Well what do you know! The storms gone, the sun is shining, the sea is blue and calm and it’s 95%. I’m still sitting on the lower terrace overlooking the ocean with Rose Island in the distance and would you believe it the vodka lasted out mind you I had to change to grapefruit juice instead of cranberry juice with it but that’s OK it brought back memories of an early life.


I was introduced to vodkas and grapefruit juice as an early evening aperitif by an American guy working with us in Nottingham although it was usually late evening before we finished sampling them. You can meet the 'Flash Yank' and 'Captain Marvel’ in Session 79 if you have nothing better to do.


So sitting here the past few days I have been thinking about the differences between England and the Bahamas, now how long have got! There are obvious things like sunshine and temperature but what about attitude to life, are we too hung up back home? Who has it right?


Take the supermarket, as you should know if you are keeping up Christine has banned me from going to the supermarket back in England as I drive her potty comparing prices and blends and buying things we don’t need but over here the supermarkets are cool to say the least so I have been tagging along whenever I can. Now when I say they are cool yesterday when the outside temperature had dropped to the high 80s the staff in the supermarket had anoraks and gloves, I of course was still in my shorts and T-shirt.


So I now have first hand knowledge of these places. Back in England I complain that a lot of the fruit and vegetables from Tescos have always gone off before their ‘sell by’ date while over here many have gone off by the time you manage to get through the ‘check out’. But that’s not really my point, it’s the attitude to life that’s brilliant.


Take Tescos again. We bought a hand held food blender, not a cheap one you realise it cost at least £5 and was manufactured to a high quality in Taiwan or some such place. A couple of days later Christine wants to make some mayonnaise, I know it’s hard to believe but she did, still no scones but we were to have home made mayonnaise so out comes the blender, the ingredients go in the bowl and she switches it on. There follows a flash and smoke all over the blender has blown up on its first outing. So I switch into Victor Meldrew mode and I’m off to Tescos to see the customer service department ready for a rant.


Disappointingly I don’t get to have a rant as she exchanges the blender and gives me a large bottle of olive oil and some eggs because I said these had been ruined in the process of the blender blowing up. She then gave me a bottle of Helman’s Mayonnaise just in case Christine now had no time to make the home made stuff and I leave feeling strangely deflated because I hadn’t had my rant.


But out here life is not so complicated. Down the supermarket we buy some margarine the name of which is immaterial although you simply won’t believe it’s not butter and on getting it home it’s gone off, absolutely rancid. At $1.48 it’s not worth any hassle so it goes in the bin and the next time we pass the supermarket we get some more. On opening we find this on is rancid as well so it follows the other into the bin and for whatever reason we go back to the same supermarket and get another with the same results.


Victor Meldrew steps up again and I’m off back to the supermarket, I explain that this is the third packet of this margarine that we have bought and they have all been off. She looks at me with the same look I get from Christine when she doesn’t understand what I am on about and says “Why do keep buying it then” and carries on with what she was doing.


I wander off with my till receipt in my hand, put the gone off margarine in the bin and go home for some more vodka and grapefruit. The Bahamians have got it right, life isn't complicated all we needed to do was buy a different type of margarine!