Month: December 2016

 We have had a lovely Christmas. Two weeks off relaxing and catching our breath and catching up with our friends. Snorkelling and swimming.

On Christmas Day we Facetimed home and caught up with the family. 

We opened our presents and then went to church. It was a lovely if slightly chaotic service.

After church it was off to The Grand Old House for lunch. (Click here).

Now when I say launch I mean a gargantuan frenzy of food and free flowing Proseco! 

The food was amazing. To give you a flavour: there was a curry section with biriani and goat curry, a stir fry section, an omelet stop, a sea food cabana, two massive Christmas buffets and a room full of desserts that Willy Wonker would have felt at home in! 

There was even an old Cuban fellow hand rolling Cuban Cigars.

Armed with our agreed strategy ‘head for the high value items and avoid the carbs‘ we embarked on our Christmas lunch…

 It was a truely amazing lunch. We thoroughly enjoyed sitting on the deck overlooking the sparkling Caribbean Sea. I had roast goat, a local Christmas specialty, it was delicious. After two and a half hours the kids wonder the 100m home to play with the pressies and Vic and I sunk another bottle of bubbly. Not a bad way to spend Christmas Day.

I rounded dinner off with a hand rolled cigar overlooking the sea.

On Boxing Day we had a friends round for breakfast and buckfizz before we hit the beach with the Castaways. Sun soaked we headed home at twilight for fishpie with our friends. But not before I managed to cut my foot open, doh.

I maintain the accident and two solid days drinking bubbles and rum were completely unrelated, but I did not really feel it at the time.

For our present Victoria surprised us all with the gift of paddle board lessons with our neighbour Damo. 

Now Damo is perhaps the island’s leading paddle board coach and we had an amazing session with him. 

Now a disclaimer it’s not as easy as some people make it look.

(http://www.caymanstanduppaddleco.ky/)

I spent a lot of time falling off head first into the sea and shouting ‘oh noooo’.

By the end of the two hours I was aching everywhere but I did manage to stand up and paddle! I need more practice but I managed to make some progress!

James seemed to take to it like a duck to water and was off like a rocket after five minutes. He is a convert and definitely wants to go again. Tomorrow!

Poor Poppy didn’t know which way was up!  

Like her brother she just popped up and paddled off and because that was not hard enough and because Damo had done a headstand on his board Poppy just had to do one too! 

By the end of the session she was an expert in sea bourne head stands.

 

 

The Cayman Defence Force were out in force on their main battle ship the Jolly Roger this week because the invasion has begun! 7 cruise ships in two days including three Carnival ships in one day and the Disney ship. 35,000 people popping in for the day that’s the equivalent of half the the islands population!   Imagine a whole town turning up for the day! 

Today is the Winter Solstice so days will start getting longer and brighter! Obviously this is a real concern here in the Caribbean as I sit at the bar watching Jim and P on the waterslide. Tough here!

Days end and the grockles sail off into the sunset! The Cayman Defence Force have seen the invaders off.

We are in the run up to Christmas! We broke up after a week of Christmas themed madness on Friday, with concerts, parties, Christmas Lunch and staff dinners. I have to say Christmas is BIG!

One sign of just how big, is Christmas lights, they are everywhere gardens and houses are lit up like, well, Christmas trees I suppose. 

Only in this case Christmas palm trees. 

The big round about a into town have the most amazing displays. So many in fact that Cayman seen from space must just dazzle with its own constellation in a million colours! 

Two of the most opulent displays are those of the Boden Sisters and the Crighton Family. They are incredible. They have been months in the making but in the run up to the big day they throw open their gates and everyone is welcome to wander around their gardens…

Above is the Boden Sisters’s gardenThe lights in the trees look like frozen fireworks.

Below the Crighton’s.

It’s early. 

Before sunrise. 

The sky is only just beginning to light. 

Just twilight and it begins. 

Distant at first. But the coming closer. 

Growing in number. 

Drawing nearer.

The howling.

It starts far away barely a whisper but the first howling voice is joined by another and another. 

It builds and builds until the inextrable sound sweeps like a wave towards us and surrounds us. 

The dawn chorus of howling. 

The crowing of the island’s feral cockerels. 

The sound keys a memory and a familiar voice echoes in my head. A dear familiar voice from days gone by sagely intoning, “ah, the Germans must be bombing London.”

“I remember when Chalky, Lackery and I were stationed in Yorkshire we always knew when the Luftwaffe were over London…” and one of Grandad Fred’s war stories about pheasants calling to one another flashes through my mind. 

His eyes filling with tears as he recalls long dead comrades and distant adventures and so do mine as I remember him.