk and listen openly and honestly without fear. 

And the next time you’re about to talk and your heart’s in your mouth, speak from there and change the world. And know for certain - it's good to talk.

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Hoodees Bar

Leo? Are you going out for a drink with us Tonight?

Er?! So there I was sitting and caressing Kate's baby, Lovingly (a.k.a Finishing up the New A Plus Newsletter on the Mac PC) .... when these words escaped from Cleston's mouth, "Leo...are you going out for a drink with us tonight?"

Hesitantly, I peered over my shoulder to see Kate smiling, Cleston smiling and Clifton (Cleston's dad) smiling....When I said yes to their invitation, I really had no idea of what I was getting myself into.

We packed up shop around 7 and headed off to  ---> Destination Unknown....

20 minutes into the drive, I begin to look out through the window and wonder to myself, "how far exactly are we going?". Random Trees and brush passed by in a semi-blur... But i didn't have to wonder for much longer. I was informed that we were going to a nice little spot in St.Philip.

Where did we go? 

Hoodee's Sports Bar & Grill is a bit of a drive across the country depending on which direction you call home however, it's well worth the drive. 

Tucked away, close to Six Roads, this bar had a welcoming feel from the moment that we stepped through the doors. The Entire building was air-conditioned (Made me  think twice... can't fit it in to the typical Rum shop category...NO way ! This place exuded an air of sophistication.) Music was playing at the perfect height (not too softly that you can hear everyone's conversations, but still not too loud that you have to shout.) There were quite a number of people laughing and chatting away, genuinely adding to the charisma and personality of the place.

We chose our table and settled in, and in my opinion this is when the madness began. All of a sudden a fairly big bottle of Absolut Vodka 'POOFS' out of nowhere .....bram ! smack-dab in the middle of the table, and soon followed the hurricane glasses, ice and chaser. Forget about ordering the food! I have never seen drinks arrive at lightning speed like that!

The Dj walked up to the stand and changed the general vibe, playing some catchy Soca music and I'm there dreading that drink in  front of me.  

So apparently Clifton and Kate have this kind of drinking bet going on! and before i'm even half-way through my first drink. I see them refilling their glasses while chatting away about random things. Apparently when you see pop's Clifton turn up....its Drinks can dun The night was off to a great start! 

One thing that must be said about Hoodee's, is that they have scrumptious, tantalizing dishes on their menu. Traditional Bajan favorites done exceptionally well. BIGG-UP DE CHICKEN WINGS! bruggadown!!! (That's what I had)

Saturday night's are Karaoke nights and of course by the time the DJ had started it up, I had had more than a little liquid confidence, so I got in on the action....well more like the the howling because thats what I was doing...But the atmosphere of the bar was so laid back and chill that no-one was taking on my high pitched banshee noises. 

Seriously speaking though, if you want a nice place to go to on Saturday Night's Hoodee's is most definitely an option you should consider. Not the average spot at all!

Well needless to say, two large Absolut bottles in....I was no longer in control. Thinking back on something, earlier in the night Cleston had introduced me to one of the owners, as a new employee and that this drinking match was part of my training period. The owner had taken one look at my half full glass where all the ice had melted and said, "well it doesn't seem like she is passing it, now does she!" 

Well I do believe I should have passed because i was no longer capable of walking in a straight line by the time they dropped me home. The car ride back from far far away land was a big blur with spots of me blacking-out. Cleston and Kate were fine but apparently me and Clifton were out of it. I just remember getting in the car and telling myself to keep my eyes open and not look like a noob! that didn't happen! needless to say. All I can remember was stopping somewhere and somebody went to get milk and then waking up and being home...

But I've been informed that I had fallen asleep and Cleston was purposely pressing brakes repeatedly while i lolled forward unknowingly in the seat.

When we finally pulled up outside of my Gap and I tumbled out of the car....it was said that I was stepping high and wobbling from side to side... 

I would love to write the end of this story...but unfortunately...I don't remember how it ended. I knew I just woke up in the living room on the couch with a tummy ache to rival any other.

So the highlight of this experience... Never go drinking with Kate and Cleston..

No, no ! Just kidding!

Check out Hoodee's  Sports Bar & Grill