That's a Big Dog!

Barcelona really is a terrific city. I write this from Madrid several days (and several paradors) later. Madrid has a totally different vibe, more people, more stuff, yet so far I don't have the same happy vibe. Perhaps it will come later when we have left. We had a day to bimble in Barcelona ahead of the tennis so went on the hop on hop off bus, both routes, one after the other. Absolutely fascinating. Very easy way to get a handle on a city. Also the history bits are interesting, if very abbreviated. The books may have it differently but it seems that up until the 1950s, Barcelona was still a bit of a run down, provincial town of no great importance. It was and remains a left wing city. In the Civil War, which is a huge event in the transformation of the country, Barcelona being Catalonia, was socialist, communist, anarchist, you name it, but 100% opposed to the Nationalists under Franco. Barcelona was the last place to fall, and Franco didn't forget. Madrid incidentally was a Nationalist city. Its football club, Real, was royalty, Barcelona was an upstart. The city was transformed in the 1950s with new buildings, new roads so other than in the old sections, the city has an organised grid structure with diagonal boulevards leading into and out of the city, all meeting in central piazzas. The club where we were staying was on one such diagonal very close to one of these central piazzas. Also consequently the buildings are relatively new. The city is not medieval at all. Another huge step up was the 1992 Olympic Games. This sparked huge new buildings and development of the remaining yuckier bits of the city, particularly the port area. The athletes' village is today a bringht new quarter of the city, the port and surrounding beaches jewels. Almost unbelievable, an Olympic games that actually worked for the host city. Usually they are massive financial drains, with today countries vying for not having to stage them. We figured out the bus system well enough to get to and from the tennis... again sited in the middle of a residential area, very up market one too. This is the home of the Royal Tennis Club of Barcelona. It reminded me of Coral Beach Club in Bermuda! Maybe not as swanky as Monte Carlo, for that really is the club of the royal family with only the uber wealthy able to breathe the same saintly air, except for that week when the public are allowed in. No royal family in left wing Barcelona of course, but tons of well to do families who are everywhere in that tennis week. It seemed that most of the tournament volunteers were members or children of members and that large numbers of the crowd too were members. People were wandering up to people all over kissing one another on the cheeks, changing seats and genrally behaving like the most important things were happening off the courts, rather than on them. The thing that finally summed it up for me was that someone brought their dog with them to tennis. Not one of those handbag dogs, but a very very big dog. One of those blue eyed, very hairy dogs that look like huskies. It was about my size. The owner brought it up the stairs into the stands and it flopped down in the middle of the public axis ways. This was very much a reminder that this tournament is MINE, not yours. Classic. The tournament itself was a 500 point, 64 draw, men only event. Not all the big guys would be playing. Djokovich for example skipped it. On the courts, Nadal was knocked out early and Alcaraz pulled out injured, so with a host of lesser ranked names present much depended on the two finalists from Monte Carlo: Tsitsipas and Ruud. Otherwise the final would have been between lesser players. Good for them, bad for the tournament organisers. But boy did those guys make a meal of things. Tsitsipas in particular should have been beaten in the two successive matches we watched, yet somehow his opponents managed to give it back to him in the most unlikely way. Ruud was a little more efficient, but not much. Somehow they managed to make it through to the finals. Ruud won this week, but we didnt stay to watch. We were on our way to our parador trail.

The Road to Barcelona

Packing up in Monte Carlo was tough but we had a car to collect and some roads to drive. I'd organised a rental/leasing contract through Renault similar to what I'd done with my son some years before, whereby you notionally 'buy' a car and appoint a dedicated time to 'sell it back', any time longer than two weeks. This tour would be five or so weeks on the road for Viv and I, so I returned to the well. Very slick operation and all of a sudden we had a brand new Renault Arkana with 19 kms on the clock. It all took less time to do the paperwork and take it away than it took to find the office in Nice Airport. Viv took the honour of christening the car by taking the wheel first and gassed up (they only provide 15 litres in the tank to start), we headed for Cannes which was to be our first stop. Why Cannes? It was only 30 minutes away for sure but I have had a hankering to stay at the very swanky hotel on the seafront that ejected me when I was a scruffy 18 year old, back in 1972. Back then, things were much different; no money, we were living fairly rough on camp sites, and were traveling in a 10+ year old mini that had had its passenger seat door slammed backwards on day 1 of the trip (which meant I couldn't get out of the car that side). This was a trip I took with my school friend Dave the Rave (his car, so he drove). We slept in many public car parks in the south of France, including Monte Carlo and Cannes as both had car parks on the beach and next to public toilets. Very important. Wandering about in Cannes, I figured I'd like to take a look at this very smart looking hotel, The Carlton, and ambled inside. Very opulent and pretty much immediately I was ever so politely escorted to the entrance again by the uniforms. Many years later, Viv and I stopped for a drink there with friends who had a holiday home nearby, and were not ejected. This time I wanted to go whole hog and stay there. Very nice it was too. But only for one night as we had other things to do and the Barcelona tennis was starting in only a couple of days, so we couldnt dawdle as much as we could later on in the trip. On that very long trip back in 1972 and again later, I had driven all over Provence but had never visited Pont du Gard, the iconic Roman Aqueduct outside of Nimes. This time we would put that right, so I found a boutique hotel in Uzes nearby. Uzes itself is a lovely little medieval town... actually there are tons of lovely little medieval towns in Europe. Europe does lovely little medieval towns really, really well. Maybe its me and being here in Spain (currently) but I do wonder why Britain doesn't do medieval towns as well. In Britain, the medieval bits are somehow just swamped by new ugly stuff and there's traffic everywhere, whereas the ones we have ended up staying in both in France and Spain haven't appeared to modernise at all. Just a coat of paint, new electrics and plumbing and (I write this in a parador in Spain) some smart refinishing and tidying up. The structure is now new, but they retain their undeniable medieval appearance. Perhaps its because most medieval towns in Europe are on top of hills (for better defensive reasons) that they have both survived and retained their charm. Being on top of a hill does rather limit the ability to sprawl and spread out, so the old bits remain on top of the hill and the newer bits are down below. Certainly the history of southern Europe is littered with wars, invasions, occupations, massacres and repression from time to time, and that has been the case pretty much since the end of Pax Romana in the 5th century, so being high on a hill however made complete sense. There have been a few such events in Britain since the Romans left of course, but not as many. There are far fewer high hills for one thing! The collision of the African tetonic plates with those of Europe did not happen in Britain. I hadn't realised when I booked the hotel that Uzes in addition to being a cute medieval town was also the place where the spring used by the Romans for their 50 km long aqueduct into Nimes sprang from the ground. If others are like me in thinking that the actual Pont itself (actually a bridge over the river Gard these days, hence the name) is the be all and end all of things is of course totally wrong. The 50 kms were all channelled with many, many more ponts along the way. The big one was the only one that survived in plain sight. All the others were covered up over the years or have been plundered for building materials for other structures, mainly churches as it turns out. The attached museum is a superb place for engineers and those keen to find out just how these huge projects could take place 2,000 years ago with what today we would consider primitive means. Well of course this is one of those 'what did the Romans ever do fo us?' factoids. Simple answer as it turns out: they had built dozens of aqueducts, so the expertise and technology was there. This one of 50 kms with a drop of less than 13 metres from start to end point in Nimes was actually very easy for them. No major drops to contend with, crossing the river being probably the biggest issue. They had slaves a-plenty to do the donkey work of course, but also hundreds if not thousands of skilled artisans (non-slaves) to do the quality work together with hundreds of engineers managing the project. Ancient Rome is portrayed pretty much as being all about the emperors and legionnaires in films and on TV, but there were also carpenters, masons, engineers (mathematicians), trash collecters, and all the other mundane occupations that are never depicted but which are essential to normal life. Moreover, the provincial governors and other big wigs didn't spend all their time in banquets, having orgies and plotting against the Emperor, again as suggested in the movies, they also had a job to do; fixing the roads, making sure the water supply was both enough and of a decent quality, and all the rest. So good were the Romans at aqueducts that the people of Nimes had access to more and better quality water than they do today. By the way, this is also the case in Rome itself. So yes aqueducts. The Romans did those very well indeed. We learned a lot about aqueducts that day, and it did give a greater appreciation for what human endeavour can do if it puts its collective mind to it. Today the Pont du Gard is a mecca for tourists. Lots of canoes on the river on the day we visited. School groups too. Next stop was a tiny village in the Pyrenees, Bezieres. You cannot find it on many maps but thankfully Mr. Google came through. I'd been looking for interesting places to stay and right now as I write I cannot for the life of me remember why I chose this village. Getting there is fine up to about Narbonne, but after this you drive on progressively smaller roads that wind ever higher up into the foothills of the Pyrenees. All around interestingly are vines growing in the steep fields. This is clearly wine country, something I hadn't known. The village itself appreared all of a sudden and the place we were staying in (another boutique hotel) turned out much to my surprise to actually be a winery. The hotel itself was inside the reconfigured winery, so had a sort of industrial layout, but very nicely done. I admitted none of this of course, simply took the praise for finding this real jewel in the middle of nowhere. The attached restaurant had a Michelin starred chef, again something I either hadn't known or didn't remember, but he was not working that day. In fact he wouldn't start up anything fancy until June. This is still April and probably I haven't mentioned before but think it best I should do so now, on this mountain the wind was howling and it was very, very cold indeed. The hotel pool below our window looked inviting, glistening in the sun's last rays of the day, but empty of people. We would not be visiting. The hotel described itself as an eco-lodge. Not sure how. We rather thought it was because they didn't turn the heaters on. The chef du jour however was a charming lady whose assistant asked us if we had any dietary concerns (we do not) and then if we'd like to sample some of their wares (yes please). He knew as much about these wines as us for he had only just been hired a few days before, but the wines turned out to be very nice as was the plat du jour. Heading out the following morning, our first action was disappointment for Rafa Nadal had already been knocked out of the Barcelona tournament we would be attending. The big draw for us at this tournment (and indeed on the entire tour) was Rafa, but he and Carlos Alcaraz were already out (Alcraz had pulled out through injury). Barcelona was 3 hours away so we took a side trip to the northern most seaside resort in Spain on the Mediterranean coast, Cataques. It is very popular for people from Barcelona due to proximity, but apparently also artists and Spanish celebs. It certainly is a cute looking little town set in a horseshoe shaped bay lined with bars, cafes and restaurants... but no parking anywhere near that we could find. However we did find a spot which led to a walkway out to the cliffs which was very pleasant for a short stroll. I had booked to stay at a private member's club in Barcelona, Circulo Ecuestre, affiliated with our club in Toronto. On previous visits to clubs such as this, we knew they would be in wonderful central downtown locations and so it proved again. The club was just off the Avenida Diagonal no more than 10 minutes walk away from the Plaza Catalonya, the centre of Barcdelona. Parking wasn't too bad either. Off to a good start.

Red Clay

It has been some little while since my last blog post due, I think, to some disillusionment with social media generally but more to my not wanting to make this a travelogue. Sort of been there, done that kind of thing. That's why the Greek Odyssey petered out early on. Sorry about that. It was a great trip. An abiding memory for us.

So, onto this one. And yes it is a tale of a trip but one that Viv and I have planned out in our minds for quite some time. Going to the European red clay tennis tournaments, but not the culminating French Open as we have been to that already and were a little disappointed overall with the event. Organisers and media may say look how well done this event was. So many more people attended this year. And so on. What they tend to forget is that they jack up prices to even more egregious levels each year and crowd people together even worse than before. The French Open for example is a great location of course, but probably maxed out in terms of the numbers of people it could properly hold 20 years ago. Today it is just a zoo. Endless crowds, lines everywhere. Ridiculous prices. It was not a great experience. Incidentally I feel the same about Wimbledon (and have done so for years). The US and Aussie Opens size wise can take the crowds as the venues are enormous, but there you have another issue. The enormous size of the venues. On balance I tend towards the Aussie Open as my favourite. Below the major level of tournament are the second tier, so-called 1,000 point events. In the red clay season, these are Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome. I have been going to Rome since it was a men only event in 2003, today it is a mixed event lasting 10 days like Madrid. This is a way I believe to make the women's events actually commercially viable as the big draws in the last 20 years certainly have been on the men's side with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic being the huge draws. Only Monte Carlo remains a men only event today. Below this level are the 500 point events, third tier events that the lesser ranked players compete in more readily but which attract some of the top names as well. In the red clay season, this includes Barcelona and maybe I think Estoril in Portugal (but that may be a 250 point event). As the red clay calendar goes Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and then finally Paris, Viv and I thought why the hell not? So here we are.

Monte Carlo has just finished for us. We watched the semi-finals yesterday and are moving on today. Finals have a tendency to not be great matches and for the extortionate prices are not really worth it. We have watched a few and that has been the case for most. The most notable exception being the Nadal/Federer final in Rome we skipped which turned out to 5 1/2 hours long and ended the tradition of 5-set finals in those 1000 point events as neither player was able to play the following week and pulled out of those events. Money won as usual with organisers cutting the length of matches down to 3 sets but of course keeping the ticket price the same.

Monte Carlo has been great though and could easily become my most favourite tennis tournament going forward. The location is small, venue is tiny really although on the side of the mountains so very hilly. Quality is outstanding and for us this year the weather has been brilliant. Expensive, of course but that is Monte Carlo. The tennis prices were no more expensive than at other places so if you like tennis, this really is a great place to come. For me though, this year is tempered with a little sadness. Federer has gone. This will be Nadal's last year (and a good part of why we wanted to do this trip this year). Djokovic is clinging on. His ego says he can still do it, but let me tell you that that from watching seems to be the only part of him that says he can. Viv pointed out that it is far easier to say you're keen to carry on and play (and do all the back breaking training, traveling, etc) than actually do it when you've won as much as Djokovic has. One game he played against a guy he'd never played before, probably didn't know his name. It was awful to watch. Clearly he wished he was anywhere than on the court and his play showed it. Had his opponent been less overawed at the chance of playing him, he would surely have lost. Yet somehow Djokovic prevailed in as ugly a manner as there could be. This did not do him much good for he lost the following day (last night as I write) again in agonising circumstances. Great as he was, he no longer is and I think these matches this year may be the final actions of a wonderful career. I do not think Djokovic's ego wants to give up yet, but I do not think that will be enough when he loses week after week to players he doesn't know. In addition, he is getting grumpier and grumpier too. Never a fan favourite, he's fast becoming a grumpy curmudgeon. Perhaps this will be the final year of the Big Three. I am not sure I will be as interested in the newest batch of very tall guys that hit the ball incredibly hard time after time after time after time after time. The older guys seemed to have a bit more nuance to them. Perhaps this is an extension of the old T-shirt logo: the older I get, the better I was. The venue itself is something out of a fairy tale... except for the new tennis club bits of course. Not sure if it started in 1897, 1927 or 1928 as there were signs up for all these dates. The VIP seats overlook the court below and have a fantastic view of the Med. Just gorgeous and it all rather left us wishing we were very, very wealthy indeed. I surely would drive my Lamborghini SUV here (I couldn't get into or out of the sports version any more!) and know I could park it anywhere I damn well chose.

Today we move on. Our tour next takes us to Barcelona. We will be driving and stopping off along the way at some interesting places. Very much looking forward to it.

Tennis in Singapore

Viv and I recently visited Singapore again, ostensibly to play in a tennis tournament but really because we wanted to visit again. The tournament was slated for Saturday/Sunday and the rest of the team would arrive on the Friday however we had decided to go a couple of days earlier and leave a couple of days later.

The team

We'd booked to fly on Air Asia, a Malay airline that recently was recognised as being the biggest low cost airline in the region. Low cost it was but it was also very efficient. New planes. Pleasant staff. And if you wanted, you could get chicken rice on board for an extra 12 ringgit. Beat that EasyJet.

All this has come at a time when climate change is front and centre on almost every consciousness... in the West maybe, but not in the East. Planes and in particular private jets are getting a slating for their contribution to climate change but the reality in the East is that India is building more than 100 new airports, China is busily creating dozens of new airport hubs in China to assist in the massive increase in new tourists from the region. Same in Korea, Japan, you name it. Everyone now wants to travel and travel by air. Hence Air Asia's amazing growth trajectory.

As for Singapore, it is pretty amazing what this city state has done in pretty much only one generation. It used to be a swamp in the main but today 25% of the landmass is reclaimed and swamp is nowhere to be seen. It always was an entrepôt of great importance due to its geographic location, and today it is the same. Last time we visited, we went for a cocktail at the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel to look at the downtown concrete jungle on the one side and then the thousands (really) of ships at anchor waiting to come into the harbour. All lined up.

As with shipping, ditto airport. Changi Airport has 5 terminals and is building a 6th to accommodate all the regional air traffic. Singapore Airlines of course is HQ'd here but it again is a major hub to everywhere. Direct flight to New York is only 18 hours!

In addition to the new 6th terminal is a new facility/building/structure that just opened called The Jewel. It is a shopping mall and restaurant complex with a huge waterfall in the middle (man made of course) that seems to be something to do when you have a layover at the airport. It was jammed with people when we went. Impressive for sure but I couldn't really figure out the point of it all. But Singapore has succeeded because it plans, takes big steps and then makes them work.

In The Jewel

What Singapore does it seems to me is to build massive Fields of Dreams and then successfully manages them. The Marina Bay Sands complex for example includes the Gardens on the Bay with the triffid like metal trees and high level walkways that have become a major tourist attraction in their own right. We went and I couldn't figure why I'd want to come here rather than walk out into a real jungle then realised that much of it was air conditioned, there were few bugs and other deadly critters, no chance of getting mud on your shoes, and within a short stroll in any direction was any amount of food and drink that a heart could desire. So jungle light then.

The weird trees at Gardens on the Bay

Then there's Sentosa Island. Again this used to be a scrubby, swampy little island. Now its like Hilton Head in South Carolina or Marco Island in Florida. Or Las Vegas. Shopping malls, fantastic public transport (OK everywhere has fantastic public transport in Singapore), theme parks, casinos, shuttle buses, beaches, dozens of resorts, marinas and condos that foreigners can buy (so they are eye wateringly expensive). Everything planned down to the last detail. Beach is not great but I guess all that can be done, with the view out to sea being over the shipping parking lot I mentioned earlier.

The container ship parking lot in the background

Singapore is no longer just an entrepôt, it has become a destination in its own right. It has worked too as there were tons of tourists... mostly westerners. Working against regional tourism is the fact that Singapore is relatively very expensive, but not for westerners. So Singapore really is.... Asia light. It is a destination for westerners looking for an Asian experience. But not too much of one. Rather like Hong Kong.

That is the helicopter view though for one of our tennis buddies had contacted a Singapore tennis friend to hook us up with some tennis and entertainment around the tournament. In addition to it being very kind and fun, it was informative too enabling us to peek under the hood so to speak to see how Singaporeans actually lived.

They do very well indeed!

One guy that we met turned out to be an airline pilot and had rearranged his long haul flight to play in the tournament. He was a very strong player. As it turned out on one of the days we were waiting for our friend to pick us up and we could hear this low rumbling roar sound (we were in a car park) and this beautiful, low slung, gleaming sports car approached with me thinking 'Wow' when it stopped, the window rolled down and there was the airline pilot who asked if we needed a lift. He pulled away with a very jaunty vroom.

Beyond that though are of course very many similarities with the rest of Malaysia. Great local food, but not as great as the mainland. Western food is better though. Because of the shortage of land, clubs go up not out. The tournament was played at a swimming club which had 3 tennis courts on the 6th storey roof. The clubs really are home from home for the members though as they are packed all day. This club had 4 pools including a 50 metre lap pool in its main facility and another in the annexe across the road.

At least I wasn't foot faulting

I felt that we had just peeked a little into the real workings of Singapore not just the superficial aspects of the city state.

Every day we learn a little more.

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.

I'd Almost Forgotten

The title is something that people say a lot as they get older, I think. Well certainly I do for whenever something happens, quite often I remember another incident from a while back where something similar happened and I think this. Well recently that came back again over a series of evenings spent eating.

Sounds silly I know but if you've read an earlier blog post of mine you'd have read that I injured my calf muscle playing tennis, which is an injury that only time heals. And in this case it took 7 weeks of almost total inactivity (I exclude walking here) before I ventured back out onto the court again and on that occasion most gingerly. My timing was off and almost all of my movement was very wary so the result was pretty dismal overall. But at least I made it through the game(s) without reinjuring myself which is something that I have done fairly regularly in the past. So, all good then.

What I had forgotten though.... well almost.... was the structure and order of tennis matches as played at Penang Sports Club.

As I sit typing this blog, I am in Bermuda for our annual pilgrimage and only a couple of days ago I met for lunch with my regular tennis buddies (Friday) and on the following day played tennis at Pomander Gate's court number 2 (of course) and then sat under the palm trees drinking beer and talking nonsense for several hours. The first thing one of my buddies did when he arrived for lunch on Friday (this is Wilfred) was order 4 Tequilas and then came the chickens of red wine and then.... well it all ended fairly badly of course. But that was the realistic expectation going in had one had the wit to look back on past history and run the comparison ruler across this occasion versus so many others.  That is the structure and order of my tennis in Bermuda. I do wonder whether I or anyone else could possibly have any sort of alternative impact on similar occasions in the future.  Wilfred will always order the opening tequilas and the red wine chickens will always flow. That is what happens so all that stuff about only eating salad and drinking mineral water, however good and worthy it sounds, simply ain't going to happen.

Now my seven weeks of inactivity were not the same. It started with total inactivity and RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) which in my case meant lying on the couch for a few days watching mostly TV sport. This sounds great but in reality after a day and a half of this, I was going nuts. I cannot imagine how really sick people cope with this. It is appalling. Dull and boring, yes, but the worst part is how you feel not being able to do anything even though your mind is just about firing on all cylinders. I resorted to chocolate during this RICE stage and thankfully it was only for the first two or three days before I was able to get up and motor around a little more every day.

Looking back from here, Viv and I did quite a bit in this time including going to Sabah for 10 days so it wasn't all bad but it did help me forget about tennis. Quite a bit in fact. I made all sorts of resolutions that realistically I will never keep: I'll probably only want to play tennis 2 or 3 times a week; cut back on the post match beers; do a strenuous hike once or twice a week (they are actually great in Penang); and several more involving lettuce and no chicken rice. Then Viv went away for a couple of weeks with her mum, Anna, and I started thinking about tennis again.

It started with the feeling that my leg was pretty much OK and I did a couple of heavy hikes with Viv's brother Anton and wife Catherine (well heavy to me anyway. They had no problems) which felt just fine. So I contacted some guys to see if they'd mind having a none too stenuous doubles with me and they said OK. So we played and all went well and afterwards we sat down and ....

.... this is the bit that I'd almost forgotten....

... for the tradition at Penang Sports Club is that after the match you sit down under the stars with your doubles group and drink beer (or whatever else takes your fancy). Losers pay first. Some times this goes fairly quickly but on others people seem to have a thirst that cannot be quenched. Also, and this was very nice, quite a number of others dropped by to enquire about my injury and then sit down for a beer. So it was one of those occasions and of course at the end, someone said "what about dinner?"

Usually it ends up with anywhere from 6 to 10 people joining in.

First was curry mee (noodles) and deep fried fish belly....

Penang style white curry meets with minced pork, deep fried snapper belly, deep fried fish skin, chicken and veggies steamed, local Penang sausage called Loh Bak

Next was an amazing and awesome steamboat...

Steam buns, deep fried squid, shrimp, clams, scallops, long razor type clams, chicken, fish balls, more squid, veggies, rice porridge... never ending

Next was the seafood restaurant at that famous but weird place on Green Lane in the rain....

Shrimp in maggi sauce, the specialty -- spicy crab, steamed curried fish, veggie omelette...

Next was Korean at the place nearby...

Pickles, kimchee, more shrimp, pork belly, curry noodles... too difficult to name them all

Next was the champagne brunch at the wine shop....

Oysters, smoked salmon, artisanal cheeses and cold meats, lamp rack, wagyu beef...

Next was the Japanese home style cooking ....

Fish balls, deep fried shrimp, grilled eel, grilled small fish, raw baby squid, traditional spider rolls, grilled mackerel, crab, Japanese curry noodles...

And then, and then, and then.... Viv and I left Penang holding our tummies and thanking goodness that we were leaving for Bermuda on our pilgrimage when we could lighten up a little on the eating until we arrived in Toronto (our waypoint) when first thing we did was....

Ribeye at Barbarians in Toronto!!!

The Olympic Spirit

Avery Brundage, the long time head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before money, corruption and scandal was a fervent believer in the Olympic Spirit which was as he defined "just taking part" and I do agree with him. I find the modern Olympics have transcended what I consider sport to be -- some exercise that I enjoy doing which someone years ago has turned into a game -- into little more than a mincing machine of ever increasing physical achievement, TV rights and therefore money, and regrettably poor behavior by people who really should know better.

Happily though the Olympic Spirit does live on for on the last 3 days we have enjoyed a wonderful tournament that brought 41 teams from many countries nearby as well as other clubs within Malaysia to Penang Sports Club which has been at its most beautiful. In all nearly 500 people, all in the masters division (40+). According to one of the guys at the club, this is the largest tournament of its type not only in the country but also in the Far East region! That's pretty darned good.

Over 500 people came to the gala dinner in the marquee next to the club house and grass courts

Obviously the host club has to have sufficient resources to be able to manage the logistics and the club does: 19 courts -- 10 omni synthetic 'grass' courts plus 9 truly lovely grass courts. Not many places have grass courts these days; the amount of time and attention needed makes them so costly but here in Penang labour costs are more reasonable and the groundsman, a 80 year old who has retired every year for the past 10 years and has successfully been persuaded back each year too, is a virtuoso. Grass courts are a really big attraction for people who rarely get to play on them. Factor in an army of volunteers, two hawker stands creating food for the throng and a generous sponsor who provided an ocean of cold beer and what could else would you need?

What a lovely sight that is. Grass courts with the club house in the background  and the Penang Hill way back

Last year there were 32 clubs competing so 41 is a big jump particularly when you consider that not all those clubs that wanted to take part were able to. Simply not enough room. So 12 ladies doubles, up from 8 last year. 5 in the over 65 group, the so-called Grand Masters, versus none last year, and 24 men's doubles.

I was in the 65+ group having reached that landmark a couple of weeks ago and was keen to take part as this year will be my best chance of being the most competitive, seeing as I am the youngest and presumably most mobile in the group. Viv was a volunteer but all my regular tennis buddies were there as the club had 6 teams entered, 2 in each group.

My team was called the Legends, something that I was very pleased about as my last cricket team in Bermuda was also called the Legends so this felt like completing the circle and according to everyone at the club, we had a real chance of winning our division. Annoyingly I had tweaked my achilles tendon a few days before the start but had iced it and had physio aplenty to give myself the best chance of recovery and it seemed to go OK as things felt fine. However this wasn't the case for everyone as it was really hot. This is the dry season so humidity is down but the heat gauge is up. On the day before, the reading reached 39 celsius (or 102 Fahrenheit) around 3 pm which of course is the prime time for playing tournament tennis.

The first match I played was against an Aussie team from Darwin (all the guys were comfortably in their 70's and were totally rock solid even if they weren't as mobile as before) and the pair I played had one guy with Parkinson's who unfortunately for him passed out on court during what was likely to be the match's final game (they were killing us and were 2 points from victory). So we won that one and then another and another and another and all of a sudden after 2 days we were 4-0 having lost only 1 tie (ours was considered a victory!!). So it was looking like we could in fact live up to the pre-tournament hype.

On the last day, we were due to play on grass and if I haven't said it before I'll say it again... the courts were absolutely lovely. My partner hated them and told me he'd do anything never to play on them but I thought they were just great and on this occasion we started off just fine moving without much effort to 5-2, 40-0 and multiple set points. Cruising, one may say.

Our final opponents in green before our last match with a couple of special coin tossers

However one may also say there is many a slip between cup and the lip and annoyingly that was the case here for as I turned to run back for a lob, I felt sharp pain in my ankle like I'd been hit with a bat or something and sadly that was my game over. It was also the match over for us. And even more annoyingly it was also the entire rubber over too as one of our other pairs proceeded to lose their tie.

My team... runners up, not winners. Grrrr....

I know, its the taking part that counts but it is really gutting to lose like that. Most of all it is letting the other guys down in that fashion. Mind you I hadn't exactly been the doyen of good taste myself as earlier I had found the trophy and well...

Don't you hate sayings? It seems that there's one for every occasion... both for and against any subject. 'Look before you leap' versus 'The early bird catches the worm'. 'Fools rush in' versus 'Faint heart never won fair lady.' The one that springs to mind here is that horrible one about pride coming before a fall. I'm sure you know that one. I do.

Road Trip in SE Asia Part 1

This is a very densely populated part of the world but one where many people are continuously on the move which is being enabled by a vast improvement in infrastructure, mainly roads. This means that driving say from Penang to Hat Yai in Thailand to play tennis for a few days isn't a massive task. Rather one where you just start up at 8.30 am and reach your destination around tea time.

Doesn't look far on the map as I have noted our start/end points.

Sounds like a long while but if you count an hour or more for lunch, a lengthy stop at the duty free shop on the border to pick up your duty free wine (or other spirit of your choice), some interesting getting into and out of the bus at the various immigration points and a number of pit stops to care for the personal needs of many of we oldies on the bus, then it boils down to not very long at all.

I was chatting with someone who didn't come on this brief weekend sojourn only today who told me that Hat Yai is the place where people go every 3 months to get their passports chopped (aka stamped). Why would this be, I asked? They issue 3 month tourist visas and some people who live here in Malaysia from as innocent as a spouse of a Malay who never bothered to get a visa in their own right to illegal workers (and they do exist, coming in from Myanmar and Indonesia primarily or so I am told) head there and get restamped.

It is quite a palaver actually. On the way out isn't an issue from the Malay perspective but it is on the Thai side. The organizer told me that Thailand is the only country in the world to charge you when you go through Immigration for the privilege of getting a stamp. However this isn't certain as there are signs everywhere saying "no charge for passing through Immigration... during regular hours." Apparently they justify the charge by saying it is for "overtime".

We didn't pay anything or at least don't think we did and as we chose to go out on a Friday and back on a Monday, the crowds weren't too bad. So the delay wasn't that onerous.

Coming back though was the reverse. The Thai authorities ushered us through in no time but the Malay side was a bit of a pain. Nor from the immigration perspective but from customs. Being a muslim country, Malaysia is pathologically concerned with alcohol and making sure that nobody ... and I do mean nobody... has more than 1 liter of the stuff per person.

I don't know what else they are looking for as they took great pains to examine our bags for booze and stopped a couple from our party who had in addition to their allowance the remnants of a bottle of wine with no more than 2 inches left at the bottom of the bottle and hassled them. This after they had 'cleared' things with the supervisor at the outset.

Some more serious things they look out for at the border: human trafficking and ivory

However the real reason for going to Hat Yai was to stay at a sports resort just out of town where there were 4 indoor tennis courts. Very good they were too and apparently very useful as it rains an awful lot in Thailand (and for that matter Malaysia too). The entire thing was a nice idea having in addition to tennis courts, 5 badminton courts, a big gym and a Muay Thai complex as that sport (Thai kick boxing) is hugely popular.

The town itself is meant to be the largest in southern Thailand with over 200,000 inhabitants. It is located in Songkhla Province more of which later. Only further south is the separatist insurgency! Thankfully. We saw no sight of it but there were certainly tons of police and armed forces lurking around all the time.

Tuk Tuk is the best way to get around

The big reason to come here other than as noted in the guide book is food and shopping. One big shopping mall takes care of the latter but the food is everywhere. You simply cannot avoid eating and being with a bunch of Malays from Penang meant that nobody wanted to. You can scratch the surface of even the grumpiest Penangite by asking where his/her favorite chicken rice stall is and that lets loose a fountain of information (always different from someone else) and you have broken the ice. Voila!!



We had some great food, so much so that I have resurrected my other blog "Grey Nomad Eats" -- you can find it here -- to wax lyrical in the way it should be done.  But my goodness the food was simply fabulous. It is great in Penang and so it is in Hat Yai too.

Unfortunately we stayed at the Lee Gardens Hotel right in the middle of town for one night and it was totally and utterly a dump. I was OK with it for one night but the following day we got stories from every member of the party regarding their experiences. I know that we slept with our bags on the bed with us!

The Western Saloon was pretty good fun... and had the band

Nightlife was fun though. And it was a pleasant surprise that there was no reluctance to serve booze of all sorts. We even found good cocktails as well as craft beer.. and of course a bar that had a house band playing classic rock. Guitarist was very decent too.

Cocktails at Homeless, also a restaurant 

One thing though is the language barrier. One on one, it is OK as most Thais I think know some English but street signs, shop fronts, etc. are simply impossible as they are mostly in Thai script without translation. Google Maps was very helpful.

Sometimes even Google gets confused

Highlight for me was lunch on the 3rd day when we went on a longish drive after leaving the tennis resort and before checking into the Lee Gardens in Hat Yai. The last little while was next to a large body of water on the way to Songkhla proper (we never made it to the town just stopped at the restaurant to eat).

View from the restaurant of the fish farms and the water

Did I say the food was great?

All sea food from the waters next to the restaurant

And here is the itinerary in full. Thanks Track My Tour creator Chris! You can find the full story here.

Do I really look that old?

I know the title of the blog is Grey Nomad and all that but I didn't really think that I was that old. Or looked it. At least until the last few days when I've been playing in the Asia Pacific Masters Games of 2018 which were held in Penang. The tennis which Viv and I entered -- me enthusiastically, Viv a bit less so -- was held at the Penang Sports Club. Our new home club in fact. And it wasn't until the last couple of days that photos were being taken in large quantity that I realized the situation. 

Consider the official web banner. It's a bit small but if you look hard you will see that the competitors shown on this banner are all slim young 20 or 30-somethings but the tennis player is.... well he's an old grey haired guy.

See what I mean?

How is it then that of all the sports, tennis is the one singled out for veneration?

I'd entered the 60+ singles and doubles and the mixed doubles with Viv and certainly I didn't think much of anything as we dutifully practiced for a week before the start of the games. Yes, practice! I know. Who practices? Well we did and funnily enough practice went well and we were feeling pretty good about things.

Fitness was fine, no major aches and pains that ibuprofen cannot cure (at least for a while), getting our rhythm back after our sojourn away. Things were Ok and then we got our credentials saying "Athlete" and I felt pretty good about it even if I didn't look at the picture on the thing that closely at the time. Nobody's ever called me an athlete before, so I thought this was good.

Don't look at the picture!

Then the draw came out and it has to be said that it was pretty thin. Format was round robin for groups of 3-5 and then playoffs for medal places. Singles managed two groups but doubles and mixed was only one group.  And... get this.... and everyone I played in the singles was older than me. Most of the others were too. And not just older than me, but much older than me. And in the mixed the other lady was in her 50's!

What had happened was that the entry was small and there were in some classes only one or two entrants so the organizers decided to combine groups so as to give people a game. As many had come from abroad this was a good notion however what they had not recognized was that some people would only be around for a day or so, others for two or three and that some wouldn't show up at all.

Of my 4 scheduled matches, I played only 1 set and in that one set the other gentleman in question told me that he was 84 and that he couldn't carry on. He also told me that he was the Korean #1 at the over 75 level, so at least I beat a national champion. He was actually really good and I could see that a younger him would have knocked lumps off me.

I hope I'm still playing when I'm 84

But fortunately the younger him was not there... well actually he was. It was his younger brother, aged 82, whom I had played in our doubles round robin. He partnered his brother, my 84 year old singles opponent. And they had both given up after the first set. And he... or rather the younger brother... didn't show up for our singles match at all.

So even though I 'won' all 4 of my round robin matches, I had actually played and finished none of them.

In the doubles, we played our first match on the first day. Our opponents looked pretty aged and they said that they'd been combined in our group as there was nobody in the older age group. One guy was a teaching pro and the other said he was on the ITF Tour in the UK at the over 65 age group level. We managed to win that one and the next against a pair of Swiss volleyball players who were very jolly and soon became everyone's friends (they won the volleyball gold incidentally in their age group) and managed to squeak out a third victory against a pair from Guam who on the count back would be our final opponents too.

As for the mixed, well it rained and our opponents had a team meeting and one of them would be leaving tomorrow morning early and .... bit of a mess really. We had started and were comfortably ahead but well you know. We wanted to play.

And then it was finals time. First singles against a guy who was 6 months younger than me!! Whoopee!! Someone in my right age group. Nice chap. Local guy who happened to live mostly in New Zealand so we had to bring the game forward as he was leaving later that day... Fortunately the rain just about held off... and it was only just about, for everyone else had come off the court as the rain was lashing down at the end. I managed to squeak by again.

Lye Hock in action

Next was doubles and I have to side track a bit here for my partner, a guy 2 years my junior, Lye Hock, would play whatever event was on the day and then have a shower and go out and play again in the regular daily social tennis evening after which would be socializing and dinner. I was pretty tired of all the socializing by this time and I wasn't playing daytime and evening like Lye Hock did. Iron man. And he did carry me too in case you were wondering. Doubles, men's, women's or mixed, is all about choosing the right partner!

The Guam guys in the doubles were a mix. One really tall Korean who'd won a bronze medal at table tennis and a really short guy (Guamese?) who liked to take charge and served from about 6 feet behind the base line. He wouldn't tell me why and for the life of me I cannot understand the point of it. I presume it works for him though otherwise he wouldn't do it. Anyway we again squeaked by these guys.

The guys from Guam

This is where the point of this blog kicks in again as it was only now that the photos started being taken and as we'd been competitors and won some matches, we were in a few of them. It wasn't so bad at the time as ... well let's face it, we never feel like we're the age we are. We think inside that we are like we were at some point in time. Mine is about 25. So it comes as a shock when you look at the outcome and think "just who is that old guy?" And then "lord, it's me!" And finally "Do I really look that old?"

The memory...

The reality. Do I really look that old?

Particularly bad is when you are standing next to someone from the over 40's group and look like their grandfather. Photo definitely suppressed of that!

My favorite though!