What I Did On My Holidays - Trip to St Lucia

"Pre-wedding holiday?" I can hear you ask. "Are you crazy?"

Not crazy at all - well, only in the 'desperate for sunshine' sense. We have spent the last year using all our holiday time staying at home, for wedding planning, the Olympics and Christmas - a year in which the British summer just decided not to bother and it rained on us for what seemed like 360 days out of the 366. Sometime in November, when we finally concluded that any chance of good weather was over for the year, we thought a holiday sometime in February would be nice. Somewhere with a chance of blue skies and sunshine.

So - the Caribbean. We picked St Lucia simply because it sounded more 'nature-based' than some of the others - rainforest trails, volcano springs and the two Pitons (large peaks, formed like volcanoes but the molten rock solidifies underground before it has a chance to erupt). We booked the Sugar Beach Resort, which is nestled next to the beach between the two Pitons.

To say that we were ready for a holiday was an understatement. By the time the plane touched down on the island we were bouncing with excitement, mainly at the idea of heat and sunshine - and luckily there would prove to be plenty of both.

Apart from climbing Gros Piton (ok, yes that was crazy - it was like walking up and down stairs for four hours), we didn't really do a lot - sleeping, swimming and reading was enough to keep us happy this time.

Our room, with garden and patio

Beach overlooking Gros Piton

Reading by the pool

Then retiring to the mini plunge pool in our garden!

Surveying the view from our patio balcony

View from the top of Gros Piton

Halfway up Gros Piton, looking at Petit Piton

Sulphur Springs - preparing to bathe in volcanic mud

Reading my AOW Book Swap book on the beach - happy days

View of the Caribbean Sea from our balcony - mmm!

Always something lovely about having breakfast outside!

Fin

 While we really liked the island (mostly for the February sunshine it should be said), if we went back to the Caribbean we would probably choose a different island or at least look for a different hotel. The Sugar Beach is in a fairly isolated, if beautiful, spot and there was no easy way of venturing out on our own which, if we hadn't been there to simply relax, would have created difficulties.

We had a few problems with service and room facilities - for example, the 'butler' was obsessed with making dinner reservations (and failed to organise the scuba-diving we wanted to do) and the bedside lamps seemed to fuse with amazing regularity for the second half of the week. The worst problem was coming back to the room one afternoon to find that housekeeping had left all the doors and gates of our room open while they went to fetch fridge supplies. Anyone could have walked in! All in all, it made us quite glad we weren't on our honeymoon - when somewhere markets itself as being sheer perfection, it's easier to notice when things go wrong.

However, there was sunshine, heat and a much-needed opportunity to spend lots of time together - and with two months to go, that can't be a bad thing!