Lazing about in St Lucia

Our pool, originally uploaded by Racmol.

I've just uploaded a few of our holiday pics onto flickr - and I can't help noticing that they give the impression that we did very little, which is true!

There was a lot of lazing about on the beach, interspersed with frequent swims in the pool outside our villa and in the sea. Sofia ate far too many M&M ice creams and hot chips and not nearly enough broccoli but seems to have made it home again without scurvy!

We didn't do much sightseeing at all - our sole burst of activity was a motorboat trip to the marine reserve to go snorkelling one morning while Sofia stayed at home with a babysitter. And of course we got a great view of the island during the helicopter transfer from the airport in the south to our resort in the north. It's still covered with 70% rainforest, and where the rainforest has been cleared there are banana plantations instead so it's very lush and green everywhere.

After we had been there for two days we had three days of rain, which caused two large leaks from the balcony of our villa (quite basic, far up on the hillside) into our living room and bedroom. So we got moved to a 'superior' villa down by the beach, pools and restaurants which was a lot flasher and more modern, with its own hot tub and a smallish swimming pool about 10 metres from our front door. Then the weather cleared again for a week of hot sunny days and we settled into a gruelling routine of three swims a day, with occasional breaks for an ice cream or perhaps a nap in the midday heat.

We were due to fly home on Friday afternoon, and we got all the way to the gate of the plane before it was announced that our flight had been cancelled due to the plane hitting a bird as it came in to land. So, in the pouring rain, we were bundled into dodgy minibuses for a 90-minute drive along windy, flooded roads back up to another resort at Rodney Bay in the north of the island - a bit ironic considering all our careful planning of helicopter transfers specifically to avoid that drive!

Saturday was another lovely day, which we spent in the pool (for a change) and then it was back in the dodgy minivan to get on the plane at 11.30pm that night. We finally got home on Sunday afternoon instead of early Saturday morning but obviously Virgin Atlantic had to pay for all our accommodation, food etc so it wasn't the end of the world. Had to wake Sofia up at 8am the next morning though - and she insisted on taking Wom with her to nursery so she was obviously a little bit disorientated! Quite perky again when I arrived to pick her up - apparently slept for two hours after lunch.

This morning we were at the hospital again for another scan, which I will blog a picture of tomorrow. Everything looks normal - and we found out what sort of baby we're having too, which was quite exciting!