Monday bloody Monday
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Today was going to be a slow one. Day one of the holiday proper. On the agenda.
- Do nothing
- Do nothing
- Repeat until dead.
We started the day with a stroll around our ghost hotel. There are other guests here I’m sure of it. I say I’m sure of it. It was 8.45am and I was in reception alone. No one else was around. I asked the lady behind the counter where everybody was. She said “They may be in meetings!” I swear I saw this episode of Scooby Doo, she’s actually the old caretaker in a mask. She’s murdered the other guests and we are next! I must say it was good of Clive to let me try his magic wacky cigarettes!
I spent the first part of the morning walking to the nearest supermarket. Bermudan roads are so tight and dangerous they don’t let tourists drive. That would be like giving Grouse guns. Pedestrians here are simply targets. If you hit one and accidentally kill it, you are legally allowed to eat it.
I successfully completed the opening 20 screens of Frogger, hopping from one lane of the road to the other as the pavement swapped sides normally on a blind corner, as trucks and swarms of scooter riders competed for who would be first to run me over! Ultimately my mission was successful, securing oranges, Pringles and Root Beer. These are the corner stones of a healthy diet!! Upon my return we sat out on the patio whilst the gale force winds of the Bermudan summer battered us, and ate the food of the gods.
Here we hatched a plan. Because I am now retired and FABULOUSLY RICH! We need to travel around Bermuda incognito so as not to attract attention. With that in mind we registered for and downloaded Bermudan bus passes. For the next two weeks, we will shun chauffeur driven limousines, taxis and private helicopters. We will travel as commoners, with commoners, like the Prince and the Pauper! I will travel with my people! The great unwashed of Bermuda. Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and, and, those other famous people. The point is business class travel is so passé!
It was as we walked into Hamilton’s Astwood Dickinson Jewellers and engaged them in a conversation about rather nice watches it occurred to me what a very troubled individual I am. Despite my darling wife cheering me on to purchase a second “retirement watch” I held firm and refused. Instead deciding to invest in the world’s most expensive scoop of rum & raisin ice cream from the world’s least attractive back street ice cream ‘boutique’ … look I don’t know the right words to describe an ice cream place that’s a bit of a shit-hole do I?
We wandered the streets of Hamilton lost in an unfamiliar land, the shops were all foreign to us… Waitrose, Marks and Spencer’s, KFC. I’d say it was a home from home, but of course Wolverhampton isn’t allowed a Waitrose anymore, because we don’t have enough posh people, that said KFC also abandoned us. How much of a shit-hole does your city need to be for KFC to move out? Well, Hamilton clearly has something Wolvo doesn’t. That said, it has many things Wolvo doesn’t.
Cruise vermin for a start… Wandering the streets in their sun visors, MAGA hats and baseball shirts are the feral residents of the latest “Norwegian” cruise liner to dock in Bermuda. Of course this vessel has nothing to do with Scandinavia. It is effectively a prison ship dispatched from the US containing that new rare breed of American who has managed to apply for and successfully received a passport. I can only imagine that this is because their own country is sick of the sight of them and just wants them to leave!
As a group of them posed in a telephone box screaming like they’d just boarded a ride at DisneyWorld we decided enough was enough. We were going to draw on our executive privilege and board the first ocean going vessel out of Bermuda! Using the free will and love for the great ganja bestowed upon us by Clive, we just chilled baby and got on a boat. Our newly acquired bus passes gave us unlimited travel on land and sea. We honestly didn’t even know where we were going. And then Simone screeched from the rear of the queue. “Hey Dwayne, this one is heading to the Royal Dockyards, right?”
Fuck my fucking life. In our haste to leave Trump-vegas behind, we’d secured ourselves a ticket on a bloody prison transfer vessel taking 200 yanks back to their cruise ship for cocktails and canapés with the captain. For the full 30 minute journey I stand looking out to sea, wondering if jumping would be any less painful than the blood curdling whine of Sandra from New Jersey discussing how quaint the British postboxes were on the sidewalk… the “side walk” … it’s a “pavement” Sandra you insufferable ignorant bitch!!
Soon our pain is ended and we go out in search of the real Bermuda. A pub, a pint of lager and a cottage pie! Nestled in a corner of the old dockyards is a traditional British pub. With the solid British history of the island and solid British premises, steeped in solid British traditions. What could possibly go wrong? Oh I know, let effing Walt Disney open a ‘British themed bar’. Oh yes this was just like your local. 20 big screen TVs showing American sports, a guy belting out Barry Manilow’s classic “Bermuda Triangle” on a Casio organ and an effing souvenir shop at the exit. Sigh.
I did get my pint of lager and a cottage pie! The lager was called “St David’s” named after the Welsh saint who traditionally made Czech style flat American lager. The cottage pie was was … limp. Weak potatoes and underwhelming mince in gravy that made Bisto’s granule variety look like it came from the kitchens of Michel Roux! A Frenchman famous for his cottage pies amongst other British pub classics I’m sure!
Anyway, our day ended with the world’s longest bus ride back to the hotel. As we swerve around corner after corner the only thing keeping me in my seat is the strength of my buttocks firmly adhered to the faux leather. My good lady spent half of the journey one foot and one cheek firmly in the aisle. Could I have moved over a little? Yes. Did she ask? Nope. Oh how we laughed when a guy on crutches tripped over her wayward size 12 foot, and proceeded to berate her for trying to cause further injury to his already broken body,
Our beautiful Bermudan driver today was Shannon. Shannon is a single mum who has just done 30 days in jail after getting into a bar fight. She hates cruisers, the British, Americans, Puerto Ricans. She hates men, she hates children and she hates women. If you took too long to find your ticket she’d punch you in the face. Bermuda is one of the friendliest places on earth. With the sole exception of the number 8 bus from the Dockyards to Hamilton.
We arrive back at the hotel tired and emotional. Fortunately, our maid has changed my bed sheets after I soiled them earlier. Look, I just spilled some coffee. These things happen when you’re old and incontinent!
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