Sunday Ride

Today was again another nice ride into the salubrious hills of Maryland. There were no serious incidents and while some 15 persons had confirmed that they would be riding, thus causing Howie to order that number of breakfasts, only Howie, Barry, Penny, Stefan (with Zorie in carrier on the back of his bicycle) Damit, Barry, Chrles, Andrew, Michelle and I took the trip. Grace, Jervais,Donna and her friend and Renee Hall did not turn up. Fatman drove Howie's vehicle and his son Zacky came along.

The reason why have put out Renee's full name is because we are going to keep and eye out for her in the 2012 Olympics for she currently swims for Jamaica ( following in Betty's footsteps) and is a Carifta silver medal holder. Her specialities are freestyle and butterfly.

Anyway, I deviate. There was no excitement this week in terms of incidents since all that could have happened on the ride happened last week. (Folks are still laughing over Heather and my crash last week which had me landing flat on top of Heather. She left the island shortly after, I hope its not the crash that inspired the move. I am just kidding for she has gone to see her husband Johhny ......an "expatriate member of "Fun and Thrills" since he has migrated to Maryland, USA as he still has Maryland on his mind, even if it is not Maryland, St. Andrew, Jamaica!)

The "swimming pool" up at Maryland was a bit shallow today for apparently they had some rains and some of the sand bags which are used to dam up the water, were destroyed. Barry and Andrew made a valiant attempt at hydro-engineering and we did manage to get a little more depth but it was not quite up to where we have become accustomed. However, when I was riding down, one of thew local gentlemen told me that he was on his way up there to repair the damage so I suspect next week we will have a deeper pool.

The crowning glory of today's ride was the breakfast cooked by "Coy" and for which Betty drove up to join us. Boy the callaloo is the best I have had anywhere. The menu was callaloo, stewed chicken and ackee and codfish with old time chocolate tea and don't joke, the food was plenty, lots of dumplings, fried jonnie cake and yam and even pear. He increased the price on us overnight from $200 to $300 but it was worth it from a thief.

On the way down, Zory fell asleep in her carrier and at one point, her helmeted head hung out precariously out at the side of her carrier, so her parents had to put her in the van.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures this week but Howie should be posting some on his facebook page soon. ( I subsequently stole the photo above from his facebook!)

Hurricane Gustav

Yesterday was the anniversary of one of the worst days or rather, nights of my life. For that was when hurricane Gustav totally destroyed my backyard, taking away trees, soil the doghouse everything that lay within about six inches of my bedroom and scared the living daylights out of me to boot!.

Like most Jamaicans, I never even prepared for Gustav as it had been downgraded to a mere storm. In fact, my reaction to a friend’s query about my level of preparation was ‘Cho, is jus a dibby dibby storm, not even a hurricane”. Well I am here to tell you that this dibby dibby storm did more damage to my property and my psyche than all the Gilberts, Deans, Ivan's combined.

My trauma started around midnight on the night of the 27th August 2008, when my tenant phoned me telling me that the backyard was covered with water. Being aroused from a very sound sleep, I thanked him and went back to sleep. Hardly had I gotten in to second gear of my sleep when the phone rang again. This time he sounded frantic as he repeated with great emphasis, what he had said earlier. Reluctantly I looked thorough the window and was immediately roused as I saw nothing but water in the back yard..... no ackee tree, no three bedroom dog house, no lime tree, nothing but water. Quickly putting on some clothes, I rushed round the back of the yard and immediately realized the danger, since the gully wall had disappeared, part of my neithgbour’s house which had been extended up to the gully wall had disappeared and I realized that only about 6 inches of land lay between my bedroom and about 20 feet of water. I called my neihbour to tell him what was happening to his house and immediately got my tenants out and we all walked up the road to my good friend Sunshine for refuge. I had become a refugee!

Well let me tell you, I certainly did not sleep that night as I kept wondering if I would find any sign of my house next day and thinking the worse, since I had left the house without any clothes and or without stopping to take any important documents.

The night seemed todrag on forever. The next day when I ventured home, all I could say was Thank God when I realized that no damage had been done to the house, but where I once had a backyard was nothing but a deep chasm, meaning that if I went behind the house and took a false step, that would be the end of it.

Well in Jamaica, we have a saying that “Good fren betta dan pocket money” and I am here to tell you there is not truer thing. For all my friends rallied and offered their assistance in any way that I required.

All the politicians came looking, the Mayor, the Councilor and the Member of Parliament and all declared that it was the worse damage they had seen and immediate action would have to be taken to prevent further damage. And guess what, I beleived them! So for the next few weeks I called the National Works Agency (NWA) to find out when they would be repairing the wall and remove the danger that we taxpayers faced. ...my two neighbours and I .

In the meantime, my yard became a regular tourist attraction with people from all over coming to look at the houses perched on the gully. After a few weeks of getting a run around from the NWA, I realised that the government may not make a move to deal with the situation in my lifetime, so I called in my good friend Howie who is a first class engineer and not only did he advise me what had to be done but also, he got the workers and supervised the job at absolutely no cost.

“Good fren betta dan pocket money" fi true.

By No Means Uneventful

There is one adjective that could never be used to describes today's ride and that is uneventful.

Well certainly not for me or Heather, for today was the day when we crashed. That right, we had a minor event.This was after a series of other minor mishaps however.

For from I picked up my bicycle in Hope Pastures, the front wheel was flat do Andrew was set to work to pump it up. Peter was riding with us to Maryland for the first time so hew was having the same difficulties we have all had on that first ride up those hills. At one point I was ahead and decided to turn back to look for the others. As I turned back I saw Andrew and made a circle to go back up the hill. That's when my front tire tripped me! At least that how I like to think of it since my tire was almost flat and again I had to prevail on Andrew to pump it.

As we approached bottom Maryland where we had seen the pocomania parade the week before and I was struggling carelessly up the hill in the middle of the road, I almost crashed into Andre and his bcdn of professional riders speeding down the hill. I in derstand they had ridden from Norbrook up to Peter's Rock and were on their way home. This near miss caused me to have to dismount at that point.

When we got to Maryland we found that some of the local people had beat us to the "swimming pool," so we joined them and had a glorious frolic in the ice cold water. Barry had suggested that since we are invading this small sleepy village on a regular basis and using their facilities, we should at least find a place to start ordering breakfast. So Howie has now made arrangements to start buying breakfast from "Coy" as of next week.

When we were ready to descend, lo and behold my front tire was really flat this time and with no Damit with us, we had nothing to fix it with. The men in the square were great however going to get patch and solution for us and soon we were back in business.

It was when we were on the return journey down the hill that the real drama occurred. We got to a spot where Howie had ordered some ackees from a young lady. I was in the front of my group and a man standing by the stall shouted to me to remember the ackees. I pulled over to the lef side to stop, not realising that Heather was right behind me. That's when we collided. My bicycle fell on top of her bicycle, she landed on her stomach and I landed on top of her!


It must have been quite a scene, but this as one of those occasions when no one was taking photographs so the greastest show on earth is unrecorded, except for this blog of course! The only thing hurt was our pride, thank heavens, but everyone had a great laugh.

The rest of the journey to Papine was uneventful so we bought breakfast and went up to Howie's house with the great view of Kingston and brought the day's ride to an appropiate finish after a delicious meal.

Maryland River

Well our Sunday ride has become a big hit, for no one I know can resist a great swimming hole. And our newly discovered "pool" just above the town of Maryland has now become a the place to be on a Sunday. So last Sunday we had twelve riders and two motor vehicles taking the enjoyable ride up there. The surprise was seeing my niece Coretta, her mother and children, David and Victoria for she had told me she was going to a party on Saturday night and would not be able to wake up in time. Well they did not wake up in time for the ride but they came up with Betty and Chin You.

I had psyched up myself all week that I would be jumping into the cold water and I did. Actually, if you don't allow the water to touch any part of your body beforehand but just jump straight in, its not so cold.

Barry took the ride for the first time since his spill coming off the hill some months ago. He did get a puncture however but since Damit is a boy' scout and is always prepared, he provided a patch and we got a lesson in how to patch a tyre. This time however we were deprived of Barry's usual spectacular spills. Grace had a hard time riding up the hill (as we have all had on our first try) but found a bench half way up on which frazzle out.

We all had a ball up at the river and back at Papine we went to our newly discovered breakfast place and on to Charles and Betty's home to fill it up and shoot the breeze. Sundays sure are getting better.

Chechnia and Women's rights

Yesterday I watched a special on BBC TV about the fate of women in Chechnia.

Chechnia was part of the old USSR and despite the attempts of some of the people there to gain independence from Russia, after much bloodshed, they failed.

The dominant religion in Chechnia is Muslim and we know how women are oppressed in such societies.The stark portrayal of what young girls have to undergo in that part of Russia as outlined in the documentary and the "don't care" attitude of the so-called police and upholders of law and order in Russia was absolutely frightening, considering that this is 2009 and not 1899.

What I found especially horrendous is the practice there where men have the freedom to kidnap off the streets in broad daylight, any woman they want to be their brides. These teenagers have absolutely no protection under the law and what was especially troubling is the fact the that older women, like the mothers in law, see nothing wrong with their sons getting brides by such means. The one woman who sought to fight against this practice and who formed a Human Rights group to try and protect the young women in that country, was murdered and of course, no serious investigation is being done to try and bring her murderers to Justice.

Every dayIi thank God that I was reincarnated in the western world!

Maryland, St. Andrew.

Our regular Sunday ride turned out to be quite pleasantly different today. This is because we not only discovered a great swimming hole, but got breakfast to boot.

As a matter of course, we had been riding up to Maryland which has a very long river and just above the village centre there is a section that you can ride right down into the river. That is where we usually went. Last week however I had observed that the villagers had dammed up a section of the river creating a very pleasant looking swimming hole with a waterfall to boot. Since I never swim in the freezing water and I was way behind all other riders, I didn't even bother to tell them about it.

This week however when we stopped in the village one of the villagers suggested that we try the new swimming spot and since I had seen it I was able to guide the courageous ones to it.You see this summer has been extremely hot even up in the normally cool hills of St. Andrew and apparently, some caring persons had put sand bags in the river to dam up a section so everyone could swim. IT is quite deep actually with one section being in excess of 6 feet (I am told) but one of the young men responsible for the innovation told us that they even have a lifeguard so that when the kids come out they can swim and not risk their lives.

Actually, I was the only chicken as I have always been allergic to cold water. Most of the group dived in in their clothes while others stripped down to their underwear. I am contemplatng taking along a towel and bathing suit next week to see if I can get the courage to jump in, for everyone else seems to have had a ball despite how cold the water was.

And would you believe to top it all, we ran into a colourful "Pocomania " parade in Lower Maryland, where the ladies in their red tie heads, literally stopped traffic to circle around in line, several times in the road.

When we got back down off the hill, instead of riding through the back of hope Gardens as usual, since everyone was dying of hunge , we decided to check if a new cook shop we had discovered open on Emancipation Day was open on Sundays. Happily it was as and Charles and Betty were once again our willing hosts .

I think this was our best non-out- of- town -ride to boot. See photos at; http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3220327&id=763366822#/album.php?aid=131505&id=763366822

Jamaica's 47th year of Independence.

On Thursday 6th August 2009, the little island of Jamaica became 47 years old and our exciting riding club "Fun and Thrills" became about 3 years old.What the heck. We really don't care how old we are, we are just determined to have all the fun, spills and thrills that we can!

So at about 6.30 am (later as usual than what we were told would be the start out time) 15 of us riders set out from our headquarters in Hope Pastures for Hellsire Beach in search of a good swim and a lovely breakfast. Of course this incluided the regulars, Charles ( head cook and bottle washer, benevolent dictator etc. etc.) Michael Williams, Michael Chuck, Howie, and of course me. Also present were the not so regulars, Andrew, David, Penny, Kevin, Stefan,Grace and Barry plus three, first timers...Johnhy Chuck, the president of the ladies Jamaica Hockey team and the president of the Gun Lobby. Damit joined us at Liguenea.

We rode down Hope Road, in to Trafalgar Road, down West King's House Road and on to Dunrobin Avenue, where Betty joined us. It was an easy, pleasant and basically uneventful ride along mandella Highway and then on to I95 with just one minor spill.

We thought we had it down pat by heading out early to Hellshire but we were shocked to see that dozens of other Jamaicans also had the same idea and the beach was already crowded. We were also surprised to see that young men in tee shirts with Hellsire Fishermen Coop printerd on them, had erected a gate at the entrance and were charging $50 per person to enter. They were also restricting the number of vehicles driving on to the beach which is good as that cut down on the traffic snarls and the ill temper which often accompnies such situations.

When we got there, breakfast which had been pre- arranged was not yet ready so we were able to get a dip in the warm, calm blue water. The breakfast was absolutely delicious...... fried fish and festival, green bananas, ackee and saltfish, fried plaintain, fried breadfrui. and lots of callalo. Lots of other persons drove over to join us for breakfast, including Lisa (with her two poodles), Spy and family, Fatman and family, Mitchum and others.

The food was really a winner then we went back into the glorious water for another couple hours.

Shortly after noon, we packed up the 17 bicycles into Howie's and Michael Chuck's pickups and we all piled into the other support vehicles for the ride home.

Driving upo Hope Road we saw a number of beautifully decorated trucks parked in front of Ranny Williams centre where the float parades to celebrate our independence was scheduled to begin.

For us, it was another great day of of fun, spills and thrills.