Emancipation Weekend

This Emancipation weekend was a real Fun and thrills affair.As usual we had our Saturday morning ride and breakfast and developed the action plan for the long weekend. 

F&T ites lyming at surfing

On Saturday night we had a party at Howies house for the July members and boy did my foot get stuck in my mouth! You see they have this Book Club which I am not a member of but I arrived at the party before their session was over. Charles introduced  me to a man named Horace  Fisher  and I thought he said he was an author, not the author of the book of the month, Fish kill. So when someone asked me if I had read it, I declared that I heard it was boring so would not waste my time reading it.

(I did hear that) Embarrassing moment. Anyway, why would I want to read a book called fish kill? After that moment, I declared then that I  would never again speak for the rest of the night, but you know that impossible right?i After they broke up, I had quite a pleasant conversation with him and all is well. Hope he does not take me seriously and stop writing.!

Sunday it was to Coy as usual in Maryland, then in the afternoon it was to Yallahs, St. Thomas, to watch surfing, in fact an international surfing meet to boot. Yes, in St. Thomas Jamaica!

Maurice and a friend of his rode off into the sunset, sorry, sunlight to Yallahs at 11.30 and and we left about 12.15 pm but by the time we arrived, they were already  there. Man that Maurice must have been a bicycle in his past life!

The surfing was a new experience for me but nothing like what we see on tv, for Jamaica just does not have the huge waves necessary to make a spectacular splash in this type of sport. But all the participants were enthusiastic and did well.

Charles, Maurice and I decided to take am sea bath and while Maurice was able to wade out far enough to float in peace, both Charles and I had a problem getting past the rough waves which tossed us around as if we were made of straw.

It was a lovely day however as we walked around and socialised and sampled all kinds of food and Juju gave us the dessert in the form oft. a huge jack fruit.

This 1671 lb bull came first at Denbeigh

Monday morning I went for my usual walk and listened with one ear to hear if the planned trip to Denbeigh in Clarendon was still on.  That is where the Jamaica Agricultural society stages its annual farmers show. We had originally wanted to go on the newly restored train which had a special excursion, but that fizzed out as the return trip was not till 6pm, there were logistical problems with parking etc and besides when I heard Digicell would be sponsoring the train ride, that did it for me since anything they sponsor draws crowds of free loaders in search of free phone cards. Also since the train was out, I wasn't particularly enthused about going. Besides I had bad memories of Denbeigh since the last time I went there,  about 20 years ago, they towed away my car and I had to take a minibus to Four Parts police station to retrieve it and had sworn off Denbeigh for life. Anyway, its a good thing we decided not to go by train as the reports are that it was oversold.  We saw the train there however and were able to take a number of photographs as it is really attractive, decked out in Jamaica's colours.

Anyway Howie called about 10.30 am to say they were still going so naturally I decided tot accompany them. Maurice picked me up and we joined the convoy of three other vehicles outside Michele's gate.I am so happy I went for it was a really nice day. Yes we spent a lot of time just standing around and waiting while others went off on private jaunts, but as no one was in a real hurry it was no big thing. I was really impressed with the winning bull which weighted a whopping 1671 lbs and the goat display was also impressive. The parish stalls were not particular innovative or outstanding but the samples of rum punch and flavoured coffee we got at various points allowed us to overlook those imperfections.

As Janelle  had to get back to Kingston for a function, we eventually dragged ourselves out at minutes to three, but despite the need to hurry, we could not pass the coconut vendor just down the road.

When I got back to Kingston it was off to a jerk pork session by at Harry's place. Harry is such a pork fanatic that he actually built a smoke house at the back of his home and relishes overpowering his friends with smoked jerk pork....hmm delicious. What better way to spend  absolutely wonderful weekend?