Pretending to Farm in Cayman

Tony and I arrived back in Cayman to take up gainful employment in order to top up our peasant fund once more - we hope to return to the life of french peasants in rural France again one day but realise that our definition of “peasant” might differ from others!  We’re hoping to live off the land one day and in that respect our definition is true but we’re also hoping that we’ll always have indoor plumbing and a glass of wine to wash down the bounty from the garden!

We did the rounds of goodbyes to all in the hamlet and as we popped by to say goodbye to our new friends, the winemaker and his wife, we discovered that they’d just bottled the first of the wine from the grapes we’d picked less than 2 weeks before.  We were invited in to try the wine and then they gave us a bottle of it to take away - having had numerous glasses with them and then a few more at another friends house shortly after, there was no way we were going to be able to drink it given we also had to be up early the next morning to get on a plane.....so - we decided to wrap it well and take it with us.

Photo above is of our first night in Cayman enjoying our neighbours wine on the beach - I shall be sending photos back to them - he can now say he makes wine for an international audience!

Photos below are of our first seeds planted back here - we’ve arrived back in perfect time for planting tomatoes which is good news so we’ve got a variety of different types of tomatoes, cucumbers, rocket (or arugula as they call it over here), lettuce, aubergine, peppers and okra.  The pots are made of newspaper so can be planted directly into the soil and will break down once the seeds have come to life - it’s a brilliant little kit that looks a bit like a pestle and mortar that my sister bought for us when she came to stay and will be put to good use and will travel back with us when we return one day!

We’ve also got a lovely scotch bonnet plant that we bought at the farmers market the other day and these plants are usually quite generous with their fruit once they get going so I shall have to come up with 101 uses for scotch bonnets - watch this space.....!