I often start my blog off with a chat about the weather. Let’s just say we’re into August now, a time of ants, flying insects, hair that never seems to quite dry, and sweat. It’s been soooo hot that I’ve been pestering my lovely husband to go snorkeling, and since he’s as keen as me, that works well. Last weekend was Cup Match, a big holiday here with two days off work for everyone, so a four day weekend for us.

Cup match is when St George’s and Somerset, teams from opposite ends of the island, play cricket annually for a shiny flash cup. There’s lots of friendly rivalry, house’s, front yards and cars sport flags in the various team colours: red and navy for Somerset, and navy and light blue for St George’s. The banter is good fun, so much so that I got had-on a few times when I went into Hamilton wearing my navy shorts and blue top last week. Oh, I was dressed in team colours! Luckily the right colours for our end of the island. The parks department open up the reserves, and people are allowed to camp just for that period. Tents start popping up in some of the weirdest places, I guess because land is scarce. Where we live there’s a strip of grass alongside a road, and there were campsites starting up there. Where there’s a port-a-loo there’s several tents. The other thing I noticed, is that the camp chairs are facing the road, not the ocean. My lovely husband and I have been speculating as to why that is, and I think its so that people don’t miss seeing their friends drive past. Bermudian’s don’t camp light, and often trucks arrive to put down all the gear required. This Cup Match the weather leading up to it was dismal. The clouds rolled in, and down came the rain, tank rain. It was difficult to complain, because those tanks sure needed it, but the poor campers set up in the heat of humidity to have it added to with liters and liters of water, pouring down. It got windy too, so tents were flapping, and I noticed that some campsites got abandoned. That’s quite easy to do in Bermuda, home is after all just down the road. You can always come back again when the sun comes out.

We debated going to the game. I was quite keen but didn’t feel my best leading up to it. Over the two days of play, the weather came right and snorkeling won out. It’s much cooler swimming than sitting in the hot sun. I asked our Neighbour who won when we got back on Thursday, and was surprised that no one around me was following the score. We soon found out via the mighty internet. What would we do without it now? St George’s was leading at the end of the first day, then Somerset came back on the second day. Even though one of their players got hit in the head with a ball and had to be carted off the pitch, they still secured a win. After the game, usually the next day, being Saturday, we look forward to the winners procession. That’s when the winning team and supporters drive by in a big rally, tooting and waving and yahooing to rub it in that they are indeed the victors for another year. It’s lovely!

So where did we go snorkeling?. Well we went down Dockyards way to get clear of the crowds, and first of all explored the Glass Beach. That beach is covered, in fact piled up with broken glass. I should have had better shoes with me, because my jandals managed but not very well. After exploring that, we went to a little bay to snorkel, and I got ‘stuck’. We went in via stairs on a dock, and I remember saying that I would need the tide to come in a little to be able to get back out. It was going out. We weren’t in very long before we decided it was no good there and decided to try somewhere else. Getting out, I tried to climb onto the stairs. They were too high for me, too slippery to get any purchase, so after a wee bit of a panic and scraping my hand, I decided to swim to the next set. Only the water was shallower at that end, so I ended up having to walk. My little feet, didn’t have enough ground cover, so I sank into the mud, and I was quickly exhausted trying to get to my intended exit point. My lovely husband, who had managed to get out at the first set of stairs, was trying to help by taking my flippers and throwing in my jandals from the shoreline. I was too slow in the silt, and they started floating off. After a lot of expletives and claiming all innocence of the bad situation, I retrieved my jandals, got them on, and made slow progress to the next slippery challenge. As I gingerly climbed the stairs, something sharp jabbed into my heel, and would you know it, a piece of glass, possibly from the glass beach earlier, came right through and sliced me proper. Blood usually gets a bit of attention, so my lovely husband pulled the glass from my foot, and after lengthy inspection, decided it was superficial. I wanted to carry on. I took about three more steps and then the pain that went through me was indescribable. My other foot, in the soft part, where the base of your big toe and the rest of your foot form that inverted v-shape, was in agony. By this time my lovely husband was getting a bit exasperated ‘what now?’. Oh the tears. I had something piercing my foot! Operation two located a long needle like slither of glass, that felt much better once extracted. Time to give up? Oh no, I was soldiering on until the end after that fiasco. We had a nice swim, but I really was exhausted, and called it a day fairly soon after that. I had proved my point.

• 

• 

I have to admit, I really enjoyed celebrating the end of dry-July, with a Dark ‘n Stormy in hand, while my lovely husband extracted any other stray glass from my feet and jandals. Here we are less than a week later, and there’s no sign of it. Superficial? It sure didn’t feel like it at the time!

More soon – Sally

If you would like to find out more about Cup Match you can try this link:
https://www.gotobermuda.com/article/cup-match-time-bermuda

Dark ‘n Stormy – a drink made from Black Seal Rum, Ginger Beer and lime