Well it's going on February life is quickly putting time between me and my annus horribilis. Aye yes, there are many things in this confounded life I'm never going to get to grips with (like Shakira for instance) and even more things that I do not have any ready explanation for; like nearly everything on earth except the hiccups. Funny, because I'm reasonably sure I knew everything when I was younger. Still I continue to live my life in the cheery expectation that things will eventually become clear. I'm back in the Caribbean which is a good thing: sunshine, sea and sand. Apparently the weather is going from bad to worse for the European and American contingents of family and friends. An Exception being my dear brother David who is working nights in the freeze box of a packing plant and, as such, does not know the meaning of weather anymore. But by eye witness accounts he is looking very well on it. Maybe I should join you Hedge. Get some gut off and get the blood pressure down. We'll both last longer; like a pair of Inuits,(at least that’s how I think that’s how you spell it).
Yes I do miss being away from those I love but still feel the itch to keep on the move while I still can. I also feel a compelling need to catch up on all the old posts that I've missed between May and September last year. That's proving difficult because new stuff just keeps happening as life's rich plot develops. Writing these posts isn't a problem; the laptop still seems to be holding up since it's last repair,(cheers Ike), the last words haven’t been wrung out of it yet. Pics are more of a worry. My little digi-camera has been going steadily to bollix since Charlie lubricated it with maple syrup last year, so I think photos are going to be few and far between. Actually my little silver friend might loosen up and start working again now that the ambient temperature is higher and the syrup thins a bit, its switches have tended to loosen up while I'm here, as have mine. I do get the odd encouraging message on the e-mail with added attachments which means I can poach a few photos of your photos too. These coupled with some old shots from last year mean that I can still share some snaps through the magic of the Internet, without the massive effort and not inconsiderable risk of lifting a camera to my eye. Anyway enough of the tech guff.
Gillian, star of stage and screen, has finally completed her newest production:"The Snapper". A fine little girl as you will all see for yourselves. I haven't got the weights and measures, but she'll probably turn out about as shy and reticent as her mother. 2006 was a veritable incubator of a year for some. Veronika and Yessenia in Colombia also had daughters Nancy and Sherice. No pics of those yet. It seems that however dark and cold and foreboding things might appear,there is always some glimmer of light somewhere. Gillian didn't send any photos of the proud dad, Alan, so he's going to have to be imaginary Alan for the time being. Gillian says he's a mad Irish fisherman and doing more than his share to keep the Atlantic salmon running. Good Man. So God bless them all and I'm sure we'll flick a fly together someday. The only things hatching at the moment are the brutish Aruban mozzies that are eating me alive while I write this. Welcome to the world Elizabeth and congratulations to Mum and Dad.
I think we're (by we I actually mean Elkie) are going to have to make a hall of fame photo gallery on this blog as soon as 'we' have relocated 'our' computer. Anyway I'm also including a photo of Ma in her pre-Ma Hollywood days. Sorry Gilli, next time send three snaps, I have to keep the numbers up!
Next post I'll be on my way to Venezuela and the pics will be coming from Longford!

There are belated New Year greetings from all the fish here in the big-pond. The server has been down for a few weeks now, so I extend even more greetings to those faithful enough to keep visiting despite the downtime. Hopefully we'll be up for a while now and I can catch up on the lost posts of 2006, including Caitie's first visit to Colombia and our mini bus epic from Barranquilla to Venezuela. It was rum old year, one to stir life to the roots and stir the pot to the bottom. On the one hand there was great sorrow and loss, for me the shadow of Jay passing will overshadow everything and mark the year of 2006 darkly and indelibly in my memory for the rest of my remaining years. I know that there have been big changes for all of us, old friends reunited, changes in both address and attitude. New relationships and new arrivals, (more about those in the next post). There is a wealth of promising things looming on the near horizon. For me the impending completion of my personal physical and dental repairs will be high on the list, followed by the Barranquilla Carnival where I will be joined by a small, hand picked group of European hedonists who will use this immense cultural event to attempt to learn temperance in preparation for Lent, or more probably to learn how to dance 'Cumbia' on a table wearing nothing but marimonda masks, while balancing beers on their heads. (Again these are separate posts in which I will also sing praises to the standard of Colombian health care). In all I'm in an optimistic and sunny mood. That's easy to say, I know, when it's thirty degrees and blue skies. But on the whole I'd say it's a question of heart and eyes and keeping all of them open, regardless of how bleak things may seem at times.
On the phone today with Ireland I asked Jamie what the weather was like in Longford; "There's a beautiful clear sky and a full moon...." he said. These natural wonders seemed more interesting and remarkable to him than the storms that have been lashing Europe and the frosty grass crunching under his boots on his way home from Monica's. Both our Jamie and things are looking up.

(Photos: Caitie and Cosmo in Barranquilla, Colombia and Caitie in Maracay, Venezuela. August 2006) 

Rain, rain rain.
"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness,
far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable
fact of human existence."What did I read there? The Wolfe man again in dedication. Travis Bickle knows the rain that I mean. It's definitely the wet season when I touch ground in Barrranquilla. Mi tierra querida. The troops are out on the streets again and all the way from the airport the soldiers are on every street corner as if to welcome me. They are stop and searching, Barranquieros spread-eagled against walls getting the bad man pat down. I guess they don't want to take any chances when I'm in town. Of course it's Uribe again. He always seem to time his visits to coincide with mine. It's election time now though and he is doing a little band-standing. The thought of a Colombian general election is almost as exciting a prospect as Carnival. It's going to be an exciting visit this time. Not only the elections but Miss Barranquilla is running for Miss World in Las Vegas. I try to up myself a little on Latin American history a little more each time I visit. I learned that the current president Uribe had his father kidnapped and despite paying the ransom got his Dad back in chunks on the doorstep in a dustbin bag. It's hard to be optomistic about the thoughts of any political reconciliation. The fact that he even acknowledges the para-militaries is something of kindness. The good that has been slaughtered in this country beggars all belief. I've recently read the biography of that head job Escobar. The murder of Luis Carlos Galan.  Probably the best hope this country ever had. The shoe shining comedian whose name I do not even remeber. To even excercise political comedy can cop you a head shot from the cheerless armed actors here, who coke or Bush driven run rampant in this wonderful country. I wonder who is buying all these bullets? Wonder if anyone like Galan  will ever come again. Ingrid Betancourt is still in the hands of kidnappers if she is even indeed alive. It will need bags of that Colombian resolve and conviction. Oh and yes, a world that even gives a fuck. That would be a nice one. I managed to get down to the University for election day but was too chicken shit to take photos of the hordes of might morphin' power rangers lining the streets. But fuck that, the amazon will be gone in it's entirety in twenty years, all eyes on Iraq and Afghanistan That's a fact. Britain is shovelling more up it's nose than anywhere outside of the US. Makes a change from sniffing Yankee bum i suppose. This may be as as good as it gets. Wake up and smell the coffee my friends. It's probably Colombian. End of political ranting. Uribe won. Miss Barranquilla didn't.

You can only drink beer and dodge falling mangos for so long. I'm not sure about Venezuela. It surely seems like a fine country and I'm sure that the time I had spent there was not long enough to form a conclusive opinion. I guess that takes a lifetime really. There is a strange magnetism that draws me to Colombia however, maybe it's the same attraction that drew Bolivar. He was born in Caracas but gave up the ghost in a borrowed shirt in Colombia. Cartagena I think. The Venezuelans claimed his bones and shipped them back to Caracas. I'm not sure what happened to the shirt. The 24 hour rule would have surely run out on that one. Colombia is more edgy, which appeals to me. Echoes of Coventry I think. Bishops gate. The taxi ranks on a Friday night after chucking out time in the clubs. That brooding sense of impending doom which threatens but never actually arrives.A punch in the head which really isn't that bad.  After an uneventful flight from Valencia to Caracas I think I must have been musing on this as I touched ground in Bogota. Magic of all magic, wonder of all wonders, there is a WIMPY bar in the airport at Bogota. Will my luck ever run out? They even have the smooth brown mustard, "french mustard" I think they used to call it in the Wimpy bar in Coventry. Tasted like brown vinegar icing. While I was sucking down that stuff I seem to remember my bro and sister prefering the ketchup and this made me feel very interesting and continental. Jesus God I loved that stuff. Colombia may be the last repository of me and all things Coventry. I already have the borrowed shirt. But know this. When the town council demand, upon the threat of severe repercussion, the repatriation of my bones, as surely they will, then I want to buried at a point of triangulation between where the Coventry Theatre used to be, where the Kinks played and the Who first got banned for smashing up their instruments, The Jaguar pub where Bill Beckett gave me my first hit of acid, and the Wimpy bar where I first tasted something french. It may require some drastic civil engineering but that has never been an issue in my home town. Everything has gone: Jaguar, Triumph, Rover, Humber, Francis Barnet,Alvis, Austin, Morris, the Rootes group, Cov Rad, Fishy Moores, Two Tone, the piss-house in the upper precinct, Norman Butter, The Locarno where Pink Floyd previewed Dark side op the Moon with Hawkwind in support, The Lanch, Barclay James Harvest on the same bill as  MC5 (kick out the jams), Highfield Rd., Beefheart at Warwick Uni, demonstrations, citizens help, The Paris, The Gaumont,  Rolls Royce, Bob, Mum & Dad and Jase, most of my family and most of my mates. In fact what hasn't gone has gone to fuck. But just as there is a time for leaving then there will be a time for returning. The Sky blues WILL win the champions league. Lady Godiva will be doubled up on the back of the horse of Simon Bolivar. The taste of a Wimpy on Bogota airport brings it all flooding on in and flooding back. How far do you really have to go to find the way back? Bogota is the mustard.

Between memory and truth somewhere falls the shadow. Bart still maintains that during a weeks stay I managed to drink ten cases of beer. This seems improbable in the extreme but not impossible. During the rainy season the insects proliferate and for some reason they have their eyes and probosces fixed firmly on me this year. I'd been feeling progressively more dicky as the weeks wore on but had put this down more to my age and the rate of travelling rather anything else. My great friend B.M. had turned up from the Islands, something he'd be threatening to do ever since I first started haunting this corner of the Caribbean and he took me off to an old friend of his: Juraco, who is not an unknown figure to many of my childhood friends. He is also someone who holds the English crew in great affection. The politics run a little contrary since Juraco is a great "Chavezniste" much as myself. This is not a universally shared sentiment among my immediate friends. Especially Bernadus. Nonetheless we trooped down to regard the legacy of Mr. D. Sedge Willett, a man held in special high regard in these regions but better known to us as the wee grey fellow. The world and his brother are now earning a living here with mozaik techniques perfected and performed by the wee grey one. He and his fine son Helmut are well remembered in this corner of the world. We had a wonderful barbeque with the artist and his family. This was probably to prove my last flirtation with red meat and green peppers and laterly my enduring romance with alcoholic beverages. A fine time was had by all and between the profit and the loss we celebrated old and new friendships and the virtue and value of broken things.

Believe me it was a joy to return to the Posada El Limon. For any of you not familiar with this little jewel, set providentially between national parks, white, sandy beaches and some of the best that Venezuela has to offer, then let this be my recommendation.The management and staff are a blessing and are more than capable of helping you with any particular nature of study, stimulation or entertainment that you might desire from a visit to Latin America. For me it was a short opportunity to wonder and to take a little rest before careering on with my journey along the Caribbean coast. I say that not only because the management are old and dear friends of mine, but because a stay there presents nothing but relaxation and joy. All the contact guff is in the Lonely Planet guide but I'll include all the contact details in a later post. You can save yourself the price of the guide and keep your money for the good Polar Beer. Something I probably imbibed a little to much of on this particular visit. Bernadus and his good lady wife Selina, plus the kids Pablo and Jade gave me a good time of it. Unfortunately I did visit in the rainy season which meant not only the customary of showers of rain but a hail of ripened mangos. The big Mangos come down like mortar shells and the smaller starch mangos rattle off the the rooves like machine gun fire. A fruity fusillade. None the less i had at least a few days to recover from the stress of over enthusiastic travelling and had the chance to meet a few old friends that I had not seen for years. In addition to this the eclectic collection of guests were included: Georgina, the niece of Jenny Agutter. (Still my beating heart). And a Welsh professor of ancient languages from Tondu. I've lost or never never rembered to write down those e-mail addresses but should either of you read these lines then get in touch. Or at least Georgina...get your Aunt to. We still have outstanding issues. .I have a few unresolved questions which stem back to my teenage years. The words naked and pond come to mind  Bdah bdah.