Bubs, themes, odd spot and New Year resolutions

In this blog post.

·         Themes - 3 wheels; Kidner Jeremy’s usefulness; cross (dresser).

·         Personal and Family - Bub update; mutts, hoses and other things.

·         Odd Spot – After the boat.

·         Current Affairs – Goodbye Holden.

·         New Year’s Resolutions

Bub update

Well, here is Sierra Madeline at 9 days and 10 days old.  Don’t be fooled by the peaceful, lovable photos.  For BK and Mark it’s been exhausting. I just keep picking the dog poop up off the lawn.  Nappies and breast feeding are all a bit too much for the old boy.

9 days old - dreaming

10 days old - angelic

I have been mulling over some themes for this little blog and would appreciate some ideas.  So far I have "KJ's usefulness", “That’s the Way the Locals like it”, “The Ritz and the Shitz” (extremes) and “Odd Spots”.  I will also comment on current events from time to time.  Any ideas?

Kidner Jeremy’s Usefulness

So, now I’ve mastered the art of picking up dog poop from the lawn, I thought I’d promote myself to “the person in charge of holding a long plank while the guy who knows how to work a circular saw cuts it”.  Nope.  It seems a concrete block is preferred.  Sad when one realises one is less use that a discarded concrete block.  Ahh. Such is life.  Now, where’s the dog poop?

Less useful than a concrete block!

Cross

We’ve seen Cross Polos, cross branding, cross cook and hot cross fish’n chips and now, a cross dresser (snapped at a roundabout). The picture’s a bit fuzzy – he was legging it a bit as we drove up to the roundabout!  If you have an example on “cross” post a comment.

Caribbean Cross Dresser Crossing the Roundabout

Three Wheels on - Everything

Many things seem to only come with three wheels in the Cayman when they are clearly designed for four or more. I wonder how the earth mover functions with one wheel missing. “Load it up towards the front mate; got one wheel missing.” Mrs K enquired about a high chair for sale and was told it only had 3 wheels, “but it balanced OK”.  We bought a second hand crib – you guessed – 3 wheels. We went for a drink at a beach bar and - two wheels on my barbie!  There must be a song in that somewhere.  Any ideas?

The Brits made a lot of 3 wheelers perhaps because of licensing regulations and a notorious example was the Reliant Robin, which literally fell over going round corners, brilliant in a country where there are more corners than straight roads. Here’s Mr Bean’s take on it, or rather “overtake” on it.   http://youtu.be/II1U-85lzkQ

Personal and Family

Of Mutts, Hoses and The Golden Stream

For a dog that doesn’t like water, BK’s mutt, “Badness” loves to chase the water stream coming out of the hose. Going for a walk with the dog when it thought JK’s golden stream was the same as that from hose. Never mind “Badness”; what about “Dampness”?

Odd Spot

Pulling out into the traffic, Mrs K sings out “You can pull out after the boat”? She was right.   

Current Affairs

Goodbye Holden - Rant for Petrol Heads

Many Aussies will lament the passing of Holden.  Pretty well everyone else will ask “What’s a Holden?” If they hadn’t kept it alive with subsidies for years it would have fallen off the perch long ago. (For younger readers, this is the classic Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch. (http://youtu.be/npjOSLCR2hE)

Brits will be familiar with the decline of a locally managed car manufacturing business having seen Triumph, Leyland, BMC, Morris, Austin and so on be subsumed into one money losing conglomerate after another until the Germans and the Japanese sorted out all the production mess.  Britain is now producing more cars than Germany thanks to an injection of £6Bn of mostly private funds and the emergence of new markets in Russia and China. The Brits may be able to design them and make them but they couldn’t run a business doing this.   

I had a look at what people thought were the worst cars of all time.  One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Non Brits have not had the pleasure of driving a Morris Marina; this list from www.caradvice.com.au has a few Brit cars in it Jaguar (2), Morgan, and Aston Martin get a mention, but I have had the pleasure this week of driving a big, battered American pick-up truck.  It truly is something else.  Prod the thing and the bonnet rears up like a mad thing as the machine takes off.  Small fry such as Hondas with no paint and their chins on the ground defer to it at roundabouts as they should.  They just ignore the Yarris.  Not the big Chevy.  It would take a few minutes to settle down on its suspension after running a pebble in the road as the whole aircraft carrier-sized thing has no damping I have been able to discern mainly because it last had a service before Adam got his driving licence.  The sign on the dash begs “Change Engine Oil” and “Service Due”.   I’m looking for “Help” sometime soon. Perfect.

New Year’s Resolutions

What are your resolutions and have you managed to get past half of January and still keep to them?

Here are mine

1. ·         Less sugar and associated sweets stuff in particular the coffee and a bun ambush; 
2.              More swim and cycle – it’s easy here in Cayman; 6 miles to 7 Mile beach, swim up the beach, jog or walk back then cycle back.  Too easy.  Well, not that easy….

Here’s a target – at some point I would like to swim across North Sound, about 6 miles.