Bath, Barbados used to be the home of white settlers two hundred years ago. Shipped from England to the Caribbean were all sorts of losers: criminals, prostitutes, no-hopers, perverts. And probably former classical music journalists and cycle tourists. They were called 'Redlegs' by the black majority because of their tendency to go a peeling pink in the tropical sun. Looking at ourselves after four days on the beach here I can see why.

Those wooden houses are just holiday homes now, and Bath's beach is a popular picnic place for locals, away from the tourist promenades where honeymooners find the awful truth about each other's appearance in a swimming costume.

The pace of life is slow here except for the buses, which go alarmingly fast round Barbados's hilly and spectacular Scotland district up in the north of the island. We can't tell you how fast, because we never saw a speedometer that actually worked.

The Leader of the Barbados Opposition, David Thompson, invited us to his house to sign our Bath Book - he is the MP for Bath's constituency, and used to live there after he got married. Many thanks to him for sparing us his busy time, in between running a law practice and organising a party conference. Somehow I can't imagine William Hague doing that in England...