… drove behind 4 cars who had only one brake light working

… drove behind 2 cars with no brake lights working

… narrowly avoided squashing the toes of the window cleaner who wouldn’t take no for an answer, despite the fact that it was a busy intersection and the lights had changed

… was very happy that it was school holidays as I was running late and still got to work early

… listened to the Love Actually soundtrack to encourage the Christmasy feeling

… ignored my collegues who were calling my cell phone - I was on my way, it wasn’t late, what could they want?

… yelled lots of rude words at the man in the brand new BMW who felt he could just pull in front of me with no warning - I’m not scared, I’d hit his car… apart from the fact that I need mine to be working at the moment! 

… and the whole journey took less than 15 minutes! 

I was out with my friends on Friday night to hear a band play (Gas Money - pretty good indie band…. that was an unpaid endorsement!)  at Red Bones. While waiting for the music to start, I was standing at the bar getting a drink when a guy opened the conversation with me with the line ‘I saw you in traffic today.’

In response to my question of where, he replied ‘In New Kingston’.

Well, that’s a new one for me. I’m impressed - a line like that could be true of 90% of Kingstonians, yet it makes it seem like you stand out in traffic! I’ll give him marks for effort.

Does anyone else who lives in Kingston play games on their drive to work in the morning? You know the ones - how many times have I nearly been killed this morning? How many police cars have raced past me with their sirens on and only one officer in there? How many window cleaners have I had to tell to leave me alone?

just wondering!

On a different but related note, I was on my way out with a friend on Friday night and we were stopped at the traffic lights near Devon House. A man appears, selling roses at the car window. We wave him on - ‘we are girls who have flowers bought for us, not girls who buy them ourselves’ we tell him. So then a  moment later, he reappears and hands us a rose through the window. This is accompanied by a car horn blowing - apparently the rose was a gift from those men in that car. We smiled, waved and drove off with our rose.

Ah well, at least if blah times get worse, I know that I can at least attract men in a car in the dark!!!

And once the  hurricane has past, we are left with the usual post-hurricane issues to deal with. Light and water have been fixed, but the absence of anay fresh fruit and veg is a bit harder to fix right now. And yes, there is also that other post-hurricane situation which has kept me away from my computer for the past few days. You know, the one that comes about because maybe some of the meat you ate somewhere wasn’t keep quite a cold as it should have been, maybe the ice in your drink wasn’t made with bottled water… I think you get the scenario. It’s been three days since I’ve eaten any solid foods now. But I think I’m getting there! I hope so - soup is getting boring.

In other news, the athletics is going well!!!! I will be up early tomorrow to watch the 4×100 events. It is hilarious how newspapers cover events, I was reading the UK Guardian online today and noticed that they think they have a chance in the men’s 4×100 final. Hmmm. I think we must be thinking about different events. As in my humble opinion, it is between us and the US … and as Asafa has something major to prove, my money is on Jamaica.

Please don’t let us down again!

And other than that, it’s elections on Monday. I won’t tell you who to vote for, but I will tell you to get up and go and vote! Remember if you don’t vote, then you have no right to complain about anything related to the way that the country is run for the next 5 years as you had your chance and you didn’t use it. Nuff said!

That’s right, internet is now part of my life again! The hurricane has been and gone and thanks for all of the good wishes. I made it through well. I put everything in my apartment on blocks (I’ve been informed that the place has flooded badly in the past), took photo albums to my parents, packed my bags, locked the door and headed to the man’s house where the generator and water tank were well enjoyed. And when I went back home to inspect the damage afterwards, the only water in the hosue was that coming out of the taps. Boy, was I lucky and am I thankful.

But I need to keep remembering that and remembering how bad things are elsewhere. In Ivan, we were still living at our old house outside of town and things were rough - the roof nearly went, no water for 2 weeks, no electrivity for 5. And apparently Dean hit up there worse than Ivan did.

Although I am very keen to get elections out of the way so that we can all start making plans for the future, I do hope that these elections will be able to be carried off properly. In areas where there is no light and water, I hope people can still be able to come out and vote. It is so easy for us sitting in a city where things are getting back to normal quickly, to forget that there are others who are suffering lots. And that these people also deserve to vote and have their say.

Enough preaching… off to check that everyone else is OK now!

Oh yes, nearly forgot - the hurricane and the rain last week has been excellent for my new grass! It’s looking good now!

And once again, it is panic time in Jamaica -  a hurricane appears to be on the way. I have a question. You know all that stuff that people buy for hurricanes that never hit us? You know, the candles, the flashlights, the tarpaulin, the water buckets? For hurricanes like Dennis and Emily who come close but miss? What happens to them when it turns out to be just a scare and we don’t get hit?

As you can be sure that the next time there is a warning, these same people will be standing in the same long queues in the same old shops to be the same things over again.

Me? I have an excuse - it’s a new house so I’ve never had those things before!

And my plan is to batter down the windows, put things in high places away from flooding and head to the man’s to shelter in his big bed!

I am in agony today. My body hurts. Specifically my back, my shoulders, my arms and my legs. That doesn’t really leave much else does it?

What happened was as follows: I am having a housewarming party this weekend (assuming that we are not being hit by a hurricane!). While the inside of my house is well up for display, the back garden was looking rather pathetic. Depending on the weather, it was either a dust bowl or a mud bath.

So after investigating, I discovered that if you go to Bog Walk (about 1 hours drive from Kingston), you can buy rolls of grass. Great I thought, just buy the grass, roll it out and I have a garden. No planting of seeds, nice and simple. So I called up, ordered, borrowed my dad’s station wagon, roped him in to help in the afternoon and off I went.

Well, of course it’s not that simple. The grass merges together in the back of the vehicle on the drive back to town, becoming one big pile of mud and grass. Which is very heavy to move. You can’t just put this on the ground either, you have to break up the soil with a heavy pitch fork thingy. My dad helped - he carried the heavy stuff! However, I still did all of the earth breaking myself. And damn it was hot.

It’s on days like this that I realise the despite the fact that I grew up in Jamaica, that this is my home and where I want to have children one day, I will never truely by a middle-class Jamaican girl. As my friends all said to me today on hearing of my plight: ‘Why didn’t you just get a man in to do it?’

As my teacheres used to tell me frequently at High School, common sense really isn’t all that common. Now, those of you who have been in Jamaica over the last few days will know that it has rained nuff. As in from Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning, the rain basically didn’t stop. So all of the plants got a nice watering. A bit too much water in some cases - I’ve yet to sort out the garden at the back of my house so that is now a very muddy area.

This morning, I drove past Devon House on my way to work and saw that the sprinklers had been put on to water the grass. Huh??

All I can think is that the junior gardener is under instructions that every Monday morning during the months of July and August, he must turn the sprinklers on early in the morning and he blindly follows these instructions, no matter what.

And the irony? It won’t be too long before we are told that the dam in getting low and hence water will be locked off!

It’s the Kingston on the Edge arts festival this week. Go. Take part. Enjoy. Lots of it is free!!! I went to the tour of the Natioanl Gallery on Sunday and to see Capoeira on the Waterfront which was good.  Not a huge crowd… so support it if you can!!! I’m planning on getting in a few more of the events as the week goes on.

It appears to be the yellow butterflies time of year again. It started a few days ago, but this morning was the first time that they were swarming everywhere.

There was a cute little old man in front of me buying his lunch yesterday, you know, dressed in the immaculate trousers which were high on his waist, with a well ironned plaid shirt. And then he turned around and I saw the front of the immaculate white cap he had on with a big gold blingy ‘G-UNIT’ on it. I had to stop myself laughing, it just looked so out of place with the rest of him.

My honey went away for a long weekend, I like it when he comes home again! And soon it will be my time to leave him for a month…

And thank you Mad Bull for the assistance!

I went out for a drink last night  at a bar near to my new house (I love living in the centre of the city!! And yes, ‘my new house’ is going to be a common phrase around here for a while, am reckoning at at least twice per post for a month…)

A friend of ours had been for a meal next door so came in afterwards for a drink with his wife and daughter, daughter was about 15/16. I was talking to daughter when the guy from the band came around. They always have a collection for the band on a Tuesday night, and last night was no different. They approached daughter, who looked at them with that sophisticated look that only a 15 year old has (you know the one, they know that they are cute but are not yet too self-conscious etc) and said:

 ’Oh, but of course I have no money on me - I’m here with men.’

On another note: thanks for all the good house wishes - I’ll invite you all to the virtual housewarming party, all I need to do first is find where camera batteries were packed…