April Activities

It's been a lazy month ..... OK, OK, I've been lazy, not the month. We're sort of settling into Bermuda's spring weather. Which, according to Bermudians is not very warm. But most seem to like the cool days, and I'm sure that once the really warm weather sets in, we'll look back and realize just how nice it is now.

We visited one of the very beautiful south shore beaches. As you can see from the pictures, lots of people were in the water. We were surprised -- actually we didn't even take our swim wear with us. I only went in ankle-deep and the water seemed warm enough. I took several dozen pictures of some very scenic coves, but for some reason or other, almost none turned out. It's a new camera, and in the very bright light, I must have had one of the settings wrong. Here are some that were OK.





Last weekend we went whale watching. Maybe whale searching is a better term. It was an all-day affair. We left the dock around 9:30am and didn't return until 4:30. Here are some photos taken during the trip out of the the harbor.




I think we ended up going about 20 or 25 miles outside the reefs. We learned that the whales migrate from the Caribbean to the northern Atlantic every year during March and April. We were fortunate enough to see several. Photographing them, of course, is something else. I have a new-found appreciation for professional wildlife photographers. They need lots of patience, top notch equipment, and probably a bit of luck. And good balance when you're in a boat. Here' my stab at it:







Yesterday we went to the Bermuda Exhibition, which is sort of like a county fair minus the midway rides. Lots of animal and plant exhibits. And lots of people and food. Pictures are of the "dog agility" event which was kind of fun to watch. The guy in the blue shirt works with Kim. He had two dogs entered and one of them won the grand prize. In the picture he's just warming the dog up. They have to run an obstacle course, sort of like what's shown in the second picture.



Today has been a lazy day at home. Skies were clear, temperatures were around 70. A lot of the lazing was around pool, and I even ventured in for the first swim of the season. Well, "swim" is a stretch. It was dive in and get out. The water's got to warm up a bit before it'll be comfortable. I could not have waded slowly in.

Cheers for now.

Our Den Furniture - Chicago

Here are a couple of pics of the latest additions to the Chicago condo. We're really happy with the results.





We also made the first page of the cabinetmaker's website. If you're interested in that sort of thing you can check it out, along with a lot of his other work, at http://trimlinecustomdesigns.com. For more details of what he did for us, go to http://trimlinecustomdesigns.com/id1.html, then scroll down to the pics labeled "Entertainment System in smoked brushed aluminum", followed by "Home Office in horizontal rift walnut".

The guy does some really high quality work. And his prices are reasonable.

Home Again

Did I just call Bermuda home? There’s a milestone, although I’m not sure I really meant it. As you might guess, I’m still working on getting settled in this country. I think Kim is much closer (at getting settled), but then she’s got much more structure in her life that I do.

Got back to the island yesterday afternoon, went through customs and immigration (it was painfully slow this time), paid the exorbitant duty on those new things I was bringing in, and got home (there’s that word again) without incident. Everything in the house seemed to be in order. I turned on the water pump and the water heater, both of which we shut down when we’re gone for any length of time. Since Kim went directly to Geneva from Chicago, the place has been empty for about a week.

Then, since the cupboards and the refrigerator were pretty well cleaned out, I did some grocery shopping. Had dinner (well, I sort of noshed over the sink), watched a little TV (had to see who got ousted from American Idol), then started getting ready for bed. Turned on the bathroom tap and …… no water. Damn. It worked earlier, although I did notice that the pressure wasn’t the greatest. So I went out to the pump room to see if there was something obviously wrong. I couldn’t get the pump to work and couldn’t figure out what the problem was, so decided to wait to deal with it in the morning.

Well, turns out that the system merely lost it prime. We (the plumber and I) got everything working again, and I can now shower. Only problem of course, is that we don’t know what caused the problem in the first place. The system has been idle in the past without incident, so why now? Even the landlord says it’s happened in the past, but doesn’t know why.

Such are the mysteries and vagaries (and frustrations) of Bermuda life.