Hello again,
I'm a bit late with this quarter's blog, we've been quite busy!
At the start of April, I left the UK to return to Carol in Sao Paulo. Carol was very pleased to have me back and I finally got to meet Noah, our new little dog. She is very sweet and full of energy and also quite a lot of trouble as she runs everywhere and seems determined to eat or chew anything and everything!
After only a few days in Brazil, Carol and I headed to the airport, bound for Miami. This was to be the first time we had seen our new apartment, as we took a bit of a risk buying it based on pictures, videos and Carol’s deep knowledge of the best apartments in Miami. The apartment would be completely empty, so initially we would stay in a hotel for a few days, until we at least had a bed delivered and some of our furniture.
The plan was to have to whole apartment redesigned and redecorated before we really moved in. So, this trip was mainly just to get to know the place a little and meet with the (Brazilian as usual) designer, decide what we wanted to do with the place and get the work started.
The new apartment is just across the road from our old apartment, The Murano, so we know the neighbourhood very well, we looked to find a nearby hotel to stay in initially. The Murano used to have a deal with the Bentley Hotel, so that we could use their beach club. Carol was looking to book the Bentley, and I was looking too. For some reason, in my search on Hotels.com was giving a much lower room rate than anything Carol could find so I booked it.
As usual flights to Miami are night flights and arrive very early in the morning. Once we had collected our bags (of which we had many), we got a cab to the Hotel. This led to some confusion as the taxi was heading for Ocean Drive and Carol was sure that it was on 1st Street. I checked the booking which also agreed with Ocean Drive. Here comes big mistake number one! It transpires that there are 2 Bentley Hotels in Miami. One is an old art deco, party hotel on Ocean Drive and the other is a much nicer hotel on the beach, at the end of 1st Street. Carol took one look at “my” hotel and got on her phone and pretty soon we were checking into the “right” Bentley hotel. ☹
Now, I was to discover my second, and much bigger mistake. A mistake I had made about 9-hours earlier on the American Airways flight. I chose crawfish 3-ways! At the time of eating, I kind of knew that something was not right. I gingerly tried each of the different crawfish creations and none of them seemed very good. I literally only ate about 8-10 mouthfuls. I was not very hungry anyway and I left the rest. But the damage was done.
By the time we got into the room at the right Bentley hotel, I had to dive into the bathroom and I would spend a great deal of time in this bathroom over the next few days. As my friend Ira was to remark, when I told him of my flight menu choice, ‘it had been a very long time since those crawfish had seen the ocean! “. It was, indeed, major food poisoning ☹
I won’t bore you with the nasty details, we’ve all been there!
The new apartment was only a short walk from the hotel, so the next day we set off to get the keys to our new abode. It’s funny that the Murano, with its 35 floors, looms very large over The Courts.
We love it – here is a picture gallery, so you can see what it’s like.
<< The Courts at South Beach Gallery >>
My first main task was to get all of our furniture and stuff from the movers and relocate it to a local storage facility. Once this was done, my second task was to try and sell what we don’t need and what won’t fit into our smaller apartment. I managed to sell 1 sofa! It was a very big sofa, so it was a small victory. The rest will have to wait until we have more time in Miami later in the year.
One thing to say about life in Miami, that never fails to shock me, especially as I ride my Ducati around, wearing my crash helmet, is the lack of a helmet law in Florida. There are only 18 of the 50 US States that have a helmet law. I was sat at some traffic lights the other day and there was a young mother on a motor scooter with a very young daughter, maybe 5 or 6 years old, not sitting on the back, but standing between the seat and handle bars. Both with no helmet. Insane. In Miami you have so many crazy people too, showing off, driving too fast in Lamborghinis and Ferraris and monster trucks. Who knows if they are sober or using drugs… It’s Miami! And probably 80% of motorcycle/scooter drivers choose not to wear a helmet. This made me look into the figures:
- In 2022 UK had 350 fatalities from 3.6m riders
- In 2022 USA had 6218 fatalities from 8.6m riders
- 4 times more riders and 17.8 times more fatalities.
- If there was a helmet law, you could argue that they would only have 840 fatalities, so 5,378 people would not be dead!! It’s crazy.
But then they also love their guns and they love Trump, so I can no longer really understand their mentality.
Talking about guns:
- Add to the 5,378 that kill themselves on motorcycles, there are 47,000 who die by guns (31,000 suicides) every year!
- The UK has less than 200, (about 100 suicides) per year.
There are other things in the US that surprise me. The banks are expensive and antiquated. Last year I wanted to buy a security access fob from my apartment building administration. I was told they don’t accept cash or credit cards. I could only pay by check (in English, that’s a cheque). I had to contact my bank and request they send me a check book, so I could buy the fob!
I’ll get off my soap box now 😊
From Miami we went back to Brazil and we were reunited with naughty little Noah. We went out for dinner, to the mall next door and left the dog at home. We returned to find that she had climbed up on the sofa and then onto my desk, where she must have found my Apple air pods. When we returned, we found the empty air pod case on the floor and only one air pod could be seen. We searched everywhere, even lifted the very heavy sofa to look underneath. We could not find it – so the only conclusion was that she must have swallowed it ☹.
At 11:30pm we headed out to the 24-hour vet. They shaved her little belly and x-rayed her, and then also ultrasound scanned her. They couldn’t see anything, but told us to come back in the morning to check her again. We got home at 3 in the morning ☹ and sent her back the next day with our driver, Gilberto, to have her scanned again. She returned with news that they could not see anything inside her. Later that day I opened the freezer and there underneath the freezer was the lost air pod! Oh, the joy of owning a little dog!
April 2025, became an important month for me, as it was the month that I decided to stop working. I'd only been working part-time for the last couple of years, but I decided to stop. I'm not officially retiring, as I may be tempted to work on some project, if it interests me. But its enough for now and I like not working, I'm pretty good at it :)
After only a couple of days we were off again, this time bound for the “Alive” health spa in Punta del Este, Uruguay. This was a very nice place, set in a forest, next to a big lake.
The beach was a 30-minute walk away and was empty, bar a few fishermen...
<< More picture from the Alive Spa >>
We were booked in for 20-days, with the objective of losing a few kilos. On the first day we weighed in, and I was only 12st 2lbs, not too bad. I usually fluctuate between 12 and 13 stone.
The food was good, and my only complaint was that they gave you too much and too frequently. If you followed their schedule, you’d have a healthy green juice and some fruit at 7:30 am, then you go to the gym for 45 minutes, then a 60-minute walk. On our walks we would admire the different houses built in the woods around the lake:
<< see more local houses near the spa >>
Back for breakfast at 10am, which would be avocado, omelette, cherry tomatoes and some kind of wheatless, black bread. Then some treatments/massages, lunch at 12:30, usually some meat and salad. Then healthy snacks at 4pm, coffee and some fruit. More snacks at 6pm, if you wanted them, then dinner at 8pm, again meat or fish with salad. The food was good, but we had to request smaller portions and we skipped most of the extra snacks. The treatments were good and I managed to recruit a local physiotherapist to come in a couple of times a week to help with my shoulder rehabilitation. We really enjoyed it – we would walk down to the beach and at the weekends we would have a day out in Punta del Este.
<< more views from Punta del Este >>
Carol got her hair done and then we went to the casino. We played roulette, blackjack, slots and more roulette. Every time, we would start with say $100 each, and every time I would lose my $100 and Carol would win more than $100! She had the magic touch that day.
By the end, we both lost some weight, I got down to 11 stone 9 pounds (74 kg), which is my lowest for at least 30-years! Carol lost a few kilos too, but not as many as she wanted to lose. From Uruguay, we flew back to Brazil on 28-May, the day Chelsea beat Real Betis to win the Europa Conference Cup, becoming the first team to have won all 3 European trophies.
At the weekend we were planning to go to the country home at Boa Vista, but unexpectedly, it would be for the last time for quite a while. Boa Vista is a very large gated, condominium of houses and there is company that specialises in finding people a house there, to buy or rent. A wealthy lawyer had specified his requirement to rent a sports home for a year. Our house is a sports home, as it resides in the area where they have triathlons, with a lake to swim in and a 5km bike and running track.
We were not looking to rent our house, but the company contacted us and made us an offer we could not refuse. Which included the full years rent, paid in advance. Also, as we have just got the new place in Miami, so our focus for the next 12-months will be getting that place set up and remodelled to be just how we want it. This meant that our weekend changed from relaxing, to packing up and storing all our personal stuff. Our maid, Gisele, would continue working for them, so we would have her to keep an eye on things, plus we have about 10 cameras there too.
I took a few pics before we left:
<< more pictures from Boa Vista >>
On the 7th June Carol had a plan to fly to Isreal with a big Jewish group of about 30 people. The plan was to visit Jerusalem and other places and a dinner/audience with the President of Isreal! Consequently, I booked a flight back to the UK on the same day. But, as the trip got nearer, red flags were appearing, such as BA cancelling all flights to Isreal. In the end Carol decided it was just too dangerous and pulled out. Most of the rest of the group did go however, and found themselves having to shelter in bunkers to avoid the rockets and bombs from Iran. For a few days the group had no way to get home. In the end they had to drive across the border into Jordan and get a flight home from there.
On the 7th I left Carol in Brazil, and returned to the UK and Newmarket. I have recently rediscovered my love of snooker, so I went down to Brighton to play for a few hours with my old University friends. Keith is a member of the Castle Snooker Club in Brighton, but we needed a second member to be able to book 2 tables, so I agreed to become a member. I must be their most non-local club member, living 5,866 miles away, in Sao Paulo.
A week later I met Carol at Heathrow and we drove down to Wareham, to stay with my brother, Roger and his wife his Terrie. Carol was a bit jet-lagged having just arrived from Sao Paulo, via a stop in Germany. We had dinner in town, by the river and walked back in the late evening sun.
The next morning, we drove to Southampton docks, to board the red funnel ferry and cross to Cowes, on the Isle of Wight.
We did a little tour around the west side of the island, through Ryde, St. Helens, Bembridge, Sandown and finally to Shanklin and the Haven Hall hotel. The hotel was amazing, right by the sea, beautiful gardens and we had a lovely suite. And a very nice pool:
<< Videos from Haven Hall Hotel >>
The first day of the Isle of Wight festival was a bit slow as thousands of people arrived and had to get their access wrist bands. The VIP queue was not too bad, but by the time we actually got in, we had missed most of the Smyths set. Which was a shame as Carol is a big Smiths/Morrissey fan. After that, we saw a fun 90’s tribute ban who played some great old anthems and had everyone dancing.
The second day, Friday, was the big day. The main stage was now in place and happily the VIP area was open, and we could get pretty close to the stage without the crush. We saw Amy MacDonald up first; she was great and one of my favourites. Then we had the Coors, and then the main event, which was Sting! Carol was in heaven, singing and dancing to every song. Sting played all his big hits; it was great fun.
We were not too impressed with the acts playing on Saturday, so we gave ourselves the day off. We drove up to the north of the Island to visit Osbourn House, previously the summer home of Queen Victoria.
<< more pics from Osbourne House >>
We had a tour of the house and gardens, which were lovely. After Victoria died, the house was given to the nation and became a convalescent home for injured service members, until only a few years ago.
On the final day, we had a walk down to the famous needles (rocks) and later we went to a lovely restaurant called The Hut, in Colwell Bay.
The ferry back was uneventful, and we had another night staying with Roger and Terrie in Wareham and then drove back to London. Carol wanted to try a new hotel, Raffles Hotel, which is on Whitehall. The building was formerly the location of Churchill’s war office.
So, we had one night there, it’s an amazing hotel, very fancy. Then we headed to Heathrow and a flight to Dublin. The plan was to rent a car at the airport and do a little tour of the south of Ireland and round to West Cork, before returning to see Mumford and Sons at Malahide Castle, County Dublin. All of that and more in the next instalment…
Take care and stay healthy!
Love from Peter