HABS WATER POLO NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

On a day that began badly (Mr Stiff had forgotten the Bon Jovi CD), Little were we to know that it would end with HABS being crowned National Champions. Having a bus driver that used to work in the rock music industry as a roadie made up a little for the lack of 90s Rock music on the journey and as the boys departed the coach, his good luck endorsements put a smile onto our faces that Manchester would soon wipe off. Our side qualified for the national finals with ease, it is the best Under 14s side I have ever coached and the only reason why we were not confident going into the national finals was that we did not know how good the opposition were. We had heard rumours of a giant Bolton side that had destroyed the famous Manchester Grammar School. Manchester had won this trophy the last 6 years and so news that a side had beaten them quickly reverberates around the water polo world (it is bigger than you think). So we were ready – the boys ha d a clear bounce to their steps, they had faith, they were not livin on a prayer, they were ready to go. And as we had found out the previous week, Manchester were our first opponents. All the training, all the time spent working on man ups and man downs, all the set ups meant nothing when we missed several clear cut chances and Manchester went 4 nil up. Yes, that is 4 nil up. But, unlike with the senior side, when this lot went 4 goals down, I did not lose hope and , most importantly, neither did they!. These boys do not know how to lose (they have not lost all year) and I knew that they were not going to lose today. Luka needed to look for the shot from 5 more, Hamish needed to get the ball in the pit, Jonny needed to threaten in attack, Teddy needed to show just what a good player he could be, Steinert needed to drop and help Cammy more and Karan needed to get his passes more accurate from goal. And this is what they did. They did keep the faith, they may have been livin on a prayer but with as many Religious assemblies as HABS have every week, that prayer was soon answered (and I think even the Jain God was on our side!), Luka scored first (shooting from 5), Hamish was next (getting the ball in the pit) and soon it was clear that Hamish actually remembered just how good he is. Luka started to cover the whole pool and recover from a bit of lethargy in the fisrt 2 minutes and pretty soon the score was 4 -3. Manchester scored again but still the New Jersey tones of John echoed around the boys’ heads. They kept pushing and with 30 seconds to go the score was 6 all. What a comeback, what a fight, what a game! Myself and Mr Stiff had each had 5 years knocked off our life expectancy (note the key Geographical term) but then Manchester called a time out. The referees signaled the time out and the game was stopped. Hang on, the coaches had agreed no time outs, all the coaches had met at the start and a consensus had been stated that there would not be timeouts in the Under 14 competition. I thought that I better let them know and so I shouted and shouted and then shouted a bit more. A timeout would have allowed Manchester to restart on the half way with their arc already set up and no time knocked off the 30 seconds left. This was an argument I was not willing to lose. So, I kept on shouted. For the first time in my coaching career – I did not receive my token yellow card, instead I got an apology, HABS gained possession for an incorrect call and we had the ball on half way with no time gone. We failed to use this chance but the sheer excitement of the game meant the boys celebrated as if they had won the whole competition. The boys knew that a loss would give them a more difficult semi-final against the aforementioned Bolton and we only wanted to play them in the final. Like Karate Kid, you do not want to fight the baddie until the very end. So we had kept our unbeaten record, we just now had to beat Trinity School Croydon by more goals than Manchester beat them. We had one games rest and then we were back in the pool. On the way down Nashy fell down the stairs (slippery when wet) but soon in the pool, HABS were to prove that we were equally slippery and our defence was a wall that teams would have to work hard to break down (apart from the first 2 minutes against Manchester but I am happy to forget this and know that unlike, period 8 on a Friday, they had actually learnt something from this lesson). Trinity were not going to be an easy team to beat – teams from this school have previously won the Under 18 national competition- and they are always well drilled. Our defence meant that we did not have to worry. With Teddy and Steinert dropping and with Cammy as a true rock in the wall, we were never going to concede in that game (I know its early in the blog to mention this but Cammy was my player of the tournament – for his faultless defence and for the key goals he scored in the semi-final and the final ((sorry for that spoiler)). In the Trinity game with our defence sorted, we needed to think about goals. 3 penalties in the first half should have helped us but with the talents of Southgate, Pearce and Sweinsteiger combined all of them were missed. The Trinity goalkeeper was like a goalkeeping Jedi – using the force to deflect away shots whilst changing the numbers over on his mobile phones at the same time. Finally we scored and at half time it was 2 nil to us- this was not looking good for the goal difference, if we played Bolton on the semi this would never be made into a film- the mighty ducks do not play the best team before the final, the big fight in Rocky is at the end, we must play better! And that we did. Luka was taken out when we thought that we had not done enough. However, this only helped to reinforce just how strong the bench was ((not just because it could support the weight of myself and Mr Stiff at the same time)) but in terms of the strength of our players. Josh Silverbeck showed how unlucky he was to not make the starting 7, Gilby showed that his droping and tracking back is equal to anybody else in the team, Nashy, Lockwood and Lawrence (the younger, more talented and better looking versions of their older brothers) showed a clear determination in attack (Lockwood was also in the pool for the first match for only about 10 seconds without complaining at all). This is also to the benches’ credit – never did any of the boys complain, They got much less match time than we would have hoped but they never even grumbled for a second. This group of boys made up for the damage certain HABS senior boys made to the schools’ reputation two weeks ago. Never did this side complain about a refs decision, never did they splash the water and moan when they missed a shot, they always just got on with it, tracked back and realized that hard work is what creates glory for the team. We were the only team to not have our goals scored by just two people (although Luka and Hamish would have been joint top scorers in the competition if they had not had the Jedi Goalkeeper in goal), the goals came from everywhere. Every member of our starting outfield players scored goals and this is what meant that our 2 nil half time lead against Trinity finished at 7 nil to HABS. We showed that we were not just a full side of 7, we were a full squad of 13. What’s more, there were boys left at home that would have walked into many other school starting 7s. We had an embarrassment of riches and it was now time to use that to embarrass the opposition. Who that opposition were, depended on how many Manchester could score against Trinity (Bolton were easily winning their group in the other half of the draw- they had 2 players that looked unbeatable but they had yet to meet the human wall of Cammy Baker). Manchester went 2 nil up, 3 nil up (time to worry) but then Trinity scored and they scored again. Manchester had a good attack but where our defence was made of bricks and mortar, theirs was made of rich tea biscuits and only occasionally did their biscuit based defence get even close to a hob nob level of turgidity, these boys were not slippery when wet, they were just soggy, floppy and with a tendency to collapse to the bottom of a tea cup or swimming pool. The game finished with a goal difference of only 4 and the stage was set for HABS to play Ripley school in the semifinal. Ripley had better be prepared because these HABS boys had written a date into their calendar with destiny and as Ripley well knows – in the swimming pool, no one can hear you scream (and as Dr Craig knows, nobody messes with a HABS calendar date!). Ripley school were made up of Lancaster Team players and they had 2 coaches that shouted more than me! They were not a team to take lightly and their defence was better than we thought it would be. As the game progressed, we realized that this was going to be a fight. This was like Ripley in Alien 2 and it seemed that they had turned up already wearing that strange yellow crane robot. Ripley were stubborn, they had a huge amount of self-belief and they had two very strong players – we however had 7 very strong players and our extra talent soon stood out. The first half was far too close with HABS yet again starting badly but in the second half Jonny remembered that he is allowed to shoot and from that point onwards the game was under our control. It also helped that our talismanic captain Baker started to take control of the man up situations and also take his shots. We eventually won 5 goals to 2 and the show down with Bolton was set. Before our final there were playoffs with a memorable penalty shoot-out win for Alleyns in the 5th 6th play off – they somehow managed to score past the Trinity Jedi keeper who must have used up all of his force allowance for one day. Congratulations Alleyns (and particularly to their coach who stayed behind to cheer us on in the final). 3rd place play-off saw Ripley beat The Great Manchester as their first 5 minutes of stand out play against us was just about all the standing out they did (on this occasion ((write Manchester off at your peril)). Well done Ripley. The introductions were made with even Trevor managing to get all the names correct (a rare first) but there was a clear difference between the two teams; Bolton were bigger but they were also relaxed (a bit too relaxed). Just before the introductions, I overheard 4 of their players singing Champeones Champeones. Their coach also said to me that this would be the first time Bolton have won this cup for 8 years. They actually thought that their names were already written on the silverwear, they were sure that they would win and it was now just up to HABS to spoil the party. We had a game plan, we knew that our standard pit play would not work and so movement was needed, Teddy shifted to right wing, Jonny was reminded to shoot and the blueprint was in place. Mr Stiff and myself had studied the tapes, we had sent scouts out to check on progress and fitness and we were sure that we could not be more prepared for this final. The boys had a focus in their eyes, they wanted this, they had forgotten all about the tiredness after the Ripley game and they were ready to go. As the Great Rafiki once said ´it is time!´. The players lined up and just as I said ´this Bolton swimmer has not lost a swim off all day´ Luka swam in to beat him. We passed back to half way…. Luka continued his swim…. Cammy fed the ball over the top…. Luka drove in on goal …… he fumbled….. regained possession and shot the ball hard into the back of the net. ONE NIL HABS. They attacked, we defended perfectly with a full drop, by the time the crowd realized we had turned the ball we had broken away and all they could do was concede a major (sin binning for one of their players). We set up for a slow man up attack, Jonny went out wide left and shot – TWO NIL HABS! ´You told him not to shoot like that´ Said Gilbey helpfully as Jonny did his trademark loop into the opposite side of the goal. I was just happy that Jonny had again remembered to shoot and especially after we had picked out Bolton’s weaknesses on the wings. A second man up – a second slow set up. Just as the seniors had done last year, HABS saved all their training for the final and actually played as they have been trained to do. A good call from Teddy on the left, a good clean dry pass to Cammy on the top of the arc and a shot from 4m. 3 NIL HABS!!!! We wasted several chances, we looked unbeatable. We went 4 nil up with an amazing scooped shot from Hamish. Morgan Hirsch used to score these when I coached at KES and after this game 2 of the coaches asked why I coach that shot but I must say that this was all Hamish. From the first time I coached Hamish at Bedford 14 months ago – I cannot believe the mature (and slim) boy that has grown over that time. Hamish made a big statement in this tournament and should be really proud of what he has done this year. His maturity in moving around the pit in the final is something that even Tom Dean finds it hard to adapt to. Plus I have since received an email from the Head coach of Manchester saying that Hamish’s goal was good enough to win any final of any age group. Hugh praise indeed Hamish! But this final was all about Luka – he had played well in the tournament but this final (the first half anyway) showed just how good he can be. We swam and swam and swam – it looked as though every time he swam forward, he found space and there was a goal scoring chance. We should have been 4 goals ahead but 4-1 at half time was better than we could have hoped before the game. The second half saw us get a bit lazy in defence (many boys were understandably shattered) but we kept on ticking over the score sheet and a final score of 8-5 was well deserved. Every player can be proud of how they performed in that final. When Jonny got a bit tired Josh Silverbeck got in and he continued the dominance out wide. Without the pit play, Bolton were lost and we knew how to exploit it. The final minute saw the entrance of Ben Shucker (Shucker would be first choice pit defence for any of the other sides but we need him as replacement for Cammy and I must thank him for his patience yesterday) he got in to replace Cammy and if there had been a large enough crowd, Mr Baker would have received a standing ovation for his play but also his control of the team. This control was also massively down to Karan in goal. Never have I heard a goalkeeper shout louder to control his defence and make sure they had the correct arm up. This maturity again was way beyond the expectations of a normal Under 14s championship.

Before the final, people were asked to fulfill duties and they all did this perfectly. Teddy threatened more, Josh Steinert dropped as asked but also managed to pop up in attack on many occasions. This just shows how this team is already playing the kind of water polo needed at Under 16s and Under 18s level. Anyway I digress. The point is that we won!!! HABS are national champions and from a selfish point of view, this is my first Under 14s title (to go with the 2 Under 18s and 1 and a half Under 16s) and I have never been more proud of a team for winning. Plus from a HABS points of view, this completes the set of trophies for the School. Under 18s championships (1999), Under 16s (2011) and now, the Under 16s 2012 Champions. This is an Olympic year and this was a performance of which any Olympian would be proud. Well done boys and hopefully you got your Bon Jovi CD for on the way home. A rule for life is to always ‘Keep The Faith’. HABS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!

HABS water polo success

With the year fast approaching and an imminent move to Rugby School on the horizon, I still wanted to make sure the HABS water polo team made a successful end to the year; and so far so good! The Under 18 side finished second in the Under 18 competition on Sunday (those darned Mancunians won yet another title ((it doesn't matter if these Mancunians wear blue or red)) and The Under 14s are through to the National Finals as top seeds from the South and yesterday they won the Under 14s School's League. Not a bad set of results for one week's work. The new HEAD OF AQUATICS - Mister P D Stiff, has had a pretty successful start to his reign after taking over from The Big Dog. Stiffy's mighty water polo teams are now played 16 won 15 and the only loss is in the national final (although arguably this is the only one that we urgently wanted to win). The competition on Sunday was pretty fierce, we may have been seeded second (after a 9-1 pummeling of City of London in the semi-finals) but finishing in the top two was by no means assured. Our first game was against Bolton School (second seeds from Up North) and we knew this would not be easy. Bolton are always well drilled and eager to cause an upset (they also have a grander reputation in the water polo world than this little School from Elstree) and they were in no mood to lie down. However, we went about this match in a most un-HABS manner by actually starting well. We went 4 goals up very quickly and Mr Baker and Mr Dean soon realised that the Bolton Goalkeeper was still to wake up from what must have been one Big Saturday night out on the town. Our set-ups were good, our defense was very strong and our arguing with the referee was also unfortunately strong. Even with a man sent out to the side we had The Colenut to sure us up in defense and the tireless effort of Nashy in both attack and dropping to help J. Lawrence in pit defence. Hugo made some excellent swims at the start of the first half and it was his attacking play on the overlap that lead to a lot of the space that Tom and Jared enjoyed. The second half was a differnt story. The Bolton keeper had clearly taken a couple of Alka Seltzer over the break and he finally saved a shot. Hugo was - to use a technical term- knackered, and we forgot the hard work that we had put in to achieve the goals in the first half. The end result was a nervy last 2 minutes and us eventually winning 11 goals to 8. Special mention must go to Jacko, JJ and Westy for their efforts off the bench as the fitness of the team came under question (unfortunatley not the only time that this occurred that afternoon). Mission One accomplished. Match 2 was a different story - Torquay were a known quantity from the Southern Qualifying and they had one particularly good player that we would need to keep a close eye on (as Bolton failed to realise in their loss to this side). This match also saw us without Mr Kohler after his little chat with the referee in the first match. Up stepped The Colenut again to put in a strong game alongside James in defence. This match saw James make up for his lack of attendance in training as he almost single handedly prevented the Torquay attack from functioning. End result - HABS 7, Torquay 3 - HABD WIN GROUP 2. Onwards to the semi-finals! The semi-final saw us meet our local nemesis - City of London School. Their Ozzie coach knows our team very well and although we have beaten them Home and Away, The Neighbours rivalry would finally mean something in this all important of games. Our last game against them finished in a draw that somehow meant that we lost the School's league on points (Maths never was Big Dog's strength ) and so this was a grudge match that we were not prepared to lose. City's defence is unfortunately as well drilled as ours (those Ozzies do know tactical sport well it seems) and we needed to Foster a different appraoch that our XXXX expletives seen in Game One. With 25 seconds to go in the first half, a time out was called, a change in set up for the arc occurred and that man Nashy popped up to drive in from the far post. Westy's quote of 'he'll never score from there' again showed his immense knowledge of the game. The second half built from this point and Kohler made amends for his Exclusion with some strong link play, excellent drives and tracking back. City's weakness on the right was again exploited and we won the semi 4 goals to 1. On to the Final - Manchester the Goliath of water polo v HABS. We set up with a half press with an aim of stopping the counter attack that had killed off every other team they had played against. This worked for the first half and we were one goal to nil down at half time. We needed to keep it tight, keep playing as we were and stop the counter attack. I repeat stop the counter attack. Unfortunately our fitness let us down, our tracking back failed us and we did not STOP THE COUNTER ATTACK. The highlight of the final was great pit defence again from James, excellent driving and gambiling from Nashy, a valliant pit attack from Tom (even with 4 men on him at times) and tireless work from Jared at the top of the arc. Jared's excellent shooting that won us the match against City was unfrotunately hitting the bar in the final (games are decided by centimetres). The final highlight and the final mention in this blog edition must go to Westy. Westy had been promised a meal if he scored the winner and this was probably to be his final game for HABS. He got in, swam with determination and force, got the ball...... and shot from half way. He then got the ball again ..... and shot from half way. Finally, he got the ball..... there were seconds to go ........ and he shot from half way. Westy's moto of YOLO was being chanted by the crowd. The HABS parents were holding up YOLIO banners and the claxons and horns were wailing (the claxons and horns really there) ... and again he shot from half way. Needless to say, none of the shots went but after his 7 years at the school and attendance at every training session since he was 12, Westy deserved his shot at glory and one shot was an absolute screamer that hit the post. Overall - well done to the team on finishing as runners up. Many thanks to Tom and Westy for all their work and effort this year. The Under 14s yesterday clearly benefitted from the help you have offered in training. And, good luck at University. For the Under 17s - Winning is the only option next year. Just realised - I have not mentioned Ryo. Despite his water polo training consisting of playing violin, he somehow never fails to impress. Yet again the best goalkeeper on show and a huge credit to the school. Onward to the Under 14s final next weekend. YOLO boys, YOLO!

Back online and ready to blog

With the launch of a couple of Habs Geographical blog pages ( www.juniorhabsgeographical.blogspot.com ) I am also resuming this blog. I have been absent for a while, as the hectic and unplanned return from Peru meant a break from the blogs and getting life sorted and restarted down in the South (of course it is somewhat North of Lima!!!) has meant that life has veered away from forthnightly updates.
Since the last bolg we have obviously returned to the UK, both got new jobs (after a time of unemployment) and have enjoyed our life bringing up Tilly oser to our families again (although probably not as close as they would like).
Anywho - off to teach now. Posts will start again very soon.

Tilly Pitts Nasca Nightmare.

So after the news that 3 British tourists had died in a crash at the nasca Lines, the fact that we were travelling there one week later was never going to be great news for family back home.
Although it is strange that 3 British people dieing makes front page news in the UK but the 3 Peruvians that died in the same flight only made page 32 of the Sunday newspaper here.
So we got down to Ica where we were staying (see the previous blog) and we had an amazing day relaxing in the sun by the pool and then heading back to the beautiful oasis of Huacachina for drinks and food. After the Peruvian Police's attempts to turn this trip into another nightmare, the 30 degree temperature, sun, pool and desert oasis soon put all that behind us. Add to that the amazingly friendly staff at the Belle Sands Hotel and everything was back on track and we truely felt like we were on a summer holiday. We went to bed early, read for a while and then went to sleep for an early start to head down to the aforementioned Lines.
We had a quick breakfast and then headed back to the danger zone of the Peruvian roads. The journey down had been a chore due to PC Plod but this one was a different level of disaster thanks to the single carriageway, mountainous route and nowhere to bloody overtake lorries going at 30 miles per hour. It therefore took us 3 and a half hours to do a journey that should take about 2. Add to that the fact that we could not find the airport in Nasca (nothing is signposted in this country - not even speed bumps in the middle of major highways - yes you read that right speed bumps on roads that are an equivalent of the M1)and there was one very annoyed Mr Pitt sat in the front of the car.
We finally found the airport after Clare got out of the car to ask the poorest man in the world for directions. Not that these directions helped at all! Straight on and left was his answer to Clares much improved Spanish. We went straight and left and found ..........nothing. Clare then asked the second poorest person in the world the way - straight on and left he said. By this point we were not sure whether this was the answer to every question a tourist asks or whether they spoke a native Peruvian language and these were the only 2 words they knew in Spanish. Eventually straight on and RIGHT got us there. Well I say got us there- it got us to a place that was signposted airport, the fact that it looked like a field in the middle of a desert surrounded by a cobbled together wall would be a more accurate signpost. We looked at each other and it was clear that this is not a place that any kind of responsible parent would let their daughter go to. This is not the kind of place that any responsible adult would allow themselves to go to.
Imagine Heathrow airport built by people with no thumbs, no eyes, no co-ordination, no clue and no raw materials and you are still nowhere near what this place looks like. Needless to say - we turned around to go home again and stop off at the viewpoint in order to see the Worldfamous Lines from the safety of solid ground. But first we were all desperate for the toilet (well obviously Tilly wasnt but it was clear that she was desperate for a change by the smell that was now swirling around the hot and muggy car).
We looked for a place that would look clean enough to have an acceptable toilet and we kept looking and we kept looking; we passed 5 restaurants, 10 more restaurants, 53 more restauarnts and still each one looked like 4 sheets of cardboard held together by a plastic sheet thrown over the top. The food would have led to Peruivan Belly case number 6 for me and the toilets would not even be worth imagining. Finally we found a decent enough looking toilet at an Internationally recognised petrol station (safe enough surely).
On entrance to the toliet the smell was tangible, the number of flies made the room look dark even in the middle of the day and the walls, although brown in appearance had clearly once been painted white. The urinal was just about descernable at the back of the room as I clawed through the fly entrance curtain. I was desperate and there was no turning back now. As I was completing my much needed bodily function, I peered to the right and had I not already started my necessary deed, I would have run away as fast as I could.
In Peru, in the poorer areas, you are not meant to put toilet paper into the toilet but rather into the bin at the side of the toilet bowl. This bin is then emptied daily or hourly in the more up-market toiletries. However, This particular W.C. did not seem to think that daily emptying was needed, it also did not think that weekly empties were needed but rather a yearly waste collection would suffice. This had been the most sanitary appearing washroom in the whole of Nasca and now I was looking into a cubicle that resembled what Andy Dufrain has to crawl through at the end of Shawshank Redemption (apologies not for the graphic comments ((as I could never be graphic enough to re-produce this scene))but for the spoiler!). In England this place would have been shut down years ago, it would have had toxic health warnings - In Peru, it is the best of a bad bunch! After this unpleasant stop-off, what else could we do but go next door for chips!
Tilly was again centre of attention in the road side diner and yet another waitress went to pick up Tilly without asking. We could not really stop her as Tilly was alofted into the air before our eyes and the only saving grace was that she did ask before handing Tilly around the rest of the staff. The male manager seemed particularly taken by our smiling daughter as the waitresses took pictures of him holder this strange smiling giggling white baby.
Then came our trip to the viewpoint. I will have to stop calling it a viewpoint from this moment onwards as their is no VIEW and honestly no POINT to walking up the hill. You cannot see anything, you cannot make out what the lines are meant to be, you cannot see a monkey or humming bird or anything else the guidebook claims would be visble. You simply see a couple of big lines in what looks like the same desert you have been seeing for the last 6 hours of driving. The Nasca Lines may look spectacular from the air but you have to enter the airport of death first and other that this, the town is dirty, packed and poorly signposted and there is nowhere to eat or go to the loo.
Our journey home was the highlight of the Nasca trip as Ron's Rock VI blared out of the radio and 'We Built This City' could be heard echoing for miles around the baron desert wastelands of Peru.

The Pitts, policeman, pelicans and paracas

We finally made it to the end of the 10 week term and have been rewarded with 6 days off school. We kindly had a car lent to us by some friends from school and so headed off down south to search for sun.

The damp grey of Lima had soaked through to the marrow and we knew it would take a serious dose of sunning to get our bodies back to normal functioning speed.

We firstly however had to deal with my first experience of driving in this mad city. Lima, where the only rules of the road are that there are no rules. You can cut anybody up as long as you stick your hand out of the window, it seems that if you are female you are not allowed to drive without a phone attached to your ear, you are not allowed to check your wing mirrors - just go – and never ever think about checking your blind spot. On top of that, never use your indicators and in stead use your horn to let people know that you are about to veer into their lane, don’t worry about MOTs or emissions – as long as your car can go forward (however slowly) it is ok to drive and do not worry about how many men you have hanging out of the top of your lorry or out of the side of your bus – remember you can always fit more in there!

So with the rules of the road fully memorised we headed off. We started out at 5.30 in the morning to try and make the journey out of the city easier but the thing we forgot is that starting that early just makes you more obvious (especially with two very white people driving a car packed to the brim with Tilly’s stuff!). So we made it to an hour outside of Lima when the police called us over.

The police had set up a road block just outside the coastal resort of Asia and as far as we could tell – all they were there for was to make money! They pulled us over, saw we were tourists and then went through everything that they could possibly fine us for. We had our passports colour scanned, we had our driving licences, we had all the relevant car documents (thanks Jason), I had only had one beer the night before, we were driving well under the speed limit and so surely there was nothing they could fine us for – WRONG! Firstly they tried telling us that we only had a permit to drive in the city and we were outside of city limits (I pleaded ignorance and just spoke really quickly at him in English), he realised that this was a silly excuse and so rather than going for a more sensible way to fine us he said that we were to be fined for driving in the left hand land of a dual carriageway! I tried hard not to laugh, now knowing the police could make up any old excuse at all to fine you and so asked how much the fine was. Clare was conscious of me now communicating in Spanish when we were trying to plead ignorance and so gave me a quick poke in the ribs and the ignorance game continued. He pointed at a random fine in the booklet (400 dollars!!!!) even though the offence next to the fine did not match what he was saying we were now very clear that this was not an English type of pull over. We were not in control, there was no innocent until proven guilty and no ticket that we could then pay at the local police station. This man was like a Peruvian Judge Dredd – He was the law! I asked where we could pay the fine (knowing that tourists do not have to pay roadside offences as there is no way of tracking them down) he was well aware of this and said we had to pay now.
Whilst he was saying this, I snuck my wallet to Clare for her to remove as much money from it as possible (I think that is also what many husbands will say as their wives depart on yet another shopping trip!). But as we looked in, the smallest bill we had was a 100 soles (just over 30 dollars for those reading in England) and so this was going to have to be our bribe.
As I said, this was no English pull over and so bribery is always an option. I therefore slipped him the 100 under my licence. He looked at it, slipped it into his pocket and he handed back all of our documents. We were free to go.
The ignorance had not worked, Clare pleading “senor – bebita” had not worked, the fact that we had not done anything wrong had not worked and so money was the final option.
He then repeated my name another couple of times as if to scare me but actually I was just impressed the man could say Jonathan and then with a final reminder that we had to drive on the right hand side – we were off – free from the law and the seriously corrupt police that we had just passed. The only thing that made us feel better was that they were doing exactly the same to every car and I would imagine were earning more money than there pay packet gives them in a year.
Now I do not have a problem with people earning an honest living. There are millions of people in this country living in poverty, there are beggars, shoe shiners, sweet sellers, combi drivers, illegal DVD sellers, car parking men, watchy men, bodega owners, street performers, bag packers……. The list goes on and on. They are poor, poorer than an English person can even imagine (most ex-pats here just don’t think about it and just carry on enjoying their blissful, sheltered existence) but they all have one thing in common; THEY WORK HARD! This country thinks it is based on the rich people that live in their botoxed, bubble but it is actually supported by the poor people that work tirelessly and always with a smile on their faces and not due to plastic surgery gone wrong!. They are the real Peru, they are the foundations of what may eventually make this country powerful again but it could all be ruined by PC Pedro and his merry gang of thieves. The fact that tourists can get stopped and exploited will not exactly help the economy of this place. The tourist attractions I will rave about in this blog will not be enhanced by this behaviour and it will merely put people off coming here. It will make people think twice before they click on that Peruvian flight when they can go to the Niagra Falls, Uluru, Phuket for the same price and in the knowledge that they will not be exploited by crooked policemen.

Sorry- I feel that I have now ranted enough and am ready to continue with the Paracas tale (see the above blog)

Tilly Pitt and the Pizza Party

Just to keep people up to date with the adventures of Tilly Pitt in Peru - she is now gurgling mumbled nonsense regularly, putting anything and everything that she can grad straight into her mouth, grabbing random people's faces anytime they get too close and she is starting to eat food and what an eater she is! The All Great and Powerful Gina Ford warned that starting food could be a difficult job and finally she has been proven wrong. Tilly has taken to eating like her dad takes to ... well eating! She loves avacado, she loves peas, she loves carrots, she loves banana, she loves cabbage, she loves cauliflour- if it fits onto her incredibly colourful sppon then she is sure to open wide and let it in (Grandparents dont worry, although the blog is titled Tilly Pitt and the Pizza Party, it is just because of the photo - Not because we have started her on Pizza yet!)
Her swimming is also coming along nicely. She swam for 5 seconds yesterday. Well, when I say swam - Clare held her under teh water for 5 seconds. This ritual drowning then seems to be contragulated by the big 'gay'Peruvian swimming instructor. Now when I say gay - I mean big jovial and bubbly and in very much the old fashioned sense of the term. Even after a couple of months I have never seen this man stop singing, stop smiling or stop humming his version of childrens songs. He is the incredible smiling man and I am sure that he must get home and keep on singing to himself all day long.
This week also saw us venture to Bon Jovi but the excitement of that day will have to be saved for the next Blog!

Jonathan Pitt and the Incredibly Long Term

Phew! What a long and tiring term. 3 parents evenings in the last 3 weeks, a ten week term, 3 options evenings and multiple after school meetings on top all go to make me one officially knackered out teacher. The good news is that I still think that Tilly recognises me after I have hardly seen her over the past few weeks but then again I cant really tell as she just smiles at anyone and everyone anyway.
On their walk to the supermarket Tilly and Clare seem to have accumulated a group of random friends. The watchman on the corner is a regular (and he has to say hello as we pay him) but the others are a wonderful rag-tag group.
There is the old man at the bulding site who shouts at anyone making lude comments towards Clare, there is the lady with no teeth who takes a break from begging to shout out how 'Linda' (cute) Tilly is looking, there is the security guard from the fish restaurant that always stops to smile and talk to Tilly, there is the sweet store lady who runs over to say how smily Tilly is, there is the illegal DVD seller, the car parking man with the hunch back, the man who dresses like a woman and the Peruvian man that slurs his English as he asks us around for drinks becuase he has heard "English people love their beer". All these people get the same greeting - Tilly pulls off a huge smile and wiggles her legs incesantly. They love it and it all adds to the increasing group of people that stop Clare and Tilly on their travels around Lima.
The delay in writing the blog comes from the 3 month period without Internet and also the amount of work I am having to do in the Geography department. This week should see a turn around in the work (after I have finished my reports and coursework marking) and we finally have Internet thanks to the big dongle that we now have.
So chiao for now and hopefully the blogs will be back to becoming more regular again!