Bermuda retrospective

Six weeks or thereabouts in Bermuda has gone like a flash. Well not to start with of course. Things never go that way but by about half way things had picked up to the extent that we added an extra two weeks onto our expected stay. Happily it was to see our children who on their own without prompting by us visited Bermuda.

Highlights of course were being with the children but in addition it was all about reminiscing. Would things be like they used? Would there be changes that exponentially change the place? Have things actually moved on, ahead or simply further along? What change to the political environment which when we first left on our travels had just seen an election with a change in government?

So in no particular order, this is what struck me.

1. Bermudaful but...

Well this one is easy. We all knew this but it still gets me that the place is so stunningly beautiful it couldn't really have been manufactured. It has happened thankfully in the typical laid back, somewhat shambolic manner in which Bermuda typically operates. Sounds pretty bad when written like that but for as long as I remember (and that is quite a long way back), there really hasn't been a plan in Bermuda. From an economist's point of view, this isn't ideal but for people living there really it has been a dream. Things meander along for the most part peacefully. People get along more or less and the environment is staggeringly beautiful.

Flatts Inlet

However behind the scenes, maybe under the surface even though it isn't really. Pretty much everything is known within seconds of it happening... often before. In a small place, this is pretty typical as everyone knows everyone else. Viv tells the story of how she was walking along Queen Street in Hamilton when she ran into a couple of old ladies struggling to open a door to a building. She proffered help and was met with "do I know you?" Viv didn't but sort of recognized a family resemblance to a friend so mentioned this and of course it turned out that these two ladies were her aunties and as Viv looks rather like her friend, so the ladies did a momentary double take too. These ladies as it turned out wanted to visit a betting shop but finding it closed decided on a Plan B that included KFC just down the street. Viv said it took an hour to walk the less than 200 yards down the road as these ladies stopped to chat to every other person that happened to walk by. When you are Bermudian and reach a certain age, you know every other person as either a relation, friend or child of a friend. I imagine this is typical in other places with a 60,000 population like Bermuda, but it is also something that makes the island what it is.

A couple of years ago, one of the three Bermuda banks did an IPO (one being sold to HSBC many years earlier and the other involved in transfer of ownership to a private equity firm) meaning that no longer would any Bermuda bank be Bermuda owned. This is important for as a previous CEO of the Bank of Bermuda (sold to HSBC) once famously said to a management meeting "the decisions we take here may not always be in the best interests of the bank... but they will be in the best interests of Bermuda". This has changed with profit motive taking over. Disturbing, for the banks were typically very large employers of Bermudians and just before we arrived in mid-May, this bank laid off 40 staff in one swathe. Most being long time employees. Couched as being an exercise in encouraging early retirement, the reality is simple cost cutting. Something US listed companies do all the time courtesy of their need to report ever improving quarterly financial results. The simplest thing of all to do is lay off staff. I fear that this is not an isolated event but do hope otherwise.

2. Sports

It is that time of the year when the northern hemisphere moves into summer and with that outdoor summer sports. And my goodness there are plenty of them.  Overseas were the US Open (golf), French Open (tennis), World Cup (cricket) and others. I have been riveted to these although I prefer to play rather than watch. Most of all it was tennis at Pomander Gate but increasingly it has become pickle ball too.

Southampton Princess golf course

Tennis at Pomander Gate

So what is pickle ball? It is a construct that appears to me to simply enable older ex-tennis players to play a similar kind of racquet and ball game. The court has the dimensions of a badminton court (without the tramlines) and the net is much lower than on a tennis court. You play with what sounds like a wooden paddle and a large, yellow plastic ball with holes in it. Simple rules that you can grasp on the first try. Simple to learn too as the mechanics of everything are something like table tennis but on a larger scale. Both racquet and ball are light so available for all ages.

Pickle ball at Pomander Gate

The growth has been startling to me. This time last year, the club had two nets that it simply lifted onto a tennis court. One on either side of the net. It was a busy day when 6 people turned up to play and those that were were usually organized by the same two people who had first come across it in Florida where it is very popular. This year, the club has taken over the centre court and whilst leaving the net in place has repainted the remainder of the court so as to create 4 permanent courts, 2 on either side of the net. These days it is typical to have 16+ people come to play... and they play Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. And Sunday mornings too. It has attracted so many people from outside the club that it created a new pickle ball membership which has proved to be very popular. Far less so with the tennis players who sadly for the club actually don't play that much. Certainly when pickle ball is taking place, it is rare that the tennis courts are in use.

Most interesting to me is the dynamic. This time last year, comparatively speaking nobody played the game. Today there are 40 people that regularly play with more turning up to try it all the time. Quite a few have given up on tennis to concentrate on pickle ball and have become very good players. So much so that there is already the growing question of people not wanting to play with others that aren't up to their standard. Last year, it was great just to play. Now things have moved on very quickly as people's competitive natures kick in.  The first tournament was last week. I took part, lost more than I won but along the way hammered the winner and lost quite comfortably to one of the perceived weaker players. Personally I am just happy to play. I am looking forward to seeing how it pans out.

3. F&B

Being visitors, we spent a lot of time eating, drinking and being entertained. Both in people's homes and out and whilst my waistline expanded at a greater rate than my steely will evaporated, boy are things expensive. Noticeably so since last year.  For sure, we spend a lot of time during the course of the year in Penang, which is a lower cost environment, but really. On our first visit to a supermarket, we saw a cauliflower priced at $11.99. It has always been the way that local produce was expensive, but it didn't feel like this. On the other hand booze and beef in supermarkets aren't that expensive but put them into a restaurant and vroom! Apparently restaurants mark up wine a minimum 4 times these days so good luck with finding a $50 bottle of wine at a restaurant.

This said I did go through my list of favorite things to eat in Bermuda. Pretty much.

 i) Multi-grain roll with tuna fish and chopped egg, lettuce and tomato, butter on the bread and those cute little yellow peppers that go pop in the mouth. 

Only from my friend Paul at Hickory Stick on Bermudiana Road in Clarendon House. I used to eat this sandwich probably three times a week when I was working just down the road. On the other days it would be Paul's fish cakes on Tuesdays and on the other day I'd go somewhere else. I know... traitor. Creature of habit...me? No way.

 ii) Beef patty

Quite a few places do patties but I found one of the nicest to be from Supermart on Front Street. Find them in the hot shelf near the whole chickens. One is not enough, two is too many. These are great hand held foods for maybe a morning after. On such days, an apple doesn't quite cut it.

 iii) Club sandwich with coleslaw

OK, with French fries!

Loads of places, some up market, do perfectly adequate club sandwiches but my favorite is at The Spot on Burnaby Hill. It may not be the best but I like it. You eat at the counter and get to drink their famous coffee which they generously refill whenever you want.

 iv) Bermuda fish sandwich. Layered pieces of fish, lettuce and tomato, butter on the white toasted bread, ketchup, tartar sauce and lots of hot sauce on top.

Mahi Mahi 

Many places do fish sandwiches, most aren't that good. The best tend to be in the least attractive looking places. Viv went to Woody's in Somerset and raved about it. I went on a search for a fish sandwich on a public holiday and found none of the best places open so had to settle for a very poor second best. However I was recommended to the Seaside Grill on North Shore next to the Clay House as the fish was purported to be really fresh. We went twice, the first being mahi mahi, the second and best time being when I had red hind. Boy, was that good.

 v) Liver and onions, maybe with bacon but always lots of gravy

I really like liver from several places but finally settled on the Red Carpet on Reid Street which serves it with mashed potatoes, veggies and lashings of gravy. The maitre d' Chris asked me how I'd like it done... cooked of course. You don't have liver medium rare. It is the gravy that makes it for me and this was pretty terrific.

 vi) Auntie Blanche's cherry and walnut cake

This is almost undescribable as it is so sublime. Traditional Bermuda cakes are rum cakes, Christmas cakes laced with rum, mince pies and somewhere along the line fruit cakes the king of which is the cherry and walnut cake. Our old neighbors Blanche and Brenda were great bakers and fine exponents. Blanche in particular did wonderful cherry and walnut cake. She once told me that her secret was the gin she soaked the fruit in. Others are much dryer but Blanche's are moist and simply lovely. She only made these cakes at Christmas time as she would soak fruit in their respective booze for a month or two before and make them a couple of weeks or so before the big day. More latterly she would make cakes ostensibly for me as I am a fanatic about them. As she has become older, these occasions have grown fewer but a week or so ago, she made me a beautiful cake. Simply lovely. Thanks Auntie Blanche!

4. Transport

For such a small island, getting around Bermuda is really key to enjoying it properly and fortunately we had a car at our disposal for much of the time we were there. Thanks Dave and Jeremy! However I had a fantastic time on the local public transport as with the passage of time, I turned 65 and on renewing my driving license, the fine people at TCD also awarded me a Bermuda Senior's ID card. Nice photo too! Amongst other wonderful things, this little card enables me to enjoy free travel on buses and ferries!!! Beat that! So I did at every opportunity and found the number 1 and 3 buses are pretty darned good.

We went for quite a few walks on the Railway Trail which I really do enjoy. I am impatient by nature and do wish they'd rebuild the trail more fully than it was before/is right now. Progress is great but to me painfully slow. Looks like volunteers only at the moment. I wish it were a higher priority.

5. Beaches...

I was really trying not to do beaches again this year but really couldn't avoid it. Truly they are lovely. This year however there were a number of storms out to sea and these storms brought in mounds of brown sargassum weed which is piled high on most beachfronts from Horseshoe Bay to Coopers Island. Still the best I've ever seen.

***

Looking forward to returning again soon.

Oxy-Morons

I don't usually write a post about Bermuda as this blog is meant to deal with travel related things rather than home grown but I've been stewing over this for a bit and thought I would anyway.  It struck me first as annoying, then frustrating as anything and then downright funny.  So I'll share it with you.

Each year we have to renew our vehicle licence in Bermuda.  Mine is April or so I thought until Viv looked at my little sticker that everybody puts on their motorcycle numberplate and realised it was actually March.  The day this happened was 29th March so that meant only 2 days to renew or face the consequences.

The place where this all happens is the Transport Control Department or TCD for short.  Everybody knows it as TCD.  Time was that you had to spend an entire day there as you could only renew your vehicle license -- bike, car or anything else -- on the final day of the month.  Why?  Everybody had to put up with this until someone came up with the notion that you could renew your licence on any day prior to expiry and so spread the work out more evenly.  In the old days you had to have an appointment with the examiners and then you'd have to check in and wait for hours and hours to pay the fee and receive the new license.  These days you just roll up.

Except that's not the case a couple of days before month end!  You wait.  So I did, patiently in line behind 8 or 9 others until I was called up for my turn.

The examining centre at TCD.  Bikes are in that little door to the right.  My bike is in the foreground to the right.

The examiner for motor cycles is in a sort of corridor inside a building and you ride your bike inside and he then tries all the knobs and levers and then puts it onto some rollers and revs it up to check on brakes and emissions.  My bike is 3 years old and so was dead easy.

Except that the examiner curled the dreaded finger to summon me from where I was waiting and told me that the chassis number and engine number weren't the same as what was on my licence papers.  Access to both is under the bike or behind a plate you have to unscew and then fumble around in so you can be quite sure that I'd never taken an enquiring look myself.

"But its been 3 years since I bought this bike," I said.  "How come it didn't come out before?"

Well, this was one of the most dangerous things I could have said.  Why now and not before?  This carries an implication that somewhere in the vast bureaucracy that is TCD that someone, not saying you of course, didn't do their job and missed it.  And being government, nobody would admit to that of course.  Nor would they take responsibility for it either.  But the examiner wasn't fazed as he pointed out that the organisation that did the test these days was in fact not the government and in fact had actually done its job correctly for yes, this had in fact been outsourced to a non-government entity.

Forget the fact that as I was waiting I chatted to a guy in front of me who told me that the examiner was an old school friend of his who'd been doing this job for years which of course meant that now he was a non-government employee he was actually impelled to do his job properly... or face the consequences of his actions or in this case inaction.

Naturally I bit my tongue and asked in that case what should I do?

"Well you bought it new from that cycle firm.  I've been seeing a big number from them.  5 last week and I think about 20 all told this month.  All with their paperwork messed up like this."

"So its the cycle firm that messed up, is it?"

"I think so," he said.

There's quite a bit of a gap between what he said and the truth I think.  It sounded like in the past the examiners had just about let this important check go and hadn't bothered.  But if they did, how did anyone sell their bike second hand?

"So what do I do then?"

"You need to take the bike and these papers back to the cycle shop and get them to redo the paperwork on their letterhead using the correct numbers," and he very kindly wrote both engine and chassis numbers down on the licence document for me.  "Then you bring it back to TCD and explain to someone there what happened and they will redo the licence paperwork for you.  Then you bring it back to me and I'll re-examine it.  If it passes, then you'll need to go back inside the office and explain what happened again and get the correct current paperwork."

Sounded like a chore and it was except not where I thought it would be.

The cycle shop was efficiency exemplified.  They had done not 5 or 20 but 2 in the last month so knew exactly what was what.  They also knew that it was in fact TCD who had made the error as the lady assistant reprinted the original invoice she showed me that the bike was in fact incorrect in every detail on the licence documents not just engine and chassis number.

The bike was not a Mio 100 as per the licence but a VS 150.

Furthermore, it was white not black.

The only correct thing on the license document was the licence plate... and of course my name.

They also provided me with the document originally sent to TCD which had all the correct details on it.

So if it wasn't the cycle shop it must have been...

Back I went to TCD and fortunately met a nice lady there who usually is the one to doll out the numbers and advise who to talk to.  Clearly when I explained this was an anomaly as she didn't give me a number and asked me to wait near a vacant stall for someone to come along and talk to me.

Turned out to be her who asked me a whole lot more questions about where was the bike now, etc.  I'd given her all my paperwork by now and shown her the letter from the cycle shop so I think she at least was aware where all the muddle had come from.  I told her my bike was outside and returned to wait.

Quality mission statement

A few minutes later she returned and said an examiner had gone and rechecked the paperwork was actually correct (namely the engine number and chassis number) and gave me back the bundle and asked me to go and visit the emissions tester next.

That was a breeze except the bit where I told the tester about the paperwork muddle and he then told me in that case the system wouldn't be able to print out a testing confirm as it wouldn't have the correct details -- he asked me to take a look and he was right the 'system' was totally wrong.  So he dug out an old bundle of pass booklets that used to be used and hand wrote me a pass certificate this circumventing the 'system'. So much for tech then!

It had been about half a day in total by then and I hoped that all the tricky stuff was behind me as usually getting the TCD certificate was simple.  Not this time and in fact this was where things moved from being a chore to being first frustrating and then very quickly very funny.

Going back inside the TCD building, I noted the friendly lady from earlier wasn't there any longer but another equally nice lady gave me a number and asked me to wait.  It wasn't for long and so I took up the number A164's place at the famous cubicle 4 where I met another lady, this time not that agreeable to the point where I thought she was either deaf or dumb, or both, because her impression never changed from blank and she rarely spoke.

I sat down and explained the situation pulling out each piece of paper at each stage of the explanation.  She just looked at me.

And then I said, oh yes one more thing.  We moved house too.

Then she looked away, went into the 'system' clacked a few, actually quite a lot, keys and then turned to me looking at some point over my left shoulder and said:

"$118.25"

"Pardon," I said.  "What do you mean $118.25?"

"That's the annual licence fee."

Oh right.  Derr, in fact.  So I passed over my credit card and signed the receipt and she passed over the new licence documents.

They were wrong.  She'd only changed my address details so everything else was the same as before.

"No," I said. "You haven't made the changes to the actual bike itself."

"What changes?" she said.

"The changes that I explained to you when I sat down and showed you from the paperwork that I passed over to you."

"What documents?" she said.

"The documents on your desk right in front of you now.  The invoice, the examiner's document, the pass certificate and all the rest."

She looked down and shuffled the papers ostentatiously taking back the first licence document that she had created.  She looked at her computer and again clacked away into the 'system' once again and passed over a new licence document.

She'd changed the engine and chassis number only.  Everything else was still the same.

"No," I said.  "You didn't change anything to do with the bike.  It isn't a Mio 100.  The bike is a VS 150.  You can see it on the original invoice and other documents in front of you."

This is a black Mio 100

"What documents?" she said... no, actually she didn't say that but I thought she may have and I'm pretty sure you were expecting it too.  What she did do was something else.

"I'm going to have to speak to my supervisor as this isn't my job." And off she went.

I could see her go into an office at the back of the building and on a couple of occasions someone other than she stuck her head out of the door and looked at me before pulling their heads back in again.  After a few minutes she returned.

She sat down in her chair turned to the computer again and clacked a few more things into the 'system'.

She said "You know its a different bike?"

"Yes," I said... of course I knew it was a different bloody bike!  I'd told her probably 10 times by now.

"It's in a different licence class," she continued. "The previous one was in the 50-100 cc class, this one is in the 100-150 cc class.  More money."

I agreed that that was the case and asked how much more money -- thirty something dollars, I forget. So I passed over my card again hoping that the bank wouldn't block it as they often did when you try to make a charge at the same place more than once with not much time in between.  It worked and so I signed the receipt and passed it back whereupon the lady passed back the new licence document.

It was still wrong.  She'd now changed everything but the colour.  The document said black, all the documents and of course visual evidence pointed to the fact that it was white.

"No," I said.  "It's still not right.  The colour of the bike is white not black."

I passed it back again and while she didn't quite rip it out of my hand, I got the distinct feeling that she mentally wanted to do that.

She turned to her computer once again and clacked away in the 'system' and after a short while printed off yet another new TCD license document.

She didn't pass it over straight away because this time... she read it first!  Yes, that's right she checked it off against all the documents and once she was happy with things, she passed it over to me.

Of course I again went through everything with a fine tooth comb and this time all was in order so I thanked her, collected my stuff and exited stage right.

Now I know that the world over officialdom in all its various guises is a frustrating impediment to almost everything we do.  Rules, rules and more rules make doing even the smallest thing on occasion an exercise in mental flagellation.  This though was a cracker!