Renewing vows in the Caribbean

When you are next on a Caribbean Sea beach terrace lounging aimlessly alone or amorously with a loved one, be prepared to greet people from practically anywhere on earth. You just never know when or from where they’ll pop up.

Not surprising really, because from the hundreds who’ve passed by our modest shack, a good majority stop collecting their shells and coral stones to shout, “You lucky things!” Or something similar.

And because one friendly word always leads to another, many end up swapping experiences while enjoying chilled drinks including –but not restricted to –natural spring tap water or Jeff’s secret potent rum punch.

Our impromptu guests are English-speakers mainly from the U.K., or Canada and the U.S. and once from Australia, a roguish pair who make a good honest living buying hardly-used kitchen equipment from bankrupt restaurants and selling it to newly-opening restaurants that might soon also go bust.

Finding a common language is sometimes difficult when European Union and Central and South American citizens visit, and especially when we entertained a Ukrainian cellist with his mother (we think) and a Japanese doctor and family (ditto).

Invariably everyone raves about the great weather, the friendly people, the “chilled-out” atmosphere, the beaches and ocean. Exactly why we live here almost permanently now and increasingly don’t want to be elsewhere for eleven months of the year.

But just when you think you’ve heard every reason for Caribbean visits, you find you haven’t. Like one given by a classy octogenarian couple from Blackburn in the industrial North of England.

Margaret and Ron have been married for fifty years and hadn’t flown or even been outside Britain because they never felt the need. But since, “it’s been, after all, half a century” in Margaret’s words, they threw caution to the winds and came to renew their wedding vows in a tropical ceremony–which we gladly attended–where Margaret wore her original wedding gown and Ron a snazzy white James Bond-style lightweight suit.

Later at the reception Ron admitted they’d strolled by a couple of times and seen us enjoying our romantic terrace, adding how lucky we were and how they wished they had one.

Leading Jeff and I, heading back home along the beach, to make two vows of our own.

To hold a similar ceremony if we reach Margaret and Ron’s fantastic milestone and exercise more discretion when lounging amorously in public.