It has now been a couple of weeks since I completed my charity bike ride around Norfolk, giving me a good opportunity to pick up where we left off on our Caribbean trip from earlier on this year.

Saint Kitts is the larger of the two volcanic islands that form the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. We went on, by my reckoning anyway, what was the best excursion of the trip.

It was so good, and we learned so much, that I might need two episodes to cover everything we did. I won’t leave you in the lurch. I will let you know before the end whether you need to come back next time or not. I know for one, I can’t wait to go back to St Kitts, and if you are ever in the area I would recommend you pop in and take a look yourself.

We signed up to the excursion upon exiting the port gates. I know this is not for everyone and, it is worth pointing out, one does need to tread with care. Many people are unbelievably cautious when being approached by drivers and tour guides, selling their wares, as it can be most daunting.

Indeed, we discovered this when we got back onboard the Queen Victoria later that evening. A lady approached us, having seen us negotiating with Moses, our driver and guide, to see how we got on. We confirmed that we had had a whale of a time.

She said that she wished she and her husband were as bold as us. I said it was a real shame that they hadn’t approached us earlier in the cruise, this was the penultimate stop in the West Indies, as they would have been more than welcome to hold onto our coat tails, although I suspect they were really looking for apron strings.

When we booked, we were early converts to his charms, he offered us one of those paper bracelet things, or should that be handcuffs. You know the ones, those that you wrap around your wrist, and then have the devil’s own job getting them off without slicing through your own radial and ulnar arteries.

He claimed, without any evidence at all as it turned out, not that could be substantiated as far as I could tell, that it would stop other firms from pestering us, it would mark us down as already being his property. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that. Did it work? Did it flick! There appears to be no honour among tour guides.

You must stay with this until the end, whether it is this week or next. I have one tale to tell, about a poor, innocent lady who witnessed something in the laundry room which, I think it is safe to say, will live with her for the rest of her time.

One of the first things that Moses informed us of was that the country, or at least the St Kitts bit, is named for the man who discovered it, Christopher Columbus.

Now, it has to be said, I am not great on saints and had never heard this before. First job when I sat down to write this piece was check out his hagiography. Do you know what? I couldn’t find one. That’s because Christopher Columbus had never been beatified. It did seem a little on the pretentious side to name a place after himself and, in the process, elevate himself to sainthood.

It was, in actual fact, named after the patron saint of travellers, St Christopher. Now, that made much more sense. Then I had a quick look at why he has become the protector of travellers, and that is just as implausible as Columbus being a saint himself.

He, and I am not totally sure how this one came about, was put in charge of crossing a flooded river. One day, along came a cheeky little chap who asked for a lift to the other side. St Christopher obliged him. As he waded further into the flooding river the weight nearly became intolerable, seemingly increasing with every laboured step, he was an extremely strong giant, until he got to the other side.

When he deposited the boy on the far bank, he discovered that, unbeknown to him, the child had been carrying the whole world with him. Not sure how he never noticed an entire planet concealed about his person. Anyway, if he had been carrying the whole world on his shoulders, sounds a little like atlas to me, but what do I know, what on earth was he fording?

So, he was dubbed the patron saint of travellers based on him providing protection to those wanting to cross one particular river. Not sure about that, he was hardly well travelled himself, was he. If he was the saint of ferrymen or some such, I could buy into the theory. I have no idea why he didn’t build himself a boat, that’s what Noah would have done. By the way, the boy was a certain Jesus Christ, albeit over two hundred years after his crucifixion. The name, Christopher, means Christ bearer in Latin.

So then, why is Nevis so called, I was expecting a link back to Ben Nevis in Scotland. By the way, it is pronounced Nee-vis, slightly different to its Scottish cousin. The name is derived from the Spanish, “Nuestra Senora de las Nieves.” The literal translation of this is “Our Lady of the Snows.”

Apparently, and you have to bear in mind they had been away at sea for a long time, Columbus’ crew felt like the white clouds wrapped around the summit resembled snow. Given this was Columbus’s second voyage of discovery I assume he had left his book of saints’ names at home and, by this stage, was clutching at straws.

Bearing in mind that the same group of people, Spanish sailors I mean, would probably have identified an ancient she gorilla as the most attractive female they had ever seen after so long on the briny deep, I am not wholly convinced that their powers of observation were to be totally relied upon.

Anyway, that’s done the naming of the islands, let’s get on with our day out with Moses. Before we boarded our open sided conveyance, however, a peculiar little man took it upon himself to be my new best friend...

He had spotted my white cane and even though I was accompanied by Jane, he clearly thought of himself as God’s gift to the blind. I am aware that I might have the occasional moan about the lack of recognition by the general populus, so should be eternally grateful for any assistance I am offered. Offered, of course, is the key word here.

By all means ask me if I would like some help, but don’t be offended by a refusal. Don’t just take it upon yourself to jump in, grab both of my hands and guide me everywhere. He, whilst walking backwards himself, gently guided me toward the entrance to the bus. He pointed out every tiny little pebble before totally missing the side of the bus and walked me right into it.

Each directional instruction was given, in good faith I am sure, at just shy of 1,000 decibels. You should never assume that all visually impaired people are also hard of hearing, just because you met someone like that about a hundred years ago. He was always first off the bus to hand me down, even though Jane had selected seats as faraway from him as possible.

Look, I know this must seem exceedingly ungrateful, but in the end, I had to tell him that I already had my companion, Jane, who was well versed in my requirements. I also informed him that I still had a tiny bit of periphery vision, allowing me to navigate, sometimes without assistance.

“So, you’re not blind then?”

I didn’t think it the right moment to bring out the definition of blindness. Trying to explain that it is a spectrum of visual acuity, as opposed to absolute and perpetual darkness, seemed like a step too far at that moment in time. I know that he meant well, and I felt that I had really hurt his feelings, but if I want a new friend I will seek them out rather than the other way round. That’s it, ungrateful moan over.

Once the excursion was completed, we thought we would not have to lay eyes on him again, as he had clearly come from another ship. That was not the case, it is hard to fathom how you can spend three weeks on a fairly small ship and not notice someone, as he seemed to cross our path at least twice a day from then on. Once the weather worsened on the way back to Blighty he seemed to disappear. Not sure whether he had jumped ship or was confined to his cabin by the rolling waves.

We started with a brief tour of the nation’s capital, Basseterre, which incidentally gets its name from the French meaning low or down land. Call me a little picky here if you like, but the French were not very original when naming its capitals in the Caribbean dominions, the capital of Guadeloupe is Basse-Terre. See what I mean.

We were first shown the principal buildings in the judicial quarter. The magistrates’ court, the criminal court and the prison. He claimed he had no connection with the inside of any o them. Why did he add that last bit, no-one had suggested that he had been to them whatsoever. Guilty conscience? Leave you to decide. Personally, I don’t think so, he struck me as a fine and upright man.

Onto the war memorial. Like us, they mark the remembrance of their fallen on the second Sunday in November. The cenotaph contains 26 names, 20 were lost during the First World War, with the remaining six in World War Two. An interesting gesture that is made by London every year is that a contingent is sent out annually to remember the fallen from St Kitts, Nevis and Anquilla, all the same dominion back in the day. I think that is something to go in the credit column for Britain, and long may it continue.

Right opposite the war memorial was a very interesting tree, by no means unique, there are many of them on the island. Bear with me on this one, it goes back a while, to 1884, when colonists were faced with major infestations of rats and snakes in the sugar cane plantations.

They agreed that it would be a brilliant idea to bring Indian mongooses in, they were, after all, the sworn arch enemies of snakes, and who can blame them, I am not a fan either. The mongoose proved to be most effective at eradicating the snakes. The rats, however, were another matter.

It appears that they forgot to check in the animal encyclopaedia. If they had, they would have discovered that rats are nocturnal and mongooses are, yep, you’ve guessed it, diurnal. Didn’t we have some bright sparks running the British Empire… not!

I have featured some disastrous imports by crusty old colonials previously, primarily I am thinking of rabbits and foxes in Australia, so that the shooting fraternity had something to hunt. That was in the name of tally ho! And all that, this one had more of a cause.

Although the reasoning appeared sound, the unintended consequence was an unmitigated disaster. Once the cuddly old mongoose had polished off the snakes it turned its attention to other foodstuffs, it could not be coaxed into coming out at night and feasting on an endless supply of rats. Oh no, local species, including the eggs and young of the egret, became easy prey. This called for rather drastic action, and this is absolute genius.

To avoid predation by the migrant mongoose the egrets began to roost and nest in thorny acacia trees. The acacia farnesiana, known locally as the needle bush, was a particular favourite.

They colonised these trees in huge numbers, protecting them from terrestrial pests like the mongoose and, another disastrous import, the pussy cat. Trouble is, adorable pussies can become quite feral when abandoned by thoughtless humans and, of course, they still need to feed.

They cannot, thus far anyway, climb the thorny defences so the egrets can live without fear. They do take care and ensure lookouts are always posted to ensure the defences are not breached. I think that is really quite ingenious.

Evolution is such an amazing phenomenon. I mean, just look at humans. How is it then, that some regress? It appears that every community has them and it definitely comes to the fore on social media, no wonder some folk call it anti-social media!

We shall call it a day here. Next time I will start with one of the most heinous massacres carried out in the name of Empire, try some breadfruit, visit a sugar plantation and find out where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean. Oh, and I will try not to forget about the encounter in the laundry room where innocence was lost forever.

See you next time.