Huron Country

I’d been talking to my friend Brian for at least 3 or 4 years about visiting him in his new home on the shores of Lake Huron.  Brian was a long time friend from Strategic Coach, the entrepreneurs course I’d been taking for more than 10 years in Toronto.  We’d both given the course up a couple of years ago (mind you I just restarted last week) but had kept in touch and had finally agreed a date.

I’d organized a car hire – a car I’d been wanting to try out for ages in fact, a Chrysler 300 gas guzzler. 

I don’t know if its just me but I have hired 2 fantastic German cars in the UK in the past year – a VW Golf and an Audi A4, both diesels, both managed 50+ mpg in town driving. In fact I’d driven the VW from York to London, spent 3 days driving all over London, down to Southend in Essex and Canterbury in Kent and still drove it down to Dover all on half a tank of diesel.  That is simply ridiculous so I struggle to get excited when I see US adverts for cars that proudly announce energy efficiency at 31 mpg for motorway driving.  Why can’t US manufacturers simply licence the technology the German car manufacturers have and save 50% on their gas costs?  

The car is great though.  Big, comfy and filled with neat gadgets designed to make me feel comfortable.  I’d also bought a GPS as after my struggle with maps on the European road trip from last year, I have given up on the map versus GPS struggle.  GPS wins hands down.  But when there’s road works you still need a map to give you a broad idea of where you’re going.

I’d never driven in Toronto so leaving was a bit of a challenge particularly when we hit the airport region near Mississauga.  Viv had specified no motorways, toll roads or unmade roads so we went almost the entire length (seemingly) of Bloor Street and hit a traffic light at the airport where we had a left turn to make without assistance from the lights amidst mayhem, manic traffic.  We survived somehow though.

Once clear of that we were in endless farmlands with the intent being to target St. Jacob’s, a pretty village somewhere in the west.  Viv had also booked us into a motel in Stratford and a play at the Festival Theatre – Henry V, part of the annual Shakespeare Festival – so we had a time constraint looming in the background particularly so as our speed of travel was distinctly in the bimbling mode.

This is pig country.  The bacon, ham and pork is just fantastic.  Clearly Thursday is a real banner day.

But the country is reaaaaaally big.  The land is laid out in vast chunks all surrounded by what are called “Line” roads.  Brian later told me in the early days farmers were assigned 100 acre square parcels, around which were laid out roads in straight ‘lines’, hence the name “Line” roads.  So out somewhere in the middle of wherever we changed from Line Road 119 to Line Road 111, which somehow doesn’t quite give the trip much romantic sparkle.  Some counties have climbed down off their perch and permitted more interesting names to be used but others are more puritan.  Speaking of whom let’s talk about the Menonites.

Menonites are protestant extremists that sprang up just after Martin Luther nailed his objections to that church in the 16^th century and took his opposition to orthodox church a few steps further to the left (or right even, depending on your own politics).  To give you an idea, they thought Luther’s articles were a few hundred too few so they added on a whole bunch more, all radical, which alienated not only the Catholics but also the newly self-proclaimed Protestants as well so everyone, and I do mean everyone, persecuted them.  The Jews must have been relieved to have been given some time off, I would think.  So given the fact that there were so few of them, they fled in all directions. The Dutch went east to Russia where Catherine the Great welcomed them and sent them to Siberia, far enough away but in the knowledge they'd get things going there, whilst the German and Swiss went west, ultimately to the US mainly Pennsylvania where many protestant religious groups settled.

After US independence, large numbers left in their wagons for western Ontario as they had been treated well under the British (i.e. pretty much left alone and not been asked to join in any imperial wars) and feared that the new USA would conscript their young men into the US Army.  The Amish and other similar groups remain in Pennsylvania still but large numbers now control large tracts of farming in rural western Ontario. 

The Menonites are split into various strata as over the years many gave up orthodoxy and embraced many of the ‘new’ ways while still holding to their religious beliefs.  But some of the ‘Old Order’ remain and you can see them in their traditional garb driving their coach and horses along the highways and byways.  But they are good businessmen and have prospered over the years.  Most of the old order drive cars now (except on Sundays), the proviso being that they are black in colour to match the men’s attire.  I met a retired government property assayer who told me that he’d visited all over the region and found that the Menonites were very far advanced in their usage of modern technology even the old order so while you may consider them curiosities because of their garb, their accents and their ‘ways’, they know what they are doing and they do it really well.

A Menonite convoy.  Mind you this was Sunday so the cars were likely in the garage at home whilst they went to church in the old ways.

St. Jacob’s is a largely Menonite enclave and that was why we were heading in that direction but as the day wore on it became clear we (a) couldn’t find the damn place and (b) even when the GPS had got its act together, we’d have no time to do anything other than leave so we redirected our efforts towards Stratford and Henry V.

Stratford is really a lovely little town.  Settled like everywhere in the region in the mid 1850’s it has no big or new buildings to speak of other than a couple of theatres and retains a really nice olde worlde feel to it.  Once an industrial town doing I’m not sure what, now Stratford is solely tourism and pretty much solely Shakespeare.  Even the river running through it is called the Avon (there are some similarities with the Avon River in Christchurch, New Zealand, but not many). 

Avon River walk in Stratford, Ontario.

Once we settled ourselves at the Festival Inn on the outskirts and found the theatre we walked into town along the riverbank which was really lovely, circumnavigated the town in really quite short time and settled ourselves into the Mercer Inn for dinner, a nice boutique Inn that had declined to house us for the night but fed and watered us really well.

The Festival Theatre was nice, set out in a horseshoe pattern with the stage jutting out into the middle so the actors could easily move around in the auditorium.  We were on the left hand side but really close so felt ourselves in things. 

They kept fairly closely to the original script including all the potentially edgy bits about the English massacring the French prisoners that both Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh had omitted from their films.  All the ‘English’ accents were decent too.  And of course who wouldn’t catch a breath when Henry went into his “Once more into the breach, dear friends” and “We happy few, we band of brothers” speeches?  Shakespeare wrote some fabulous lines but he also integrated some humour and political satire as well that stands the test of time very well.

By contrast to the previous day, the next day was a breeze.  I put it down to it being Viv’s birthday of course!  We found St. Jacob’s and went through the Menonite Museum (most interesting) and the Menonite bakery next door where the cherry tarts were fanstastic.  And the drive to Grand Bend was a breeze too for the GPS had got its act together and had we not taken some deliberate detours, we would surely have arrived at Brian’s house somewhat sooner than we did.  However all’s well that ended well and we did arrive at Brian’s house (now 3 years old) which overlooks Lake Huron in very good time.

I hadn't expected to find a broom maker making brooms in the old fashioned way but here in St. Jacob's we did.

It tells you something where another protestant church (above) has been sold and turned into a toy shop and day care centre in St. Jacob's high street.  

Lake Huron as all know is one of the Great Lakes – the others being Ontario, Erie, Michigan and the largest of all by a factor of an awful lot Superior.  They are all connected by rivers, canals and other waterways, so you can get through to about half way across the continent by water provided you follow the connections properly.  Huron is 3^rd one over from the Atlantic.  Michigan is just about below Huron with Superior, the monster, to the west.  Brian overlooks Huron and the view is simply sensational.

Rum Swizzle overlooking Lake Huron.  It wasn't hard to drink it!

That part of the coastline also has a real beach.  Well, real if you classify ‘beach’ in its proper way as being the stuff churned up from the sea floor by wave action but not a real beach if you classify it as being either sandy or pink like Bermuda’s.  But as Huron only has silt and mud at the bottom and not rocks and coral like Bermuda, you can’t blame it.  The texture actually reminds me of the mud flats at my home town, Southend, when the tide’s out.

Ultimately we went for a swim and it wasn’t as cold as I expected and was in fact very pleasant.  I’d never swum in a lake before or in real fresh water, so this was a new experience for me.  Huron even had waves and something of a current and undertow to make it familiar.

The hot tub on the upper balcony was pretty darn nice!

Grand Bend is interesting.  Staying with Brian enabled me to see the town in two completely distinct but parallel lights: the summer resort catering to wild young party goers and the all year round town where normal people lived normal lives.  The main street was a cut down version of Key West with fewer seedier aspects and looking back on the trip I did there last year with Viv, there must have been another side to it.  We just never saw it.  In Grand Bend we saw that through Brian’s eyes.

Brian is part of the Rotary Club who recently began a series of projects providing aid to primarily southern Africa.  Apparently in the past, each small rural township in the Huron area had had local schools and in fact a complete local infrastructure at each town. With a declining birth rate, school numbers have declined as has the population generally so the county decided to amalgamate several smaller townships’ infrastructure into larger more economically efficient structures from schools to hospitals and local administration.  At the school level this means school closures with new larger schools being built and the children being bussed in from outlying areas.  But what happens to the old schools?

Well, first the stuff in them goes into the dumpster and then the buildings get offered first to the local community and then get put up for auction.  That’s where Rotary stepped in.  They asked if they could simply take the stuff that would be thrown out and give it away to poorer places.  The answer was a qualified ‘yes’.  Qualified because the authorities didn’t want stuff given away and then being resold at a profit so they specified it had to be given away.  As Rotary had found in South Africa another Rotarian with the capability to give this stuff away, this was no problem.  So up to now they’ve filled 19 forty-foot containers (5 this year) at a cost of $5,000 a pop which Rotary themselves raise.

Anyway Brian’s group had organized to empty a school in near by Zurich and pack a container and promptly volunteered me to hump and carry as well. 

The school was jam packed full of stuff including 100 desks, 200+ chairs, teacher’s desks (that weighed a ton), blackboards (the proper slate ones weigh 10 times as much as you’d think) and I felt that there was no chance that lot would go into one container.  However 3 hours later the container was 2/3 full and I take my hat off to those guys who packed it.  I also take my hat off to the association who came up with the very creative idea and the authority who backed it.  The children in Africa will certainly benefit from this what would have been garbage.

The seedier (or parallel) side of Grand Bend, Viv and I saw as Brian and his wife Irene went off to a wedding, leaving us to fend for ourselves.  I dragged Viv into what I thought from a simple drive by to be the party place in town (called Coco’s) to have a beer.  For some reason some guys were setting up cameras and another older guy and his wife were talking away at them so I asked what was happening.  

The cameraman told me that they were videoing a documentary of the people who work and play in Grand Bend (take a look at www.grandbenders.com) and how they interact.  The older guy whose name was Mickey and who was the owner of Coco’s gave me a card and said the documentary was at that moment shooting. After this random people came up and started talking to/at him very loudly and the cameras sprang into action vigorously.  It all reminded me of a TV programme my son Ali watches called Jersey Shore.  I checked it out later online with Brian and I had my suspicions fulfilled whilst he was more than a little surprised to find out about it.  

Mickey is the grey haired guy next to the blond (his wife) in profile.   A few minutes after the girl in yellow joined them and began a lengthy, loud conversation that will surely make it to the next episode and should not be missed.

I’ll go back in a while and take a look at some more recent episodes to see if Viv and I have made it onto an edition.

Sunset over Lake Huron

I’d also seen what looked like a broken down old pub (called Paddington’s) so Viv and I went off there only to find not only very nice beer, very nice fresh lake fish (called pickerel) and a charming young waiter from Cayman (named Lee) who gave us a bottle of his own very hot sauce.

On our final morning Brian got up at a hideous hour to make us his legendary waffles which promised to provide enough fuel for the remainder of the day during which we’d make our way up to Muskoka, providing that the GPS allows it of course!

Thanks Grand Bend and of course Brian and Irene, it was a blast.  

August in Toronto

Toronto is a great city, so great in our opinion that we bought a condo in TO a few years back and try to use it as much as possible.  This year however we haven’t used it as much.  I was here in March but Viv hasn’t been here for nearly a year however this is Rogers Cup week and with a bunch of friends arriving, this will be great.

2012 has been the hottest and driest year on record for much of North America and first day after we arrived the humidex index hit 49 degrees Celsius! Now that is hot, hot, hot.

Canada has escaped much of the economic slowdown seen by other parts of the world including its large neighbour to whom they export 80% of everything they do, make or dig up.  The banking system is solid and the politicians relatively conservative.  I’ve never been convinced though that the banking system’s solidity has been entirely due to foresight and wisdom as bank CEO’s the world over have or at least in the pre-Lehman days had the same short term intent to maximize that quarter’s earnings to maximize that quarter’s bonus.  Call me cynical if you will but I cannot see Canadian bank CEO’s being shy about maximizing their personal earnings.  I think at least a part of it is due to the Canadian banks not being quick enough to the sub-prime party, but of course cannot prove it.  My firm, for example, was never solicited by US investment banks so we like the Canadian banks can put our hands on hearts and say we never became involved too.  But was that because we were wise and conservative or because we were never asked?  That’s a good question.  I like to think it’s the former of course and will give the Canadian banks the benefit of the doubt as well.

The upshot of all this has been no financial disaster, no loss of AAA credit rating and a massive uptick in investor sentiment about Canada and her prospects.  Also a strong loony which for Ontario’s manufacturing exporters in particular has been a blow.

One of the nice things about visiting a place regularly but sporadically is that there’s a stack of circulars and advertisements to plough through amongst them monthly updates from realtors.  Apparently there could be a housing bubble being created in Toronto as house prices continue to tick up, according to some ‘experts’.  Realtors all say “No” of course but as rates globally are going nowhere for years, what do you expect for the price level of real assets?  With limited investable options real assets are of course going to do well.  So long as the economy is pretty solid (and Canada’s exports are stuff the world really wants a lot of) and the financial system is solid (which new regulations have reinforced), Canada’s future looks pretty rosy to me.

One of the great things we love about TO is the foodie scene.  There’s always new restaurants to try out as well as old friends.  One ‘old friend’ is the Bright Pearl restaurant on Spadina in China Town.  The first time we went there was in 1987 on our first visit when having walked around China Town we discovered this classic old ‘tea house’ which served dim sum and all the other favourites inside a huge mainly gaudy red and gilt interior with old Chinese ladies pushing round trolleys of siu mai, har gow and all the rest of the wondrous things.

To our horror it has gone!  Replacing it is the Golden Diamond specializing in all day dim sum.  Well there was no way we’d go to the upstart so made do with Mama’s Dumpling House also on Spadina which was very fine indeed.

I also like the Keg.  OK call me cheap or cheesy or whatever but the food is always good and the place unpretentious and I just had to have a big, juicy steak.  However we made the mistake of adding on a to-share item celebrating Lobster Season (a lobster tail).  What we see in Bermuda are tails maybe the size of your hand.  What arrived was a tail of some mutant sea creature the size nearly of the table!  Well, that ruled out any chance of dessert!

But the real reason for this week is the tennis at the Rexall Centre at York University.  We wanted tickets originally for Wednesday through Saturday as that means in a single sex tournament, we’d see the top 32 players in action each day and more importantly get the best chance of seeing the best matches on the stadium court.

One rule I have is to forget the final.  The tickets are the most expensive and you only get to see the singles and doubles finals.  From experience I know that there is no guarantee of a great finals match, much better to see the rounds of 16 and then the quarters and semis when all the great matches get played.  However seeing as there would be 5 and later 7 attending en masse, we apparently triggered extra deals so finally ended up agreeing to go Tuesday through finals day Sunday thereby completely blowing my cardinal rule.  Mind you, all the top players play this event as it is worth 1,000 points and is an important leader to the US Open.

That was the thought anyway.

The London Olympics blew this up completely.  Nadal had already announced he wouldn’t be playing due to his knee injury so interestingly none of the better Spaniards would be coming as well – Ferrer, Lopez, Verdasco.  And then Feds dropped out at the last moment saying he was too tired after the Olympics.  Also Monfils backed out as did a couple of others depleting the field considerably.  However Murray, Djokovic, Tsonga, Berdych and Del Potro would be the star names and they WERE coming so that meant the tennis would still be good.

The location of the event is a mystery though while the facility was just fine, its location in York University is curious to say the least.  I suppose that the organisers felt that being 30 miles away from Downtown in the middle of absolutely nowhere gave them plenty of elbow room and parking space but let me tell you getting there was tortuous to say the least.  It’s at the end of the subway at Downsview where you catch a 106 bus that winds through endless housing estates for 20+ minutes before dropping you thankfully right outside the stadium.  Without helpful signs, that first day was something of an exploration.  The tennis though was just fine as were our seats and the 38 degree weather.

Wednesday was a disaster for the organisers though as first Del Potro and then Tsonga were simply hammered by Radek ‘the lip’ Stepanek and Jeremy Chardy showing not the least interest in the game, being there or pretty much anything.  Probably a hangover from the Olympics when both had done well but without Nadal, Federer and Ferrer, this was a massive chance for both to earn some easy ATP points so it is a puzzle what they were doing.

The first big name to win was Andy Murray on the Wednesday who came straight from winning the gold medal at the London Olympics and hammered his opponent in fairly convincing terms after which the organisers had baked him a cake upon which they’d stuck a candy gold medal.  Murray to his credit was charming and cut himself a monster piece.  However one of the other spectators suggested that the organisers usually baked a cake for Feds as that was his birthday and it was lying around anyway.  I’d like to think that wasn’t the case though.

Andy Murray and the cake

Mind you he pulled out immediately after citing an injury so maybe he, Del Potro and Tsonga had planned it all beforehand.

And then came the rain.

Talk about disasters.  Drop outs, miserable losses, spurious injuries, and then hours of rain which whilst good for ducks, gardens and in general most aquatic fowl was simply dreadful for the tournament which on its own two feet did very little to cover itself in glory.  I checked in with the Guest Services desks and chatted with clearly frustrated volunteers who told us the rules (which was what they knew) and nothing else as the organisers made no announcements and told the Guest Services people that I spoke to nothing of import.  Their practical suggestions though were most helpful but that didn’t make it any better as by then our 3rd and our friend Arrigo’s 1st day at the tennis was a total washout.

Add to that the fact that the website was updated seemingly with a 24 hour delay and the absence of meaningful information was nearly total.  However this did mean that the Friday when our numbers would have swelled to 7 would be a cracker.

Thankfully Friday’s weather while still grey was at least not much rain.  Nick, Elaine, Martin and Gill had joined us from various directions but the early rain meant that we only managed a couple of matches on the stadium court (#4 seed Berdych being thrashed by Gasquet) and old ‘sable hair’ Djokovic thrashing Querry before the organisers concluded the daytime tennis around 5 pm so they could get the stadium ready for the night session.  Having paid $150 a ticket to watch 2 games, it would have been nice to see another game, even a doubles which is over usually in an hour due to the no-ad scoring system and 3rd set tie break format.  But no, tough luck buddy, you are in Dirty Harry’s words ‘S O L’.  That was another real bugbear I had with this event: the lack of consideration for the daytime paying customers.  Clearly they place more appreciation to TV scheduling than the thousands of customers paying $100+ to watch.

Mind you, with the schedule we had loads more tennis outside as most players had 2 games to play that day, if playing doubles maybe 3.  So we found the Grandstand court and outside courts to watch some great doubles and surprise, surprise Djokovic playing Tommy ‘no underpants’ Haas because the stadium court was turned over to Canadian boy Raonic’s game against Isner.

What an atmosphere and what tennis.  From our Aussie Open adventure a couple of years ago Viv had spotted through careful and lengthy scrutiny with some decent binoculars that Tommy Haas wears no underpants when playing.  Now normal people need a little support in that vital region so personally I find that unlikely but you never know.  Anyway now that he has no clothing sponsors and simply pulls out from his bag whatever he fancies to wear, Tommy’s shorts choice that day was dark coloured so further updates on the underpant situation was impossible.

Underpants or not?  What do you think?

Haas’ backhand has to be the cleanest in tennis.  Single handed and absent the wrist that both Feds and Gasquet overuse (in my opinion anyway) it really is a thing of beauty.  But Djoko simply doesn’t miss so even the best of those immense groundies comes back with interest.  It made for a great contest but at 10.30 pm we all realized that it would take an hour to get back to downtown TO at which point few restaurants outside of Chinatown would be open.  And that’s where we ended up.

Who has the better backhand, Viv or Tommy?  Bending knees to Viv.  Firm wrist about even.  Watching ball maybe to Tommy.  Big grin, well that one's easy!!

Saturday’s tennis was slated to start at 12 noon but on the bus it started raining so the doubles slated for the stadium court was first deferred and then moved to another court so that when the rain stopped and the singles game started (at 3.30pm or so) the doubles we were slated to have seen was playing on the Grandstand court.  The singles game was Gasquet against Isner and was over in 80 minutes as Gasquest administered a considerable thrashing again … at which point yet again, that was it for the daytime session as they wanted again to get things ready for the evening.  By that time the doubles we had been slated to have seen was over so there was no other tennis at all.

The match clock as Gasquet and Isner left the court clearly showing 80 minutes and that's your lot guys!

Again I have to hold the organisers responsible for this as tickets today cost $160 and again we had just one game.  I understand that nobody can predict weather, injuries and freak results but that doesn’t mean that consideration cannot be given to thousands of people paying $160 a pop to watch just a single game of tennis.

The rain policy is interesting though as it says that if there is less than 90 minutes of match time on any particular day, people can apply for either replacement tickets at later sessions or subsequent years.  2 days means 25,000 people looking for recompense.  Talk about mess!  This particular day could easily have been saved by putting the doubles on the stadium court or at least waiting until a later time for it to be watched on the Grandstand.  I cannot imagine there being anyone there as if you’d shown up, you’d be in the stadium watching the singles not the doubles.  Nuts.

Random rainbow over Toronto from our living room on the 44th floor.

That did mean we had plenty of time to prepare for our big dinner to be held at Sotto Sotto on Avenue Road.  I’d bought a cask of Heineken for the week and the extra time we had meant this was retired prior to dinner which proved an as usual very jolly experience.  It must have been an extraordinary experience for the restaurant too as we closed the place down with our waiter leaving a complimentary bottle of Limoncello on the table at the end.  I do like Sotto Sotto though.  The food is always great.

Final’s day started at 4.45 pm so Martin offered to drive us.  Mind you we were all feeling a little slow that day as we had stayed up very late composing a group letter to the tournament organisers by that well worn and successful method of taking it in turns to provide one word each to the letter which Viv very faithfully scribed.  This we all felt would do the trick.  (I did re-read it this morning and well it is interesting).

The first game up was the Bryan brothers against Granollers and Lopez from Spain and was closely fought with the Bryans winning a 3rd set tie break.  Djoko then hammered Gasquet in the final being very gracious in his post match words and then it was all over.

Doubles final at top and Novak being gracious in his post match interview below.

Now the party has dispersed again leaving just Viv and I to plan our Ontario road trip.

Beautiful Blighty

There's no better place to live than England when the sun shines.  Trouble is that only happens 5 or 6 times a year so I guess I really lucked out this last weekend when I went back to England and my home town Sarfend (sniff).

OK, we're talking about Southend-on-Sea which of course is the home of the Blues and NOT The Shrimpers.

Its been a number of years since I left Sarfend (1981!!) so coming back is interesting.  The town has never really been considered to be 'the jewel of the Essex riviera' as I refer to it, but when the sun shines it looks way better than say a wet afternoon in November.

I was there to play in my school old boys' cricket match so would be meeting some guys I hadn't seen for 30+ years in some cases.  However it was also a chance to tick off those boxes of must do things in Sarfend (sniff).  My brother wasn't around and as I was staying with my friends Kevin and Gill, both of whom were busy, I was able to go through the list: (1) jam doughnut -- I'm a sucker for them!  (2) My old tennis club -- Thorpe Bay Lawn Tennis Club.

No real grass any longer but still in pretty good shape.

(3) My old cricket club -- Leigh-on-Sea Cricket Club.

Leigh-on-Sea CC's home ground at Chalkwell Park

(4) Old Leigh -- and one of my favourite pubs (The Crooked Billet) but also the cockle sheds (Osborne's) where you get the freshest cockles, whelks and mussels no longer alive alive-o.

The mud flats at Old Leigh

This was at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning with the sea 2 miles away across the mud flats and the tide not due in for another 9 hours!  

The mud flats of the Thames Estuary

It was also the Southend air show when a bunch of aeroplanes of all ages flew along the estuary for the enjoyment of upwards of 100,000 people.  The stars of the show were the WWII duo of the Lancaster bomber and the Spitfire.

The speck is a Lancaster bomber

But the weather!  It was wonderful.  It was difficult for anyone to be unhappy in such weather so it was a happy time.  Just as well actually as things aren't so great in England and Sarfend at the moment.  There were many, many empty shopfronts in town and from chatting with my ex-school buddies it was clear that banks aren't lending to small businesses and people aren't going out as much.  As Sarfend is only 30 minutes by commuter train from the financial district of London, it is very much a commuter town.  Thousands of jobs have been lost since Lehman collapsed in 2008 and you can see the result in Sarfend.

My school was no longer operating as it was sold when the owner/headmaster died over 10 years ago to a competing local school.  Our cricket match was being played at the school grounds with tea on the lawns of the big house where the headmaster's widow still lived.  The school (Eton House) moved here in the 1940's when the buildings were derelict and rebuilt.  The main house once belonged to Admiral Nelson's heart throb, Lady Emma Hamilton, so has some history in it.  It was so strange though returning to a place so long after the last time -- everything was so small!

The Old Boys after tea on The Lawns

Capping a wonderful weekend off was the car I hired -- an Audi A4.  I'd hired a VW Golf but that was sold out when I showed up and the offered Hyundai something didn't sound too alluring so I asked about an upgrade and they gave me the Audi!  What a great car.  Smooth, fast, diesel, comfortable and 50 mpg.  I think it could have been the best car I've ever driven.  Or maybe it was the great weather that made me think that.  Nope, it was the car.  Fabulous.

Audi A4 with parking ticket an annoying extra

Great trip.  Thanks Sarfend, it was good to be back.  Thanks guys, it was really great to see you all again after all these years.

Back to work ... in Cayman again

It has been 2 years since I retired (September 2009) and the fact of the matter was that I felt I still had things to do at my old company so I made the decision to "unretire" and went so far as to shave off my beard on 1st April 2012.  However, I still have trouble wearing a tie every day.  So to announce my presence my business partner Robert suggested we take a booth at the Cayman Islands STEP conference (trust related) held at the Ritz.  It has been 3 years since I last visited Cayman so I was interested to see what has changed in my absence.

George Town from the air.  The harbor is being rebuilt by a Chinese consortium apparently which should improve things.  Businesses are moving out to office parks further down West Bay Road, primarily Camana Bay which is off to the right.

The financial crash caused by Lehman's collapse has morphed into a rash of further disasters ranging from government debt crises, hedge fund collapses and in our world of offshore finance immense new regulation.

Cayman had suffered as had Bermuda but from a slightly different angle -- both have financing problems, both are finding it difficult to attract new business and new capital, both have immigration policies that forced thousands of expats to leave along with their capital, both financial and intellectual.  However Cayman's government has the appearance of making tough decisions that Bermuda's simply will not take.  It could be crucial in the development of each jurisdiction in the next 5-10 years.  Cayman has announced a new tax free zone for new foreign business (tech, medical R&D, etc -- intellectual capital) and a new heart hospital set up by an Indian doctor to access the US health market.  In short it is vibrant.  Well almost, but certainly along the road to it.  Bermuda sadly is not in the same almost vibrant position.  The absence of new transactions and of any 'new' ideas to develop new business are symptomatic of a country that seems to have lost its way and doesn't really know what to do next.  Asking business people may well be a good start -- Cayman does -- but that sadly doesn't seem to be the way in Bermuda.

This is not to say that everything is hunky dory in Cayman.  New commercial and residential building abounds but that simply means that businesses are trading up leaving their old premises empty.  That goes for residential too.  The real estate book I last read 3 years ago advertised the same apartment I looked at back in 2008 at $110,000 less than what it was back then -- actually at the offer price I made back then but which was peremptorily dismissed.  You can certainly buy, but its pretty difficult to sell.  The ability for anyone to own property in Cayman has long been touted as a major advantage over Bermuda, but it does seem that owning a place comes with a real warning.

Same airport although plans are afoot to renovate ... once they have the cash.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton on West Bay Road alongside 7 Mile Beach.  It certainly is a lovely hotel. The service is stellar too which is what you would expect for a 5 star resort of this kind (and price).  However it has its problems too with the real estate division apparently in receivership under a welter of debt and unsold residences even though the hotel seems to be perpetually full.  Apparently the Westin too is in administration so Cayman tourism isn't in that healthy a state.

Our bedroom at the Ritz

Conference over I even managed to get a tennis game on the only grass court in the Caribbean -- I hadn't played on grass for 35 years.  And really I don't know how the pros play such good tennis on this surface.  I certainly could not. The ball didn't bounce much, it skidded and moved all over the place, and in short evened up the ability gap between myself and the young pro who pulled the short straw to play with me and struggled more than I did.

The only grass court in the Caribbean with the Ritz as back drop

Fortunately for the pair of us, it started raining a little so after some more slipping and sliding around we decided to move onto the red clay courts next door.  The pro told me they would be digging up the courts because nobody liked playing on them and they couldn't make any money out of it -- they are putting in 2 hard courts.

The Ritz has a great spa and exercise area.  I don't normally use gyms as a rule but as my wife, Vivien, was with me and exercised regularly I went along... and enjoyed the hot tub, sauna and all the rest of it. However we had to check out the rest of the island and started out with the Motor Car Museum in West Bay which I'd heard great things about.

It was great.

The owner/patron is a Norwegian shipowner called Mr. Ugland (with a building named after him) who'd simply repainted what looks like his own very large garage and stuffed 100 fancy cars in there including the oldest car in the world (from 1895), the first car in Cayman, the original Batmobile, a Noddy car and virtually every red Ferrari since 1955.  This was a petrol head's dream.

Who wouldn't want a picture with Batman and Robin?

Some of the red Ferrari fleet

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-Batman!!!

The first car in Cayman. A 1905 Cadillac.

How do you top that?

We managed by eating lunch across the street at 'The Cracked Conch' prior to doing a circumnavigation of the island to see what exactly had been doing since we last left.

The name dish -- cracked conch

So what has changed?  A couple of roads, a new bunch of signs, 2 or 3 new shopping complexes, and that was pretty much it apart from the endless 'For Sale' signs on various real estate.  Yes, stuff has happened and the rebuild after 2004's catastrophic Hurricane Ivan has progressed but there are still derelict buildings a-plenty and in the east end particularly no real evidence of much new wealth creation.

Idyllic scene in Cayman Kai

We hadn't realized that the weekend we chose to be in Cayman coincided with a public holiday -- Queen Victoria's birthday was May 24th and Bermuda celebrates this date as Bermuda Day (along with many of the ex-colonies) but Cayman moved it to the prior Monday.  Precious little is open on Sundays but even less is open on public holidays particularly so when it rains cats and dogs in Cayman's very own version of the monsoon.

Monsoon in Cayman

Oh yes, and this is a 4-foot iguana in a car park.  These guys are apparently meaner than the local big blue iguanas and are busily eating their way through the blue guys so nobody likes them and while its not really PC to squish them ...

Thanks Cayman.  Great to be back.  I'm looking forward to returning.

From 'Graduand' into a 'Graduate'

Quite why Ali's university (Kingston) wait 8 months from the end of the school year to hold their graduating ceremony is beyond me but its January 2012 and therefore time for Ali to don gown and mortar board and receive his diploma.  And of course we all aren't going to miss this for the world.

I found a short stay apartment in Lancaster Gate in a great spot opposite Hyde Park, ideal for that early morning run if you felt so inclined.  Also near the tube station so well located for public transport (and I do think armed with an Oyster Card, London is one of the world's great cities to get around in using nowt but public transport).

I had a meeting in the City and was able to rediscover the wonders of walking through the City when its not raining.  Interestingly we had lunch at a slightly up market greasy spoon (no longer run by Cypriots or Turks like when I used to work in the City in the 1970's and 1980's) that provided beer and wine instead of the traditional cuppa of my day.

Things have changed but not that much which is what I noticed wandering aimlessly back afterwards past Leadenhall Market (where the Lamb still looks good), past St Paul's (where the 'Occupy' whatever people have a tented village -- I think I recognised some of them from CND rallies, past Glastonbury Festivals and the like.  However as it was day time, nobody much was around for whatever reason.  Next down Fleet Street and past the Olde Cheshire Cheese.  Just a wonderful way to reminisce.

Great city and I do like Boris' bikes.  The blue for Barclays works well for Boris but I wonder if Red Ken gets back in he'll sell the branding concession to HSBC whose corporate colours are red.

The graduation day was something though.  Obviously Kingston treat it as a military expedition in its organisation and use the entire town really rather well.  The gowning facility was the main church in the centre of town.

Ali and his "helpers and advisors"

The ceremony was held in the Rose Theatre with each student having his or her 30 seconds in the limelight.  What struck me was the multi-ethnicity of the student intake.  This was all business students but the Dean said Kingston had 122 countries represented in their student intake.

30 seconds of fame

For those who rail at the UK being class ridden and racist, this is a telling practical counter argument and which will of course never reach the media as it supports no political agenda of any sort.  This is one of the Great things about the country -- despite all the pathetic pandering of left and right, colour ridden bigots and religious fanatics, it just gets on with it and does what it thinks is right.  I just wish the country would give praise where praise is due and not pander to what is PC at the moment.

Apparently up until the moment of the formal handshake, Ali had only been a 'graduand' -- someone who'd passed the exams but hadn't formally graduated.  From that moment on, he became a 'graduate'.  We're all thrilled for him of course.

An ex-graduand, now fully fledged graduate

The rest of the day for Ali at least was a blur with formal photos, farewells and no sleep being the order of the day ... at least for him.  For us we had lunch at Alex's favourite Kingston spot -- Nando's chicken -- and got ready for the big evening dinner.

Both Ali and Alex had met Massimo, the maitre d' at Gary Rhodes' brasserie at the Cumberland Hotel, when he'd been working in Bermuda.  Alex called Massimo and things had been set when our friend Debbie, also an ex-Bermuda and Australia hand, joined us as well.  

Massimo greeted us with some Prosecco which was nice of him and ensured we had a great dinner.  This was my first time at the hotel and it is now firmly on my list of really nice places to eat at in London, for it really was very nice indeed.  Thanks for taking care of us Massimo.

I'd been able to contact my brother Jan and all of his children, 2 of whom had been in Montenegro with Ali and I during the summer.  This time his son, Rupert, would be joining us too and he did with fiancee Tally in tow.  

The major assembly point was a couple of pubs in the West End followed by some mussels from Brussels at Belgo Centraal in Covent Garden, a great and fun place to meet, eat and drink 300+ Belgian beers.  I overheard someone asking for a Heineken to which a waiter replied as patiently as he could that there was no room for non-Belgian beers in their beer warehouse.  

The correct way to eat mussels

When Jan lived in Amsterdam back in the 1980's he'd often headed into Belgium for the mussels and said that recently the Belgians were far more likely to want to speak English to you than the Dutch who'd recently become more nationalistic.  Evidently some sort of backlash to being taken advantage of having generously opened their borders to less fortunate refugees and asylum seekers who now had become more and more active and virulent within their adopted refuge.  I can only see this sort of thing increasing and wish there was a rather more robust attitude taken in England as well.  The radical cleric issue of the moment is particularly galling and reading in one daily paper of other radical muslims turning up at all sorts of secular public meetings taking You Tube videos of participants threatening their persons and families is just the sort of thing politicians and police should deal more robustly with.  This threatening behaviour is tantamount to a denial of free speech.  Pussy footing around issues like this is one of the less desirable attributes of the country.

However it was great to catch up with everyone again.  Last time was at least 10 years ago.  I hope it won't be so long before we next meet up.

But we're off to Las Vegas now but don't expect too many details for what happens in Las Vegas, stays there!

Spittal Pond

I meant this blog to be about travels outside Bermuda but today Viv and I enjoyed a fabulous walk around one of Bermuda's few nature parks, Spittal Pond, in the company of an extraordinary Bermudian naturalist, David Wingate, and some friends.

I'd not been to Spittal Pond for at least 10 years, maybe more.  It is a small lake (OK pond) with what looks like scrubby surrounds.  That's what a wilderness looks like apparently and which is what Spittal Pond is all about.  David Wingate said he didn't really know how large the park is -- "between 40 and 60 acres, its a bit difficult to estimate" -- but he did know the pond is "about 9 acres" in size.  It doesn't take that long to walk around but if you are in David's presence and keep asking him questions, any questions, you could be there forever.  Being a financial person, I am eternally grateful that there are people like David around for if everyone was like me, well ...

As we are in an inter-glacial period the water levels apparently are high and steadily rising.  100,000 years ago water levels were lower and that meant Bermuda ended without sandy beaches beyond the reef system currently surrounding the island at which point there were cliffs all round and very deep water, this being the Bermuda volcano.  This would have meant the island would have been about 400 square miles in size, plenty of room in fact for everyone to own a piece of the rock.  However with a flurry of risings and fallings of water in between, the most recent being 10,000 or so years ago, the current Bermuda was formed along with the beaches.

Rushing forward about 9,600 years, first a marooned Portuguese sailor defaced Bermuda with the first graffiti and about 50-60 years later Admiral Sir George Somers destroyed a large chunk of reef in the process "discovering" Bermuda for England.  Shortly after, Bermuda was deliberately settled and Royal Navy Cartographer Norwood decided to measure and re-organise the island in sections (the big sections are called "parishes" and the original sub-divisions "tribes").  The tribes were for some reason laid out in a simple north/south pattern completely ignoring the contours and features of the land so Spittal Pond is in 10 lots of land.  Scroll forward to the 1920's when government decided on a nature park, they had to buy these lots from the then current owners.  9 of the 10 were paid between £800 and £1,000 per lot but the 10th was a realtor who fully understood the value of sea front land in a growing Bermuda and held out for a "special" deal.  And so the Spittal Pond nature park came into being.

Just after WWII the endemic Bermuda cedar population was wiped out by insect infestation and naturalists decided on replanting with casuarinas.  Without a serious hurricane for several decades, many of the casuarinas grew to as much as 100 feet tall (particularly around Spittal Pond where the soil is incredibly rich in nutrients) so that when Hurricane Emily and its associated tornadoes came ploughing through the island in September 1987, they were flattened pretty much all over the island.  These days you can actually see the pond from South Shore road when you drive by.

As this was a bird themed walk David frequently broke off his discourse to point out an American cuckoo and then 5 or 6 greves paddling by (both migratory).  However he cautioned that the world currently is in Extinction Phase 5 -- with respect to birds, this is very serious as many species are declining massively in numbers.  David said 30 years ago, the pond would have been covered in migratory birds.  Today we saw no more than a dozen.

It has to be immensely frustrating to be a naturalist.  You operate in an industry (if it can be called that) where few understand why conservation is important and what the cause and effect of even casual actions may be.  Fewer even care.  So you have to be grateful that voices in the wilderness like David Wingate are content to devote their entire lives to something so worthwhile for so apparently little reward.  However David has succeeded wonderfully well in recovering the endemic cahow (a marine bird) from total extinction by the creation of the natural haven on Nonsuch Island.  He says there could be as many as 100 breeding pairs now.

David Wingate and a Bermuda longtail next.  Being low and open, the biggest danger to the longtail are cats, dogs and rats.

However Spittal Pond is alive and well for now and ready to be visited.  If you can have David Wingate with you, so much the better.  You'd better go soon as apparently this is a really exciting transitional period (geologically speaking) with sea levels rising, mangroves moving in and general salination levels off the scale.  You probably have a couple of thousand years before things really change.