Lost in Time

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Thu 8 Dec 2011 18:04
THURSDAY  8th December  2011
 
Gosh, Its nearly Christmas again,
That annual ritual where we all loose the run of ourselves, Food, Drink, more drink, and more again,
But then there are the families, the children, granchildren, the toys, the Santa, the presents, the surprises, the Races,
the hunting and excercise, the faboulas christmas trees, the parties, especially the one at the yacht club
with Skippers mother, Gladys, who is nearly 95 , her children ( of which skipper is the eldest ) her grandchildren and her
 great grandchildren.....WOW
 
Back to the present, we are now just 148 miles north of Antigua and will arrive there early tomorrow morning,
We had a fast windy , wet and bumpy passage,   covering nearly a 1,000 miles in less than 5 days,
It was not ones impression of " Blue Water Sailing"  even to the extent that Mark failed untill now to get the fishing
rod out there and working.
 
Mark is big into the " Bees" and its facinating to listen to his stories about breeding Bees,
We ( well certainly Skipper ) was well aware of the global problem with Bees, they are dissapearing from many places
around the globe , to such an extent that there are no more Ferrel Bees in Europe , Americas, and lots of other places
on our planet.
 
Everybody knows that Bees are needed for pollenating crops, plants, flowers etc, without the bees there would be no crops,
plants or flowers, and our planet would most likely die .
So now bees are supplied and maintained by Bee keepers like Mark, In fact Mark has developed a way of breeding Queen Bees
specially for other hives and bee keepers,  Fascinating stuff,
 
Do you know that in America where crops ( Like Almonds) are so big and with no local wild bees, farmers have to
employ or hire out special bee trucks, yes, there are companies who just drive around the States with hundreds of " Bee Hives"
on the back of their trucks just pollinating these vast crops ,, 
Could we call these Colonial Bees,
 
We all read the book about the " Sack of Baltimore" by the Barbary Pirates from Algiers,  As you know , Skipper is facinated
with " Pirates"  the whole history of Pirates is mind boggling, So much of it was put down to religion ( Like Northern Ireland)
but when one strips off the outsides , its all about money,  As they say " Money talks & Bullshit walks "
However ,The sack of Baltimore is a facinating web of political curruption, blackmail, traitors, torture, as well as Paradise in
Algiers for those that wanted to get themselves freed from slavery,
Did you know that in the 1600's , Algiers had running water and a fowel sewer system,  London did not , nor did most of Europe.
 
Enough of all that for now,  Skipper must continue to sort out his US Visa, hopefully it will be all done by Christmas.
A Christmas present,
Now, the dinner for tonight, this week we have had cottage pie twice, chicken in coconut oil, twice, so perhaps a steak
for dinner tonight, and the weather has brightned up and we had lots of Dolphins keeping us company for a few hours,
 
Yes, the Bee storey is facinating and " Honey " is a complete food, If you eat honey from
your local area, then one is most likely to be immune to such things as Hay Fever,   but it must be local. 
 
Thats it for now,
 
Signed :-   Stephen Hyde  ( Skipper )