Recapping

We've had three and a half months away from Penang, half in Bermuda, half in Toronto, and it was a great time. Visiting the place where we'd lived for 32 years, seeing friends and hanging out, going to concerts of rock bands from the 1970's who are just about hanging on but still rocking. It has been great.

Here are some highlights.

1. Bermuda Beaches

No words necessary here. I'd forgotten how beautiful they were. Here's a brief reminder.

Warwick Long Bay and one of the many nameless beaches at Coopers Island

Who wouldn't want to swim here?

2. History and Tradition

I don't think people look back enough and consider where they come from and just why what exists today exists today. It all comes from the past and whilst the way history was taught to me when I was at school was largely an exercise in rote learning dates and in a way that tried to parcel up history into chunks -- mine for example was at O Level from 1485-1688 and from 1688 to 1815... we had two exams, written essays both, covering each of these periods. In isolation this means that history did not exist either before or after these dates which is of course ridiculous.

History writers today cover this much better and attempt to contextualise history in that they also explain or rather try to explain the 'why'. Much of this is down to conjecture as nobody alive then (say in Roman times) is alive today.

I really enjoyed Quebec City but one of those history 'why' moments was the best. Napoleon's blockade of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars forced Britain to look elsewhere for timber for the Royal Navy... hence the opening up of Canada.

Trooping the color... all in French!

The St Lawrence Seaway, one of the great sea lanes that opened up the entire continent

3. Tennis

Both of us are tennis players and were able to indulge both playing and watching whilst we were traveling. I still think that our 'home' tennis club in Bermuda is one of the nicest places to play tennis and as hard courts go is up there with the best.

Beers under the trees in between the courts is very nice indeed!

We only planned to watch one day of tennis at the Rogers Cup in Toronto but ended up going 3 or 4 days... ironically the worst day was the one we'd originally chosen and the others ended up being far better. We also had visitors over this time too which made it doubly nice.

How do they manage to hit the ball?

4. Eating

We like to eat. Simple as that. So finding great places to eat and nice things to eat are important. We got really lucky!

Dodge City steak

Milanese from an Italian in Miami during our horrible hiatus

Quebec lobster

Poutine and traditional Quebec meat pie

Amazing French stick from Toronto

5. Music

Given that we went to all of those concerts, this just had to be included. I enjoyed all of the shows but if I were pushed would have to give pole position to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the last show of all. ZZ Top though were the only band to have not changed personnel for whatever reason over the years. They ran close but...

6. Selfies

Selfies are a great notion and do enable you to take interesting pictures but they do tend to be really awful a lot of the time. We tried to do at least one selfie each day and in almost all occasions deleted them immediately. Perhaps my arms aren't long enough or just as likely I am not that great a photo snapper.

See what I mean?

7. Traveling Companion

Of course the best thing of all was to have a wonderful traveling companion and I was lucky enough to have the best!