A rare trip to Dartmouth - Brief Catchups and a Nightmare Journey Home

I needed to go down to Dartmouth on Friday morning. I had to meet an old friend to sort out some things for the lodge. 

I left about 0900, and the traffic wasn't too bad on the way down. I picked up my friend from East Allington, where he lives. I have been there many times, but it has been ten years since I last went.

I first arrived at Dartmouth just before Easter in 1981. Fresh-faced and straight from the Royal Marines School of Music, Britannia Royal Naval College was my first draft as a qualified Musician. I was back and forth to the town for the next thirty-five years. 

My wife and I moved to East Devon in 2016. It was a big move to the unknown for us both then, and it wasn't easy at first. We are settled now and will not be moving too far anytime soon.

As I drove into town, I saw blue flashing lights on the other side of the college way. It is a well-known position for there to be a speed camera to catch the unwary driver, but this seemed a bit more. As I travelled past at the statutory thirty miles per hour, which was not easy on that hill, I could see what was happening.

We were lucky to find a parking spot on the north embankment for two hours. Interestingly, I am currently rewriting a couple of scenes from my novel, which I've staged on that embankment and the pontoons on the opposite side of the river. I've taken a bit of writer's liberty writing those scenes, and if you know the North Embankment at Dartmouth, you'll have to suspend your knowledge for a few minutes when you read it. 

It was a nice walk down the riverfront, and when we got to the bank, the staff recognised me. I then spent a rather embarrassing couple of minutes trying to remember their last address on record for me. With a little prompt, I eventually remembered, thankfully.

Then I recognised a lady who came into the bank. I worked with her husband at Sandquay, the boatyard at the bottom of the naval college. Holger was our store manager; we were very fortunate to have him; he was vastly experienced and always kept us from going short of materials and stores. Being Danish and speaking a few other languages, he was a huge asset when we had to obtain prices and orders from abroad. It was lovely to chat with him for a short time outside of the bank. We could have talked for hours over a few beers. It was good to see him in good health and sounding really chirpy.

A little later, after we had completed our requirements at the bank, the postman came to the door as we were leaving. It wasn't Postman Pat but a former RM colleague of mine, Dickie. Many of you reading this will know who that is. It was good to have another quick chat.

A lovely coffee, a piece of carrot cake, and later, a return walk to the car and blow me down if I didn't meet another of my former colleagues from Sandquay. That was one period I enjoyed after leaving the RMs. The ten years I spent at the yard were a great time, and it was sad when the MOD didn't renew the lease for the site. It is pleasing to know that the guys we left behind are still working there in a smaller capacity than when we were made redundant, but they are still doing sterling service for the RN college, albeit with another company. 

The drive back to East Devon has prompted this week's blog. It was the usual drag to get out to the A38 from Dartmouth; anyone who has made that journey will remember it well. I had the radio on, and just as I pulled onto the A38 at Buckfastleigh, the traffic report came on. Sure enough, a few miles ahead of me at Drumbridges was a hold-up. I drove as far as possible and wanted to avoid getting stuck in a hold-up. I dodged off the A38 towards Newton Abbot just as the traffic started building up.

I thought I had been clever, but to my horror, the town had traffic queues. I was stuck in that traffic for quite some time. 

Once I got through the town and onto the A380, I was on my way again. It was the same journey home I made when working in Newton Abbot. To my horror, when I went over the River Exe, the traffic built up again to my exit off to the A30. 

After about twenty minutes, I got through that hold-up and on to the last leg of the homeward journey. It was going well…until it built up to two lanes of traffic a couple of miles from the Honiton turnoff.

It was nice to be back home, but I was tired. I have heard it takes a week to recover per time zone after travelling. We were six time zones away in Mexico, but I think we are still halfway across the Atlantic.

Have a great week, everybody.

Back to work next week after a sojourn to Mexico - but what next?

We arrived home from our holiday in Mexico on Wednesday, finally going to bed 33 hours after getting up at 0600 on Tuesday, Mexican time.

We had a wonderful two weeks in which we did lots of relaxing on the beach or beside the pools. We also achieved the dream of visiting the World Heritage Site, Chitchen Itza. But more of our Mexico in a future blog post.

I have a new to-do app, Omni Focus, and my note for writing this week's blog is 'Back to work next week—but what next?'

It's back to work time next Tuesday. Next week or the week after, I have my yearly Personal Development Review (PDR). It is a known fact that at 62, I'm not really into personal development—well, not at work. This version of a PDR wants you to write goals. My goal is to get to retirement in one piece, and that's what I intend to write about. It will still get me to write a goal for the forthcoming year.

I had intended to retire at 60, but that wasn't possible due to the combination of the 2010 bank crashes, when I was made redundant, followed a few years later by the debacle of Brexit and a Global Pandemic. Baffling government decisions make my state pension age 67 five years away.

I have been fortunate to have received my MOD service pension throughout this time. I am building up an NHS pension, and I need to reconnect with a pension pot I contributed to when I worked with BAE Systems. Unfortunately, that is proving more easily said than done.

But what do I do next? 

We have plans to travel later this year and next, and continuing to work is the sensible thing to do to support that.

I have the option to request flexible working hours with my line manager. Currently, I work 37.5 hours 5 days in 7 days and one weekend in four, for which we receive 'enhancements'. 

I could suggest reducing that to 30 hours and keeping the weekend work. That will give me an extra day off in the week to devote to writing. That would be productive, and getting my novel(s) into publishing could also be profitable.

The downside would be less annual leave pro-rata, but with some creativity, the extra day off could compensate for that at times of leave. There are pros and cons in every decision.

That is what I'm thinking about at the moment. The delightful location of our Mexican holiday was relaxing, but it also made me think about the future. It is time for more me/us time. After all, we're only young once.

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https://stuartbilverstone.substack.com/

Another wonderful week, but a bit frustrating and annoying for one brief moment

Hola and greetings from the Mexican Caribbean coast once again.

My wife and I are having a wonderful time here. Coming to this beautiful part of the world is a real privilege. It is truly a place that needs to be nurtured, and from its sounds, the government, local governments, and the tourist industry have the place in good hands.

My paternal Grandparents made their last working home for a couple of years in Mexico, in a place that escapes me, much further north towards the US border. My Grandfather was an engineer, and his company, now called The Ashmore Group, built a blast furnace in the mid-1970s.

 

One of the many reasons we chose to come to Mexico was to visit Chichen Itza, the World Heritage Site. That led to a major disappointment on Thursday morning, but more of that later.

Our first trio of the week was to Coba and Mayan Shaman and home. We also visited and swam in a magical underground cenote.

Our trip picked us up at 0630, about half an hour later than planned (we'll hear about a similar problem later). Our guide for the day, Raul, was very apologetic but a knowledgeable host.

To put this in the context of the history of Coba and the Mayans, the Mayan Culture stems from BC times, or whatever we call those times today. The Mexican Government developed the Cancun area, where our hotel was situated in the early 1970s, and this area and beyond was jungle. There were reports of the site in 1842, but it was in the 1930s and 40s before it would be thoroughly investigated. Coba was a major city with 50 thousand inhabitants at its height. It had strong links to major cities in Guatemala and military collaborations.

Walking or rather riding around on a tuk-tuk (poor chap), the site as a whole extends to 80 square miles. We certainly needed more time to go that far. We visited the main pyramid. It is interesting to note that all the pyramids around the globe appear at about the same time. We also visited one of the two ball courts. Historians considered these courts used for religious ceremonies rather than as a sport.

Last Friday was our tenth wedding anniversary. Before the group swam in the cenote, we visited a Mayan Shamen for a blessing. He blessed our wedding anniversary as a special gift, making our visit memorable.

Afterwards, we visited a Mayan family home in Coba village. The lady taught us how to make tortillas, and in exchange, we offered apples. They love apples, but they are not often available to them, and us being able to get them from the hotels makes them very happy.

On Sunday, we made a trip to Playa Del Carmen. A local jewellery company had put on the transport, so we had to spend the first 45 minutes there- a bit like some of the trips we had when in the RMs. We then spent two hours on the tourist street in Playa Del Carmen. We needed the ATM and a visit to a pharmacist, and then we had a couple of rather lovely cocktails. We tried to buy a couple of small bottles of Tequila, the ones with the grub in the bottle, but it was past 5 O'clock on a Sunday, and they were not permitted to sell alcohol after that time.

Then we come to the thorny subject of our trip to Chichen Itza. We had booked this trip on the first morning we arrived. It was why we chose this trip, and we were excited to be going. Our rep noted all our trips on a piece of paper for us, and 0600 was the time for this particular trip. We also had the ticket with 0600 on it as well. We got ourselves out of bed at 0450 and ready for the day. We went down to the reception at 0550 and waited. Buses came and went, but we were still waiting for our bus. At 0630, one of the Bell Boys approached us with a piece of paper. It then became apparent that the trip was due to leave at 0500. The bus arrived at 0520 and left at 0530. We were devastated and angry; we were both tearful. This memorable trip had been cruelly pulled from under us.

Kathy contacted the UK end of the company, but we had to wait three hours for the rep to work in the hotel. She said we sent you a message on the app, but they didn't; it was in a chat room that we didn't use. She then phoned to see if we could be re-booked, and we said we were not paying any extra. It ended with, 'This should be okay for Sunday, but you must realise this is a big organisation'. I had not spoken to this point, but I left the rep with no illusion that we were happy. They needed to sort their communications out correctly, and what she had come up with was an excuse and not a reason for the problem. An hour later, we received a text saying we were re-booked for Chichen Itza on Sunday and needed to be at the reception at 0450.

So there we are. We will be going to Chechen Itza on Sunday. We can have a lazy day by the pool on Monday before leaving here at lunchtime on Tuesday.

It's time for PT in the pool, and then we're on holiday, aren't we?

Have a great writing week, everybody, and I'll catch up with you all next week.

All the way from the Caribbean Coast of Mexico

Today, Thursday, March 9th. I'm writing this from the balcony of our hotel in Akumal Bay on the Cancun peninsular in Mexico. Looking out at the turquoise-blue sea of the Caribbean is a surreal outlook. We're six hours behind the UK, so it is strange when notifications come through on devices for things happening back home later in the day.

It is 0600, that's 1200, back in the UK, and the hotel is starting to wake up. The workers are busy ensuring the beach and pool areas are up to standard. The beach is particularly challenging as an onshore wind brings seaweed from the fields into the bay, which feeds this diverse ecological area of the world. Out in the bay live three species of Turtles and Manatees. We have witnessed a sting ray already coming close to the shore. 

The bird life is diverse. We have already spotted Pelicans flying over. Now, that was surreal, and now an Agouti is walking across the pool deck as I write this. Last night, while walking, a Coati dashed across in front of us. We witnessed a Hooded Oriole flying around the trees, and there were several Great Tailed Grackles. They are the Blackbird/Crows of Mexico, and they are pretty chatty and almost tame as they come quite close to us—nothing to do with the food we have, naturally. We walked along the beach this morning, and one displayed to a female: it is spring.

While back and forth from the beach this morning, two large Iguana's were around the pool. The biggest of the two saw me coming and scuttled underneath one of the poolside beds.

The waters of Akumal Bay are hot, hopefully not too much of a global warming indicator. Today, we donned our snorkels and explored the bay's waters. We saw a few fish and the beginnings of the coral reef, which is a little too far out for our swimming abilities.

Tomorrow (Friday), we are off on our first trip to the Coba pyramids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coba), the tallest in the world. We are meeting a Mayan Shaman and will have a blessing for our wedding anniversary and a swim in the sacred cenote (a sacred well formed from limestone). Hopefully, we will see more wildlife there. We are then due to meet a Mayan family and make tacos with them. They have asked to take apples with us to give to the family. We're going to Chichen Itza next week and swimming in a cenote there.

It's early days into our long-awaited holiday and tenth wedding anniversary. We have a lot to be thankful for, the trip of a lifetime, for me at least.

I scheduled this correctly to publish at the usual time of 0700 on a Saturday, all being well.

I'm sure that there will be more to report next week.

The next few weeks

 

I have been trying to write less about my writing exploits in this blog than I had initially started out and more on varied subjects. I have concentrated more on my writing for the weekly Substack email.

I will be away for a couple of weeks after this weekend, and as it is the beginning of the month, I wanted to update you on my writing plans.

I am rewriting 'Beasting Dartmoor', my first novel draft. At first, it was proving slow, and the motivation needed to be more on point. No worries, I have been back on form these last few weeks. This week's productivity has amounted to several thousand words back into the novel. I'm now close to 11,000 words rewritten. I have taken advantage of my half-hour break at work and have used my time in the evenings. Within the next few weeks, I will have an idea of when I should complete this part of the writing process, and I can then start the next.

My cosy crime novel has taken a back seat to the rewrite. I may be inspired to write more for it over the next few weeks. I also have a short story, which, out of the three projects, is the most pressing. It's strange how 1500 words can take so much time. But I have a deadline, and I must get it done. I also have a plan for a third novel from that short story. 

I have yet to get too far with setting up my website. I might have somebody complete it, but I must consider it more.

I will expand on the plan for the next few months in my Substack this week. 

As I will be away for the next couple of weeks, there may be a few ad hoc blogs during the week. Please keep an eye out for them.

Have a good week, everybody, and many thanks for your continued support of the blog.

Inspired by a Facebook post - A little tale of my Grandfathers

 

I was born in 1962, just seventeen years after the end of World War Two. That was barely a generation away and was indeed still in the memories of my grandparent's generation.

My paternal Grandfather, Donald, was a Shepherd and Farmworker and was considered a preserved status for conscription, although I do believe that he was in the local Home Guard (he didn't appear in Dad's Army).

My maternal Grandfather, Les, was a T/Sgt Churchill Tank Commander during the battle for Normandy. He didn't talk much about the war; after reading about it, I can understand why. But there were two incidents that he did very occasionally.

It is worth writing about Grandfather's background and the Churchill tank to understand what happened then.

Grandfather was a Yorkshireman and was married to Beatrice Mary (my Grandmother). By the time of conscription, they had a family of two daughters: Cicely, my mother, was born in late 1940, followed a couple of years later by Sister Lois. Like many South Yorkshiremen, Grandfather had gone 'down the pit' in their younger days. He had been a policeman in his time, too. I'm a bit vague on the dates; I have a family history, but it is currently in the loft.

The Churchill Tank was hailed as a saviour at the battle of Normandy, but it had a difficult start to its operational life in the rest of the campaign. It was heavily involved in the ill-fated Dieppe Raid. Although it had been designed with conditions similar to World War One in mind, the shingle beach and overwhelming firepower of the Germans at Dieppe led to a less successful operation outcome. 

The Churchill was a Medium/Heavy Infantry Tank. Nearly six thousand were produced for the war effort. Their primary purpose was to support infantry advances. Initially hampered by being fitted with a two-pound gun, but later variants, Mk 3's and 4's, were improved with a six-pound gun. Other variants, named Crocodiles, were equipped with flame throwers and towed a tanker of thickened gasoline for the flame thrower. The Germans feared these.

Grandfather's regiment/battalion landed on D-Day plus three and was pitched straight into the battle. By the end of the battle in August 1944, Grandfather's battalion was decimated to the extent that it was amalgamated with another. 

My Grandfather told the story of being in a field when a German Tiger Tank came down the road, passing the gateway into the field. If you were unaware, Normandy, covered by the brocade, similar to the Devon Banks we see here, could have been better tank terrain. 

Grandfather continued by pulling his tank out onto the road behind the Tiger, knowing that things would not end well if the Tiger turned on them. They had one shot, quite literally.

An aimed shot from Churchill's main gun hit the Tiger on the joint between the turret and the hull, removing the turret cleanly.

This story impressed me as a young man. Years later, I was reading a book about the Churchill Tank in the same battle, and it was written that there was an account that was precisely what my Grandfather told me. It was the only recorded action where a Churchill disabled a Tiger Tank. Coincidence?

The other tale Grandfather used to tell was when we were watching the film A Bridge Too Far about General Montgomery's Operation Market Garden. In the movie, there is a scene where an aeroplane flies over trains full of tanks. By now, Grandfather was part of 30 Corps and was due to battle down towards Arnhem to relieve the Airborne Forces. Strangely enough, I watched that film again this week.

I was lucky to have a Grandfather who had served during the war. There were many whose Grandfathers never made it back.

The current war in Ukraine serves to remind us of these dark hours in Europe. These are troubled times; let's trust we can keep the lid on another Europe-wide conflict.

    I was spurred to write this after a Facebook post by a friend who is taking a trip in a Tiger Tank at Bovington.

Time to mark a little milestone - Let's celebrate

Sorry to bug you with a blog piece in the middle of the week. I have to celebrate the 101st blog post I have written. Last Saturday's post was the 100th. I totally missed that milestone.

    When I started this Blogger site, it was twelve or thirteen years ago, and I was trying to find employment after being made redundant from BAE Systems in Dartmouth.

    I wanted to create an online CV, and I quickly found this wasn't the best platform to do this. It remained dormant for several years until we were living in East Devon. It was living in East Devon that reignited my desire to write. I had started a writing course while we were living in South Devon, and although my work for that slowed and petered out, being in East Devon and the pandemic spurred me to pitch to magazine editors. Having had some success, I joined Ottery Writers, and this was to see the start of regular blogging alongside writing my first novel. 

    I now have the first draft of the novel finished and 101 blog pieces under my belt. Add to the mix my pieces for Substack; my writing career is certainly getting busy.

    This is a short piece to mark these milestones. We should be back to normal for the weekend.

    Thanks for reading these pieces and for your continued words of encouragement and support.