Year end 2013

Aloha,

                Where did it go? This whole year? Apparently once you cross the 50 year boundary it goes downhill from there on, which I must admit looks pretty well like it but we are all still relatively healthy and sane, at the mercy of both if anything.

                So the year began with our traditional annual vacation somewhere in the Caribbean, Anguilla BWI to be more precise, another island we discovered and once more fell in love with. It is a very small island located north of St-Martin or St Marteen if you are standing on the Dutch side, population of 15,000 souls, it is British and the people living on the island is a mixed bag of locally born Anguillans and surrounding islanders, lots of ex-pats from all over north America, Canada and Europe. But it again and again, reminds me our native island, starting from the fruits, trees, beaches, roads and traffic signs and roundabout. We felt at home to say the least and we drove on the left hand side of the road, British style!

Kitesurfing@ Sandy island

Click here to check out Nori's web site about Anguilla Nori happens to be a Canadian expat who used to live in Hudson Quebec.

                  The first rare exotic fruit we discovered, wait, let me rephrase, the first exotic fruit  I discovered , since I have an eye for these trees, is the famous “Masson”, tons of those fruits are left to rot on the trees , the locals don’t eat them and needless to say ,we had our favourite tree where we stopped every day to pick and choose from, when I say pick, 

Part of our daily harvest

all we needed to do was to spread a towel and shake some branches and the ripe ones would fall in the towel, as easy as this!!! And at the hotel we stayed at, there was a gardener who was tending a nice garden of vegetables and fruit trees, his name was __________ I have a blank, a senior moment as my boss would put it. 




Hendrix and coconuts at will

Anyhow he had a couple of avocado trees, papaya, pomegranate, fruit citerre (ambarella) , coronsol, Coeur de boeuf, Jatte etc… So he became our good friend, every morning I would walk around his garden and pick anything I felt like tasting. Hendrix Dumas was his name, a native of Montserrat, so I instantly asked him if he was related to Alexander?   Mr. Dumas, was growing all these fruit trees, organically, I must precise, but never really had any use for them except for the vegetables and herbs he supplied to the kitchen.

                         Anguillans are really nice people and most importantly respectful despite their poverty, this Island is reputable for being expensive, for tourist that is,  the hotels and restaurants can be very expensive as well as the real estate, but we found ways around it. We looked out for local stores, restaurants, taverns  and places where normal tourists would be wary to hang out and let me tell you this, the locals cook the best food on the island, there was a particular place we drove by every day on our way to Savannah bay, the name immediately attracted our attention, “Joan and Cyril’s barbecue pit stop”, so we promised to at least stop and question them about their food, they prepare the most delicious ribs, daily catch (fish) and the best Johnny cakes on the island. And we made it a must to meet the owners, Joan and Cyril.. just so I can tell them about Jane and Cyril… and unfortunately I was not too impressed when I discovered that the “Partner” Cyril , who happens to be a filthy rich American from New Jersey, spends most of his evenings getting drunk in his restaurant, same table, same drinks, the good thing though, he gets so drunk that he cannot drive himself back home , let alone stand up and walk, he needed help to climb into his Hummer, he was driven back by  his chauffeur who happened to be a French expat and who also happened to have lived in Mauritius for quite a few years!!! We eventually talked and exchanged with the Frenchie, an artist as he claimed, and got invited to visit his art gallery.

His residence served as the art gallery, located in a very nice area of the island with a GREAT view of Shoal bay, the view on its own is worth a million dollars! So we walked in to see his “art”…..  Gosh! If this guy thinks he is an artist, I must be Picasso!  Frenchie must be smoking his lot of good grass every day!!

                           Needless to say that we ate at Joan and Cyril’s  on numerous occasions, on days we had to stop in the morning and order the fish for the evening since they had to go and buy it from the fisherman at the harbour, how much better can this be? I am sure you are all curious to know how they cook their fish. Simple, grilled on the barbecue pit with a “sauce rougaille” Anguillan style!! You feel the taste in your mouth?!? Jalsa Tamassa!  To top it off, a whole fish with rice and beans including drinks.. $12!!

                         One late afternoon, while driving back to our hotel after a full day of kitesurfing, we went through the main town, “The Valley” as they call it and as usual, I got a glimpse of a small local “Tabagie” with the so familiar bunch of bananas hanging across the window and with my sharp eye, succeed to quickly Identify the type.I pulled over abruptly asking Pinpin to go get some of those bananas. I kind of had the picture in my brain that it was the best ever Bananne Zinzli !A few minutes later Pinpin arrived with the whole lot of bananas! She bought them ALL, I mean ALL, there must have been at least 50 bananas, we had bananas for the rest of the week, they were extremely ripe, tree ripe, delicious and flavorful. I think that the store owner must have hit a record sale of bananas for the week, if not for the year!



Savannah bay with the girls

                          Anguilla also happens to have the most beautiful beaches per square kilometer and what really impressed us was the fact that you hardly meet anyone on those beaches, we spent lots of time on one of the most remote beaches during our two weeks stay on Anguilla and I am stretching it if I say that we met a dozen different people, local and tourists included on that particular beach. So if you want to feel like Robinson or Eve, depending on your tastes, this is the place to be, our roots were starting to grow and our toes started to palmate.

So life was beautiful, away from the stress, away from all the hectic lifestyle, we really started to appreciate walking barefoot, in shorts and without shirts! But all good things as ususal had to come to an end, back home to all our problems, starting with the water pipe that froze at the Café since we ran out of heating oil, what a way to come back home!

                          Caroline, having completed High school decided that she wanted to try her wings travelling to Europe with a Friend then to Mauritius to join the Sin-Chan’s and the gang for a wedding, plus she really wanted to go visit Mauritius , she was only 5 years old when she last visited the mother land. So that was a good occasion for her to reconnect, she spent six weeks on the island with the family, stayed at Corinne’s and Bernard’s residence and at Villa Superina in Pereybere, while we were working hard in Canada to pay her bills and run her business. Now, as for the time she spent with the Canadian gang on the island, all I recall is that it was quite an experience moving 12 Chinese and one Italian around, it is well known that Chinese are slow and hard to get moving, more so when they are on vacation!  I fell to the ground laughing when I heard that the trip to ile aux cerf was mostly spent moving people around, eat, eat , eat , then spend one hour on the beach then move, move, move back to base camp. I would have gone nuts! Or would have stayed on the island and swim back if needed, but I understood we missed some fun; we will definitely catch up some day.

She also spent time in London at Jenny’s and Rosy’s before flying to the Island or I should say she used their house as a motel if anything, thanks cousins for taking care of the girls!

                 Since Nov.5^th, our child has officially moved out of the house, well moved out is stretching it since she calls back home almost every day and come back home on weekends to do her grocery, she is living with cousin Valerie in her new Condo on corner Sherbrooke and Decarie, I cannot recall the last time I have made that many trips to downtown!! To go move this, move that, fix this, install that, inspect this and the usual why does it not work, or to decipher the most famous “ Dad I think WE have a problem”. You all know how much I HATE going to town? But what can I say, I thought my years of fixing stuff would slow down as I grow older but it seems not, I am the go-to person either be at work or at home,  I guess there is always one in the family.
                          Our son has turned seven years old last summer; he is starting to complain and moan like an old man, he is definitely wearing down. When Caro moved out, he was depressed, he knows when someone is missing from the house and when I leave for my annual hunting trip, he would sit in front and stare out the door for hours until someone tells him that I am not coming back for a while, only then would he go upstairs to sleep, smart you think?

We always say, the only thing that he is missing is his ability to talk. His new friend lately, is our neighbors cat, this huge black cat has been pestering him almost all summer, she would come and stare inside the main door and scratch at it to attract his attention, in the very beginning, Pnut would rush out full speed trying to scare her off, but she would stand her grounds until he gave up. Today they are best friends, a black cat and a white dog, what a contrast.

                 Did you know that the Café Campagne has hit its 10 year anniversary last November? Yes 10 years of labor from Iron Chef Pinpin !! There was no special celebration except for some freebees that were given away to customers, such as small cup-cakes and Madeleines freshly baked with the usual love of Iron chef Pinpin, 10 years of wear and tear and wear starting to be predominant in our life, it’s a lot of work and a lot of hours but the wife is happy.

              October took me to Koln or Cologne in Germany for a business trip, it is the K-Show, the largest and most popular plastic fair, everything related to plastics and rubber, kind of the Victoria’s secret show of plastic!! Well Cologne, city of the famous 4711 Eau de Cologne I learned that the original “Eau de cologne” was actually invented by an Italian by the name of Johann marina Farina and 4711 is actually the civic address where this fragrance was being manufactured by another German and there was quite a dispute regarding the origins and use of the name “Eau de Cologne”.

The famous Rhine

 Two things that struck me during my visit in October(fest), you don’t ask for a beer in October, you are served a beer as soon as you walk in a tavern and you have to say “stop” when you want no more beer or else it keeps coming. So in an hour, with the group of 9 people, there was about 80 glasses of beer that were spent! The other thing that struck me was the transportation system, the train and tram  is so efficient and fast, the complete opposite of the north American lousy, inefficient, polluting (in every sense) and ridiculously expensive air transportation network. When are we going to learn? Never I presume, since the dirty $$ talks.

                            My last trip and event of the year took me to Puerto Morelos, me, myself and I; Caro could not make it because of school exams and Pinpin neither because of obvious reasons. Puerto Morelos is a small fishing village located south of Cancun and north of Playa del Carmen, cute little place away from all major cities and tourist activity but one cannot avoid noticing the high rise buildings looking north, for those who missed it, the wedding was “exquisite” as Pearl would put it, it was the wedding of Ti-Rouge and Rambo and we were surrounded by “exquisite” relatives and friends. Needless to say that everything was perfectly cast, starting with the bachelorette and bachelor party, the weather, the evening ceremony on the beach and all the various activities during our short stay at Azul beach hotel.

                 What hit me was that I never expected to find that many and various “adult and clothing optional” hotels  in this area, starting with the one next door where we saw plenty of ugly spaghettis, papayas and bananas hanging freely and not I am not talking about an orchard here. After being exposed to this, I strongly believe that human beings look much more attractive, elegant and sexy in clothing as opposed to being nude.

 I am so happy that the lovebirds are now wed and living their hectic and happy life, not too happy that they left me hanging since their move, I had to find other riding buddies for the weekends, but props to both for the moves they  decided to make.

           To all, be safe, keep being active and keep moving, stop being comfortable, if you are too comfortable, laziness settles in.. plus many other things we avoid to admit.

You have surely heard this from me, as my good friend Jean always puts it, there is less years ahead me than behind me, I assume it applies to many of us, if not it will for sure, so what shall you do about this?

Happy holidays, be active and safe!

The Wan’s from the boonies.