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.

Coffee and Writing - What Could be Better? It could be Tea?

 Now, I know that I've written about my love of coffee before, but I won't make any excuses because I'm writing about it again.

Coffee drinking is not an insular experience—far from it. It brings people together. In any coffee shop in the land, you will find people, strangers, chatting over a cup of coffee.

The coffee chains have brought a lot of different products to the market to tempt both the pallet and the wallet. They have bought us the Latte, flavoured or not, and the infamous flat white.

Coffee has also created personalities from its Baristas and Roasters. One notable is James Hoffman, who became famous after winning the 2007 World Barista Championship. Now an entrepreneur and business consultant of some standing, his YouTube channel has 2.07 million subscribers. He founded Square Mile Roasters in 2008. 

Here in East Devon, we have several independent roasters. The one that I mainly use is RoastWorks, which is down the road from me in Willand. I take the opportunity to pick up my order; the aroma is lovely when you open the door. 

Likewise, in Exeter, there are Exe Roasters. They have a couple of coffee shops in the city, but the best for me is just off Fore Street. This is where they roast the beans. You can sit and watch the roasting process whilst sipping on a cup of their finest. It is fascinating to witness the roasting process. Very technology-based. Also in East Devon is Buzz Coffee. Based in Sidmouth, I have tried a couple of their roasts. Lovely coffee and funky bright packaging

But to get back to the social side of coffee, three of us are coffee geeks in the office where I work. We share our different coffees, which attract the attention of others who have since started their coffee journeys. 

I have an Aeropress and grind my beans, much to the ire of one person in the office. I may have become a bit of a coffee personality in the kitchen. This weekend, I made one of my coffee buddies' day by leaving him a particularly nice Ethiopian Guji bean roast for his French Press as he works this weekend.

The other evening, I was checking my social media accounts, and one suggested some 'friends' with whom I may like to connect. You know how it works, a long list of friends of friends, friends, the vast majority I have no idea who they are. Except this time, there was someone that I did know. I checked to see if this was a genuine account, which I always do, and to my surprise, he was a coffee roaster. I ordered a couple of different beans from his site and received a message from him. He and his wife have set the coffee business as a retirement proposition. We both served in Portsmouth Band in the 80s, and I'm happy to be able to support them in their new venture. The company? Darwin Coffee. I will post a link with the others at the end of this piece.

This week has been a productive writing week. For the first part of the week, I was at home and could spend a few hours in my new writing den. I have primarily been working on the rewrite/redraft of 'Beastin Dartmoor. It is taking a bit longer than I had imagined. I have rewritten a few scenes in the first three chapters so far. I like the deadline that I set myself for writing this blog and my Substack for Monday mornings. I can be found on a Zoom writing hour with William's Patreon Group on Sunday afternoons, which is great fun. William is a Tea lover and loves nothing better than being busy writing with Tea and a couple of biscuits and if it's a more tangible problem, it will be tea with three biscuits. His three biscuit guides on YouTube are legendary.

Last Sunday, I attempted to write the second half of a 3000-word short story for an anthology to be published later in the year. I got the idea for the story from an exercise at another writing workshop I attended. For the first 1500 words, I was fortunate to be critiqued and edited by Jenny, who runs the workshops. From the short pieces that I read in the workshop, this could be my third novel, which I laughed at, to be honest. However, when the writing hour ended, I could confirm that this story would exceed 3000 words. 2025 is looking to be an exciting year, and I will have to re-think the short story now.

Have a great week, everybody.

Links:

https://www.roastworks.co.uk/

https://execoffeeroasters.co.uk/

https://www.buzzcoffee.co.uk/

https://www.slowfood.org.uk/supporters/darwin-coffee

What's this? The Sun's out and the Master's Golf is on the TV - Easter was last week?

 

You can tell it's spring. The sun is in the sky—yes, that's what it is—and The Masters of Golf is on the TV. That usually indicates that it is Easter, but Easter is a bit earlier this year and seems a week late.

It has been nearly fifteen years since I last played a round of golf, most likely with my late brother, Andrew. He was a golf fanatic and played numerous times a week. He had the vision to set himself up as a customised golf club maker and had all the equipment in a shed in the back garden. Sadly, he was never able to achieve his wish, as MND changed all that.

I still have a set of clubs Andrew made for me in the loft. I'm loathed to get rid of them. He even supplied me with a bright yellow golf bag. He made these clubs a little longer for me and with a little more flex in the shaft. This enabled me to continue to play after my back operation some thirty years ago.

When I was serving at Dartmouth, the Dartmouth Golf and Country Club had recently opened. We could play on the courses for £10 all day. The Naval College had contributed some funds to get it off the ground, so we had a few years at that bargain price.

We played the course almost daily. We used to come down off the parade ground after Colours or Divisions, get changed, and shoot off out there. I used to go with a good friend and fellow inlier (living onboard/barracks), Trev D'Arcy. Sadly, Trev passed away a few years ago, but we spent many happy hours playing golf and getting paid for it. It was not a bad life.

When I retired from the RMs, I continued to play, albeit less often. The guys where I worked used to organise a couple of golf days, which was an excellent way to get to know everybody.

I can't say that I really miss playing. I could have a round with a couple of my brother-in-laws, but sadly, I no longer have the interest, sadly.

My new website is not yet ready for publication, but I am getting closer to it. I promise you will be the first to know when it's in cyberspace.

I shall try a different way of planning my writing week this week. I may have more time to write than anticipated when I first made the plan, but we will have to see how I feel on Monday morning.

Hopefully, you will also see my Substack posts on my social media. Please pop over and have a read. I make them very different on that platform. This week, I shall be discussing networking to promote my upcoming novels. 

Have a great writing week. If you haven't considered writing before, give it a go. Don't worry; only you will read it unless you're happy to share.