The silence had become almost deafening but I am just as much to blame as anyone. Apologies.
It was good to hear all your news and I am pleased that you are all up to no good somewhere on this poor benighted planet.
We are living the life of stranded sailors on a desert island, sun, sea, no drink to speak of, and a lot of tinkling tin drums and drunken yachties who live it up in the bar every night.
The hotel is ideal and right on the water’s edge, the marina in front of us. You will see from the pics that we look out onto billions of pounds worth of floating gin palaces. I looked Siren up on the internet the other day out of a morbid sense of nosiness and wondering how long I would have to save my monthly stipend before I could afford a month sailing the high seas in the lap of luxury.
The answer was that not only would I have to sell everything I own, including my body down the sunny side of Jermyn Street, live to be one hundred and fifty, and even then I would not have enough! Three hundred and fifty six thousand pounds per week plus 50% on top for tips for the crew, gas, harbour dues, etc. etc. The irony is that I used to know the owners, the Reuben brothers. They were scrap metal dealers in their first incarnation. As mother used to say, “Where there’s muck, there’s money”!
We watch the comings and goings from dawn to dusk and marvel as the captains manoeuvre these behemoths into berths no bigger than a space for a car. They deserve every penny they get because a collision between two of these mothers would probably cost a cool million to repaint!
Yesterday a Trimaran arrived and as there was no space at the official boom, they grabbed a space on our dock and busily got down to working on some problem they seemed to be having with one of the hulls. As befits a nosey old broad who thinks she knows a bit about boats I sauntered down to find out about their problem. The boat was so large it looked as though it might have been an America’s Cup Challenger and had Masserati written all over it. I didn’t discover much as the crew didn’t speak a word of English but answered me in perfect Italian. Of course I showed off my language skills and then slunk home.
We have a beautiful, Armani-ish room big enough to play football in. Needless to say we left our ball in London and just lie around the pool criticising the other fat residents! Actually we seem to have the whole place to ourselves as everyone goes out and dices with death on the Antiguan roads and the locals high on ganja. Experience tells me that at our age we are better off frying to a crisp than gathering road rash on the potholes of the island. The roads are worse than in Italy If that is possible!
On the subject of football Rowie!!!!!
We are both well but miss our friends. We seem to have been away from the farm for far too long. Our other friends who are animal sitting say the weather is barmy and all is calm and collected so I think I will lean back, have another glug of rum and worry about everything tomorrow.
Turnip, that is a beautiful photograph of you and Rolando. Could I have a copy please.
You both look like sun kissed teenagers! Victoria, I don’t like the sound of another ailment. I will look it up on the net and get back to you.
You will be thrilled to hear that you made me feel so guilty that I have been putting pen to paper, or fingers to computer, for two hours a day and the tome is growing. All I need now is an editor!!! It has helped, being back on the island where it all happened.
My only ailment is not being able to keep my mouth closed!! I make the same promises to myself daily that I will not eat too much and then I go to bed feeling full and guilty. Maybe at my age I should just give up and eat and enjoy. For seventy-six years I have been on a constant diet and it has made not one bit of difference to my shape. I think we are born with the body we are destined to die with whatever we do to keep the pounds under control.
I swim twenty lengths every day, miss breakfast, have a light lunch, no dinner but in between seem to find my way to the chocolate drawer as it calls to me. Chocolates should be made illegal along with all sugar products, or produced without the ability to speak, then perhaps I would lose weight.
Anyway who cares what we look like, at my age I am totally invisible whatever my weight!!! The other day I wrote a letter of some complexity to the general manager of our hotel and at breakfast this morning he accosted Aziz in the restaurant to discuss our problem, with me standing by his side in full view. He completely ignored me and decided he would sort the problem out man to man.
Me Too hasn’t reached Antigua yet.
I send love to all of you and cannot wait for a debrief back at the ranch around mid March.
Kisses,
Jeanx
No comments:
Post a Comment