Bahama Mama

A couple of weekends ago, I decided leave the bubba and the pregnant wife behind and escape the island for a night in Nassau, the Bahamas.

Leaving Cayman on the Friday evening BA flight, I touched down on New Providence around 9pm local time, and after a quick transit through the airport and a short and sedate, but somehow still unnerving taxi ride into downtown Nassau to arrive at the British Colonial Hilton, where he was staying for the night. The British Colonial Hilton is well located, but hints a little of past glories - somehow it feels as if the days of Thunderball are well and truly over, having relinquished the tile of being the Bahamas' best hotel to Atlantis and the Ocean Club just across the harbour on Paradise Island. Even so, it was a perfectly acceptable place to spend the night...

Still, it was getting late, and I was getting peckish, so having settled in to the hotel I headed out to find something to eat. I took the recommendation of the converge and went round the corner to a great little place called Conch and Kalik - Conch being a Bahamian delicacy, and Kalik being one of the local beers. The Kalik was very refreshing, and the Conch, well, it turns out there is more than one way to have Conch. As well as the ubiquitous cracked conch, they had grilled conch, stewed conch, conch ceviche, conch salad - the options were endless. I settled on a Bahamian style Conch stew, which was tasty and spicy, One thing that surprised me was that even thought it was nearly 11pm by that point, no-one seemed to be about. Evidently Bahamians don't go out to party until late late...

The next morning I got up early and headed out to explore Nassau before all of the tourists arrived. After a sunrise stroll along the waterfront, the first stop on my itinerary was Fort Charlotte, an artillery fort built by the British in the late 1700s to protect the approach to the harbour. As well as providing a great vantage point over the town and across the island, it also provided a fantastic background into the history of Nassau, which used to be a pirate's hangout until Cromwell started trying to civilise the Commonwealth.

Having had enough of playing soldiers in the fort, I decided it was time to head back into town and see what else Nassau had to offer. After exploring some of the back streets, which housed gems such as the Graycliffe hotel, I came across the Bahamas Art Museum, in an Italianate palazzo which was once one of Nassau's grandest homes. The gallery was very well put tougher and had some fantastic paintings from local Bahamian artists.

After the Art Museum, I followed the attendant's suggestion and headed round the corner to the John Watling's Distillery. This is an old plantation house (which was incidentally used as a location for a number of Bond films including Thunderball and Casino Royale), which has been converted into a distillery to produce a boutique rum. The building itself was fantastic, but the treat waiting at the end of the tour was even better, as I was presented with a planters punch to enjoy in the grounds.

By this time I was getting pretty hungry, so found my way back down the hill towards the waterfront,  passing the picturesque houses and the impressive governor's house.

I finally came across a great little Tapas bar and restaurant called Dali, and enjoyed fresh steamed Grouper, landed that morning.

After lunch (washed down with a couple of Stones beers), there was just enough time for a wander through the now tourist filled shopping district of downtown Nassau before getting back in a taxi and heading off to the airport to return home to Bonnie and TJ, who was very happy to have his dad back.

All in all, a great 24 hours.

Vermont escape

Following the success of our trip to Connecticut and Massachusetts in November last year, we were inspired to explore more of New England, particularly given the convenient direct flights which are available from Grand Cayman to New York JFK.

Friday 13 June

We left a rather warm and rather humid Grand Cayman on the Jet Blue flight on Friday afternoon, to land at New York's JFK airport in the early evening in the midst of an almighty thunder storm. A complete contrast to entering the USA through Miami, the queue for aliens was virtually non-existent and the Border Protection officers were not only civil, but good humoured too, being able to crack jokes with us about the extreme weather which had greeted us. Indeed, the weather was so bad that we were told there would be a delay in getting our bags as the thunder and lighting was so close that ground operations had been suspended for fear of the baggage handlers being the subject of a direct hit. Unfortunately that meant that our luggage had been sat on the tarmac for the best part of 10 minutes during the worst of the storm, and we were less than pleased to find that T's car seat had been out there long enough to get noticeably damp. Still, despite that minor setback, we were still through the airport, out to the car hire and on the road into New England within 1 1/5 hours of landing, which by our standards is pretty good.

Our final destination was a small town called Chester, up in the Green Mountains about 1/3 of the way into Vermont. However, given that we were not arriving into New York until the evening, and we had no particular rush to get there, we decided to break our journey with a stop at Milford, just down the road from New Haven in Connecticut (home of, amongst other things, Yale University). We woke fairly early the next morning, after a good rest (courtesy of the Hampton Inn) and were ready to hit the road again, with a rendezvous to pick up our keys in Chester at 3pm that afternoon.

Saturday 14 June

The drive upstate was easy and fairly uneventful, and as we were making good time we decided to take a brief diversion to Amherst, which is best known for its association with the poet Emily Dickinson, and is a delightful sleepy college town with a Georgian main square and ivy clad college buildings belonging to one or other of the five institutions which call the town home. There was a farmers market on in the main square as we passed through, but as T was sound asleep we passed over the opportunity to wander about in favour of a solid nap time sleep and the prospect of a decent lunch further up the road. Crossing the state border, we arrived in the town of Brattleboro, an industrial town which sprung up in the late 19th century, and which was given a new lease of life in the mid 20th century when the beatniks and the hippies moved in, and reclaimed it as a centre of counter-culture. The result is an eclectic mix of industrial architecture which has been turned into artists studios, cycle shops, yoga studios, outdoor outfitters and locally sourced fair trade restaurants and cafes. In a way, Brattleboro is a good advertisement for all that Vermont stands for - independent minded, proudly local, hardy and resilient, resourceful and civic minded, with a penchant for sticking it to the man. We found a great little cafe called "The Works Cafe and Bakery" on the main street for soup and a sandwich, which was lovely, and then set to exploring. There was something for each of us. I was happy to find not one but three bike shops, along with a huge outdoor outfitters spanning three stories of an old warehouse. The wife lost herself for a while in the antique stores lining the main street, and T marvelled at the old fairground carousel horse on display outside one of them. Eventually our parking meter ran down and we set off on the final portion of our journey to Chester. We covered last 30 miles or so 'cross country', leaving the interstate and heading down the back roads. Up to this point the scenery had been fairly uneventful, as while we had seen the backdrop of the green mountains for the last hour or so, the settlements we had passed through on the interstate were fairly large industrial towns. However, away from the lifeline of I91, the scenery was refreshingly different. Now we were passing through pastures with herds of cows (until the mid 1970s Vermont was best known for having more cows than people), alongside babbling brooks criss-crossed by the ubiquitous covered bridges for which New England is so well known, and through pre-revolutionary villages of white washed clapperboard houses which appeared to be suspended in time.

We finally reached our destination in the mid Saturday afternoon, and were delighted to discover that our lodging for the best part of the next week would be a delightful little 4 room cabin set on half an acre high up in the woods over Chester. We dumped our bags and ran back into town because (and this shows we have been in Cayman too long...) we were worried the shops would shut and not be open on Sunday. Of course, this being the real world there was no danger of that, and the local shopkeepers reassured us that they were open until at least 7pm that day, and that we would still be able to buy things on Sunday. We divided our resources - Bonnie hit the local grocery store, Lisais, which we were pleased to discover had a good range of local organic produce and a great butchery section, while Barn went over the road to the Mediteranean delicatessen to stock up on beer, wine and local cheese. Bliss! Groceries in hand we returned to the cabin to settle in and cook up dinner.

Sunday 15 June

The next morning we set out to get our bearings with an explore of the local area. First stop was Chester village, which we had not really spent any time in the previous morning. We grabbed a coffee from the Moon Dog cafe in the town, which was a fantastic little organic bakery (there is a trend here...) in the heart of Chester, and had a walk around the local cemetery. It had been flag day the day before, which is the day the Americans celebrate the introduction of their flag, during the first congress, and flags are flown and placed on the graves of American heroes. We were surprised to see so many flags in the graveyard placed on graves of soldiers who had fought during the war of independence - a reminder that we were in one of the original colonies, and the charter of the town pre-dated the United States as we know them...

Next stop on our local area tour was Ludlow, a sizeable town about 10 miles to the North West of Chester, which is the base town for the Okemo mountain ski area. As it was Father's Day, Bonnie and T treated Barn to lunch at the Pot Belly Pub, but T was more interested in the motorbikes which were parked outside. The bikers (who were actually a really friendly group of retirees - not your typical hells angels) noticed his interest, and let him touch the very highly polished motorbikes  -apparently what he wants is a limited edition Harley Davidson Firebird, but we guess he will have to wait until he is at least 21 for that... 

After lunch we explored Ludlow a little more, then took the rte 103 down through Springfield (apparently the Springfield, for Simpsons fans out there, which was chosen for the premier of the movie), a quiet former industrial town, which is now a typical Vermont mountain settlement, and on into New Hampshire, where we followed the Connecticut river downstream, passing through some picturesque villages before crossing back into Vermont at Bellows Falls, and heading back uphill to the village of Grafton, famed for its cheese (and also a very pretty old New England settlement,  with picturesque village square and inn). We didn't linger long in Grafton, as T was getting sleepy, so we took a drive a bit further up the road to the nearby village of Weston, yet another pretty town, and also home of the Vermont Country Store. This is a fantastic shop, based around the old village store, selling local produce and handicrafts. After extensively sampling the full range of the comestible produce available in store, we stocked up on a selection of local cheeses and other delights and headed back to the lodge for an evening feast.

Monday 16 June

Having settled ourselves into the lodge and had a good explore of the area, we decided to head out for the day early on the Monday morning, and explore upstate. Our intended destination was Burlington, on the edge of Lake Champlain, and probably the largest town/city in the state, however as all good journeys should be, this trip was not about the destination, but about the journey, and we had planned a few stops on the way out/back to break up the drive (and to give T a chance to stretch his legs). We headed out North up the I-91, and then across towards Burlington on the I-89. Our first stop, after nearly two hours driving, was Montpelier, the state capital of Vermont. For a state capital, it was very small, consisting of just a few streets straddling the confluence of the Dog and Winooski Rivers, albeit with a very impressive gold-domed state house. However, Montpelier itself was not the reason for our stop - instead we were headed to the Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks, about 2 1/2 miles out of Town North on Main Street. 

Morse Farm is (apparently) one of the oldest Maple Sugar producing farms in Vermont, where generations of the family have been tapping the trees in the "Sugar Bush" using techniques taught to them by the indigenous indian tribes for over 200 years. We were treated to a very informative video in the old woodshed, explaining the process, following which we were free to explore the sugar works, and walk the trail up through the sugar bush to see the trees being tapped. The highlight for Barn and Bonnie was being able to conduct a maple syrup "tasting" to learn the difference between the various grades of syrup. However, the highlight for TJ was undoubtably the old farm machinery around the farm which he was free to clamber on. He duly took up residence on an old red Massey Ferguson tractor, and would have been content to stay there all day but cruel as we may be branded,  we prised him away, as more treats lay in store.

Our next stop was about 10 miles up the road in the town of Waterbury, and was to visit possibly the greatest and most recognisable land mark and symbol of Vermont in the world - not the hotel at the nearby ski resort of Stowe, but the Ben and Jerry's ice-cream factory! We took the 30 minute factory tour, which was very good - TJ was (as usual) fascinated by the machinery, and Bonnie and Barn were happy to finish his free samples for him, so everyone was a winner!

After all that sugar, we were getting rather peckish, and we pushed on for the last 25 miles to Burlington where we planned to find some lunch. Burlington is a very laid back and trendy town, and the influence of the large student population from the University of Vermont is clear. It is also a very outdoorsy town, with branches of outfitters such as The North Face and Patagonia lining the main street. We stopped for lunch in a lovely gastro-pub we found just of the main street, and then spent a good couple of hours exploring the town and nosing in the shops. 

By this time it was mid-afternoon and Mr T's afternoon nap was fast approaching, for which the long car ride home would be perfectly timed, but there was just one more stop we needed to make before that (mostly for his benefit). Our final stop was at the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory in Shelburne, which is the only place in the USA where they make the traditional style "jointed" teddy bears from scratch. We were treated to a factory tour, and could see each stage of the creation of these wonderful toys, which TJ loved (although not as much as clambering over the piles of finished or near-finished bears at the end of the tour). For him (and us) the highlight, however, was choosing a new member of the Finnigan family to bring home with us. After much cuddling, tugging at fur and generally pawing the bears, TJ alighted on his new friend, who we have christened Chester after the town we were staying in. We also adopted another new family member, who we have called Ludlow, who will be sitting in wait for TJ's sibling, when they finally arrive...

After such a fun packed day, it was time to head back to our cabin in the woods in Chester, and plan our next day's activities.

Tuesday 17 June

Having had a very full day on the Monday, we decided to keep it local again on Tuesday, and revisit some of the places we had been earlier in the week. In particular, we had liked Ludlow and decided to explore the area around the town again. We headed north of the town and up to a set of waterfalls called the Buttermilk Falls, which were very picturesque and would make a great spot for some summer time swimming. 

After a lovely walk down the riverbanks, we then headed up the rte100 towards the village of Plymouth, as the map showed that there were a string of lakes which looked nice. We were not disappointed. Our first stop was at a local furniture maker we passed called Clear Lake Furniture, where all the pieces are made on site from local resources. Then we headed on towards Lake Rescue and Echo Lake, where we came across the Camp Plymouth State Park, another great resource for exploring. After all that exploring we were getting hungry, so headed back to the village of Weston, where we had been before to visit the Vermont Country Store, and decided to stop for lunch at the Bryant House Restaurant, the family run restaurant which is run by the Ortons, who founded the Vermont Country Store. Like the store, the restaurant shares a similar ethos - good, traditional fare which has been locally sourced, and the menu reflected that, with lots of classic New England dishes such as Chicken Pie. After lunch we headed back to Grafton for a walk, and to explore some of New England's famed covered bridges. 

Wednesday 18 June

By Wednesday we were ready for another trip out a little further afield, so we packed a picnic and headed out towards Manchester to visit Hildene house, the home of Robert Lincoln and his family. If the name sounds familiar, that is because he was the only surviving child of Abraham Lincoln, and went on to become the president of the Pulman company (who manufactured the plush rail cars used the world over) during the late 1800s. The house was a beautiful and perfectly sized Georgian revival property which was wonderfully located with views over the valley below, and very reminiscent of the Yorkshire Dales. We were the first people through the door, and the volunteers were wonderful with TJ, even going as far as giving him a one-off recital on the 1000 pipe organ located in the hallway. While the visit round the house was the draw for Bonnie and Barny, there was plenty for TJ too. In the grounds behind the house was a fully restored Pullman car that would have been used to transport dignitaries and VIPs in its day (the private jet of the rail age), which the volunteers let TJ run through. As if that wasn't enough there was then a ride on the tractor-tram through the woods and down to the home farm, which has been reinvented as an organic goat farm making boutique cheeses. We arrived just in time for the daily milking of the goats, and TJ was mesmerised watching the goats being herded into the milking room and then milked. Once we had been through the farm, we went to watch the baby goats playing in the field while we waited for the tractor-tram to take us back to the house again. 

On our way home from Hildene we drove through the nearby town of Manchester and decided to stop for a coffee. Manchester is a lovely, and clearly very wealthy, New England town, with lots of nice shops and cafes. The lower half of the town is an open plan outlet village, with top end outlet stores filling existing and purpose built buildings, and there was plenty to browse.

Thursday 19 June

Having had a fairly busy week, we decided to spend our last full day in Vermont relaxing in the outdoors, so we packed a picnic and headed back to the Camp Plymouth State Park on Lake Echo. TJ busied himself playing on the climbing frame, and then chased daddy in the lake, which was not as warm as the Caribbean sea, to say the least...

Friday 20 June

Our last morning in Chester was spent tidying the lodge and packing up before hitting the road. Our destination for the day was Hartford, CT. Aside from being a convenient mid-point stop on our drive back to New York, Hartford was also the headquarters of Bonnie's old firm, and as she still knew a few people in town it made a convenient excuse for a catch up. While Bonnie went and met up with some old colleagues, Barny and TJ explored the centre of Hartford, and TJ made some new friends in the park. Later that afternoon, we all headed to Elizabeth Park on the outskirts of Hartford, a beautiful English style park with a gorgeous rose garden in the centre. As we were playing with a ball with TJ, he took his first linked steps. Then a few more, and then as his confidence grew started chasing his daddy around. By the end of the hour we spent there he was getting quite confident on this feet and we were both blown away and over the moon - however, we suspect we are about to be in for a shock, once his confidence (and mobility) improve...

Saturday 21 June

Our final destination was New York JFK, so we could get a good rest before our flight home on the Sunday morning, but that left us the whole day to get there. We had brunch arranged with some local friends, and then hit the road. We broke our drive at Norwalk, a former industrial town on the Connecticut coastline at the bottom of the I-95. We had planned on going to the recently opened aquarium as TJ loves watching the fish, but as we he was hungry we looked for somewhere to eat first, with a view to heading to the aquarium later. South Norwalk is clearly very up and coming, with lots of little bars and cafes, and we found a great place called The Brewhouse for a snack, but by the time we were done it was too late to fit the aquarium in as well, so we headed on for JFK. 

Having threaded our way through the New York traffic, and carefully navigated the warren of streets around JFK, we pulled up at the Hilton Garden Inn, which is where we thought we were staying, only to find that we had actually managed to book ourselves into another hotel around the corner which is also confusingly called the Garden Inn (and not quite of the same calibre). With the last minute fire drill, we then had only minutes left to navigate back through the airport access roads to return the car, but made it in time (just). It did, however, add some un-planned and unexpected excitement to the end of our vacation.

All in all, the consensus is that we will be back to Vermont, just as soon as we can...! 

Our Cayman Adventure - The First Year

It is hard to believe that it is now a full year since we first arrived here in the Cayman Islands. A year to the day yesterday, in fact. So we thought it would be a good opportunity to consider some of the good and the not so good things about living here, and some of the things we miss about the UK. So here goes.

Things we like about living in Cayman

The weather
It's small so the commute is nearly non-existent and nothing is more than 10 minutes away
The friendly people
It's very safe
Great food and drink
It's a very open society with great opportunities for entrepreneurs
The relaxed Caribbean lifestyle
Football takes a distinct back seat to athletics/sailing/swimming/squash/rugby/tennis

Things we don't like about living in Cayman

The politics
Sometime its a bit too small...
Even though it's small you still get traffic jams
Sometimes you can have too many churches...
The relaxed Caribbean attitude to getting things done.

Things we miss about the UK

Friends and family (obviously)
Pint of beer in front of a roaring fire in a country pub
Efficiency
Country walks
Percy Pigs
M&S
John Lewis
Big fluffy jumpers
Lamb
Lebanese food
Fish and chips
Cheap wine

Things we don't miss about the UK

Income tax
Commuting on the Tube (and having to wake up at 6.20 to do so)
Big bottomed bus barging Lewishamites
Chavs
London Mayoral candidates
The rain
The English winter
Daylight saving
Bus queues that are never a queue
Football talk
Middle lane motorway driving
Incessant idiotic football banter. And footballers. And football supporters. In fact football generally. And specifically.

Cayman Spring

It's been a while since we last posted on our blog, so we thought it was about time to catch up on the last few months.

Having had relatively few guests during our first six months, the weeks after Christmas were filled with lots of visitors.

First of all was one of Bonnie's old housemates from London who is embarking on a trip round the world snorkelling, so what better place to start than the crystal clear waters of the Cayman Islands. While Barn was at work, Bonnie was busy showing her around the Island. We even took her on a special trip to snorkel the Kittiwake, which is an ex US Navy submarine rescue vessel that was deliberately sunk off seven mile beach to form an artificial reef. It is a spectacular sight to behold. As you approach the site there is nothing but the sandy bottom, and then all of a sudden the vessel looms into sight. The wreck is a marine park, and it is surrounded by shoals of fish of all kinds. It is also a diving site, and the sight of tours of divers emerging through the funnel is pretty surreal.

Next came Barny's parents, who stayed with us for three weeks.

They have always wanted to go to Cuba, and so have we, so we arranged a 5 day trip to Havana with them. We let mummy and daddy Finnigan have a day to recover from their flight over from the UK, and then we were off!

We landed in Cuba on a Thursday afternoon and, having cleared customs and immigration (which was far less painful than flying through Miami) we headed in to Vieja Habana to find our hotel. We were staying in the Hotel Santa Isabel, a beautiful old palazzo right in the heart of the old town (http://www.hotelsantaisabel.com/) which had been built in the 1700s. Our expectations of standards in Cuba were pretty low, given what we had been told by friends who had been, but the hotel was very nice. We spent our first couple of days exploring the old town. Although Havana is a huge city the old town is actually fairly compact, and very quaint with its 17th and 18th century buildings and cobbled streets.  From our rooms we had a view over the square, past the booksellers stalls to the La Giralda fort and out into the bay. The old town of Havana is beautiful, and the general state of delapidation of many of the buildings only adds to the atmosphere.

Although Cuba is not well known for its food, we did spend a significant amount of time exploring the bars and coffee houses of the old town, including some of Hemmingway's old haunts. On our first night we hit the Hotel Los Ambos Mundos (where Ernest shacked up when he was in town, and which has a great roof bar) for a coffee and a rum, which became a firm favourie. Bonnie and I also had a Mojito or three in La Bodegua del Medio (where the perfect Mojito was apparently invented), and although we didn't make it to La Floridita, where the Daquiri was perfected, we certainly tried a few rival attempts which were pretty good.

Of course, spending time in Cuba is not just about drinking rum and having a good time (although there is plenty of both - the Cubans certainly know how to party). On the Friday we decided to take the Big Red Bus tour to get a feel for the lie of the land. Once you get out of the old town, you quickly realise that much of Havana is suspended in a 1940's and 50's timewarp, and has been left to slowly decay. If it weren't for the dilapidated state of the buildings and the cars you could be back in the Florida or California of the 1940s. We drove past what had been beautiful villas that have been left to fall apart, but which would have been very impressive in their heyday, and some amazing 1920s and 1930s hotels and theatres. And every so often you would see a gap full of rubble where a building had recently collapsed, some of which gave further glimpses to the Havana of the past. We rounded the day off with a trip to the Museum of the Revolution, which is housed in the old presidential palace (complete with bullet holes from the student uprising that started the overthrow of Batista). It was interesting to hear the story of the revolution, the rise of Castro, the role of Che and the Bay of Pigs.

One thing that surprised us about Cuba was the emphasis which has been placed on the arts. There is a fantastic ballet company, and Cubans can go to the ballet for a few pence (although the rates for foreigners are much steeper, with tickets starting around US$20. Probably our favourite find of the trip was the Cuban National Art Gallery, which houses paintings from the top Cuban artists, as well as some internationally known pieces. Not only was the art good, but the buildings it was housed in were also very interesting, and we spent several hours exploring the collection.

After 5 days in Havana it was time to bring Mamma and Pappa Finnigan back to the Cayman Islands. We really enjoyed showing them the sights of the Island. There were trips to all the sights - the National Museum, Pedro St James, the National Gallery, the Botanical Gardens and drives round to East End. We weren't sure whether they would like the Island, but we were glad to find that they did! As being in the water is a big part of Island life, Bonnie took it upon herself to teach the in-laws how to snorkel. Never having tried it before, we weren't sure how they would take to it (particularly as my dad isn't a very strong swimmer). After a few false starts they got the hang of it, so we thought we'd take them out to Stingray City to see the stingrays. Unfortunately, unbeknown to us "stingray city" is not actually the sandbar, where you can wade into the water with the rays, it is actually another feeding spot that is about 20 feet deep, with a fairly strong current. With hindsight it was probably not the best place to take a couple of inexperienced snorklers in their mid 60s, but they were very game and seemed to enjoy the experience (at least that's what they told us), even if there was a 10 foot Moray eel called Psycho swimming amongst the stingrays!

The three weeks went very quickly, and on the Finnigan seniors' last day we were joined by another of Bonnie's friends who had come out to join us for a week of diving. We joined her for another trip to stingray city, and this time Barny went scuba diving with the rays, which was a brilliant experience, very different from handling them at the sandbar. Although it had been wonderful to spend time with all our visitors, we were finding that nearly 2 months of Christmas, dinners and cocktails out with our guests was taking its toll, and it was actually quite nice to have a bit of a detox, with few quiet nights in eating steamed vegetables and salad.

The start of March saw Barny leave the island to head to Miami for a weekend with the boys where they were competing in the Miami Tough Mudder adventure race. This is a 13 mile long obstacle course, with the objects ranging from the "Arctic Enema", a plunge into an ice filled pool, through to the "Electric Eel", a scramble over an electrified fence, with plenty of other equally challenging obstacles in between. Needless to say the boys had a great time, and returned from Miami on a wave of Mudder pride.

If Bonnie had been able to fly, she may have joined Barny in Miami, but as she is 9 months pregnant she has not been able to board an aircraft for several weeks. She did take the opportunity to head up to Miami for her own girls weekend while she could still fly, and enjoyed doing some baby shopping to kit out the nursery. There are now only a few weeks until we get to meet the latest addition to the Finnigan family, and Bonnie has been busy nesting. We have spent the last couple of months setting up the nursery, and making the most of our last few weeks of just being the two of us to enjoy some of the things we have not yet managed to do in Cayman.

As we couldn't leave the island over Easter, we seemed to spend most of our time eating and drinking instead. We tried several of the restaurants we had not visited to date. On Good Friday we headed out into West Bay to dine at Pappagallos restaurant, a fine Italian restaurant on the edge of a lake in the Barkers park. It was absolutely fantastic, and we can't believe we haven't found it sooner. On Easter Sunday we enjoyed a lovely brunch at the Westin, which certainly rivals the Ritz in terms of quality. Although the weather was not great, we spent the rest of the time relaxing like tourists, with trips to Rum Point and Kaibo to watch the kite festival on Easter Monday, and making the most of the time to enjoy each others company while there are just the two of us.

Christmas in the Caymans

Predictably, December in the Finnigan household was a manic affair.

Of course, there were the usual pre-Christmas work drinks and parties, but we have found other ways to occupy ourselves in the build up to the festive season too.

The month opened with a couple of thousand runners descending on the Island for the Cayman Islands Marathon. Barny had signed up to run the half marathon. Not quite the epic 26 miles, but 13 and a bit miles still sounded like a long way in the tropical heat. In order to avoid the worst of the Caribbean sun, the race started at the positively ungodly hour of 5am, and we were both up at the start line well before that, to give Barny sufficient time to fuel up, take on liquids and stretch before the gun went off. Just under 2 hours later, Barny lubmered back down Harbour Drive to finish the race in the respectable time of 1:58.47. The prospect of a cold Caybrew waiting at the finish line certainly helped keep him going.

Our "Christmas campaign" kicked off in earnest at the start of December with the Pink Ladies Christmas Bazaar, where we were gallantly manning the silent auction stand. The Pink Ladies are a local volunteer corps of women who give up their time to do lots of worthy things such as helping out in the hospital (where they also run a cafe for visitors) and the retirement home, and getting involved in community events. Despite their name, most of the ladies are not actually pink, they come from a variety of backgrounds, it's just that they have nice pink polo shirts...

Anyway, Bonnie had signed up with the Pink Ladies earlier in the year, but what with meeting former presidents, international entrepreneurs and world class tennis players, she hadn't managed to find the time to fit anything in. However, with the Cayman AI Conference and Tennis Legends over, Bonnie was able to find a bit more time to help out. And Barny came along to help out.

The Christmas Bazaar was a great event - it was like an English church summer fete. Except in the Caribbean. In December. And without any rain. There were tombolas, stalls selling homemade jam and cake, performances from local music groups. And the man in red even turned up to say hi to the children.

As we were in the festive mood after the Pink Ladies Bazaar, the next evening we decided to head down to our local church of god, which was putting on what it billed as a "Singing Christmas Tree Spectacular". Not ever having seen a singing Christmas tree before, we were both intrigued as to what it was and how it worked (and also looking forward to hearing some Christmas carols being sung). The tree itself was spectacular. It was a multi-tiered structure festooned with lights in the shape of a Christmas tree which was able to accommodate a reasonably sized choir on its many platforms. The effect was stunning. We were rather disappointed with the choice of songs, mainly because we didn't recognise them, but the whole event was definitely very Caribbean, and being able to watch a nativity play in shorts and t-shirts under the stars (and not catching hypothermia) is certainly a first for both of us.

Unfortunately, as always seems to be the way, work got in the way of Christmas planning for both of us. For Barny it was the usual year end antics, but Bonnie was engaged in something much more exciting. The Cayman Islands had been selected to host the 2012 Women's World Squash Open, and Bonnie was suddenly very busy helping the Cayman Islands National Squash Association to put on a world class event that would bring the worlds best female squash players to the island to compete in an international championship.

Although the qualifying rounds were played at South Sound Squash Club, our local squash club, the final rounds were to be played in a court in the middle of the bay at Camana Bay that was to be purpose built for the event, with glass walls on every side so that play could be observed from 360 degrees. As the court was being shipped down from the US there were a nervous few days as Bonnie checked the container's progress, and then checked that all the pieces had arrived safe and sound, but once it was all here it was time for it to be built. Over the next three days the helipad at Camana Bay was converted into an arena for the sport of squash, with the light filled glass box that was the court at its center. (There is a great time lapse of the build for anyone who is interested on youtube, which can be accessed here http://youtu.be/TtDFyvLpth4). And then it was time for the contest to start...

The question on everyone's lips was whether anyone would be able to beat Nicole David (who has held the title and been unbeaten for most of the past decade). Over a week of furious games, many tried, but despite their best efforts, none of the girls were able to topple Nicole. Still, it made for some great games. Who would have thought that squash (and women's squash at that) would be such a great spectator sport?

The Squash Open was due to finish on the Friday before Christmas, which did not leave us much time to plan for the big day, our first Christmas in the Cayman Islands, and this was compounded by both of us having worked 16 or 18 hour days for the last couple of weeks running up to then. We did manage to get a real Christmas tree (which we had ordered in November), which was duly erected in the corner of our living room. And we also managed to find some time to pick up Barny's brother and (as they had just announced their engagement, we were happy to say) future sister-in-law from the airport, as they were arriving to spend Christmas with us, just in time for the squash semi-finals!

While Bonnie (accompanied by her handy mini motor scooter) oversaw the last day of play and the winding down of the Squash, Barny took the visitors off sightseeing. The three of them went off jet-skiing to explore the mangroves, visit the stingrays at Stingray City and meet the starfish at Starfish Point (followed by a well earned drink at Kaibo on the way home). They had just enough time to go home, shower and change before heading back over to Camana Bay to watch the finale of the Squash open.

Predictably, Nicole David had made it through to the final, where she met the British player Laura Massaro. Although it was a hard fought game, Massaro was outclassed by David, who went on to win her tenth Cayman open title, and secure her world No.1 ranking for another year.

Over the weekend, Bonnie had to supervise the squash being packed away, and Barny entertained the visitors with trips to the beach. Bonnie even managed to get away to join us at Rum Point for a few hours. Like the little kids at heart that they are, Barny and his brother followed up a game of beach badminton by building a sand castle. Predictably, almost as soon as it was finished a big wave came in and washed most of it away. But it kept them out of trouble for an hour or so...

We were also lucky enough to get tickets for the Turtle Farm and the Dolphin Discovery adventure. After spending Sunday morning on the waterslides at the Turtle Farm, we moved over the road and were introduced to the dolphins, and then invited to join them in the water. We were not entirely sure what to expect, as there is something a bit distasteful about having captive animals trained for our amusement, but we have to say that there is something captivating about spending time with these friendly and highly intelligent creatures. Aside from performing the usual backflips and acrobatics, shaking our hands and dancing with us, we were then directed to swim out into the middle of the pool with a float, to find a dolphin swimming up behind our feet and propelling us forwards at great speed, which was a unique experience.

And then, before we knew it, Christmas Day was upon us.

Father Christmas had found his way to the Cayman Islands and made a delivery for everyone in the house. And he had been very generous in his gifts. Even an attempt by the Christmas tree to topple over onto us during the afternoon didn't dampen spirits.

 After a full Christmas roast dinner of Turkey, Ham and all the trimmings, we were all ready to slump on the sofa (or in Barny's case the floor) and play board games for the rest of the afternoon. All in all a great Christmas day.

Barn had to work for the rest of the week, but before our visitors left us we decided to use the proceeds of some of the christmas money we were all very generously given treat ourselves to a nice meal out at Calypso Grill, which we have been wanting to try for ages.

Calypso Grill is at Morgan's Harbour, and is next door to the Morgans Harbour restaurant we love. Calypso Grill specialises in fish, and you know it is fresh because you can see it being landed from the boats on the pier outside. We have heard great things about the restaurant, which seemed to be borne out by the throngs of people inside waiting for a table. Luckily we had taken the precaution of booking, and once we had eventually caught the attention of a waiter were shown to our table. We feasted on a selection which included cracked conch, fresh tuna and wahoo. And a solitary steak. All of which was fantastic. Full from a week of indulging in good food and wine we rolled home, and the next day our visitors rolled onto the plane to take them back to Manchester.

All that was left to do in December was to see in the new year. As usual we were faced with the dilemma of what to do, and whether to have a big night out, have a house party or take up one of the invitations we had recieved. Eventually we opted for a relatively quiet one, joining friends for dinner at Ragazzi, the little Italian "trattoria" style restaurant we love, followed by Champagne and fireworks on the beach. It was a perfect compromise, and we headed home on New Year's day, having completed what has been a fantastic year full of exciting news, intrepid moves and the promise of future adventures! Let's hope 2013 can live up to the standards which have been set by 2012!

A Happy New Year to all our readers!
Barny and Bonnie