I loved my first bike. It was a second hand contraption called a “Chopper” and only one of the three gears worked, but it gave me one of life’s most precious gifts — freedom.

I took it with me to school and roamed free through the village of Eastwood where we lived with the wind in my hair and in my arse and a broad smile on my face. But then I grew up and got a moped and then fell in love with cars and never returned to the land of the bike.

For Heidi and thousands of her clog-wearing Dutch school friends, bike etiquette was very different to anywhere else in the world. You buy a bike — they are all the same color – orange – and when you reach your destination you leave it propped up against the nearest wall along with hundreds of other identical bikes. When your class ends you grab the nearest bike and off you go. This is repeated by every Dutch college student to this day and it’s a system that works to perfection.

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We are still waiting for the Thingy and meantime there are continuing signs that indeed my life has changed forever. One of these is that I no longer have control of ……and I can hardly bring myself to say it………the remote control. Heidi spends her evenings on the couch with her feet up these days instead of doing what she is supposed to like emptying the dishwasher and washing my underpants. Now she wants to relax and that means she has command of the remote control which meant last night I was forced to watch something called…………..Supernanny.

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I will explain why in just a moment but this morning I had to empty our car of all the crap that has built up over the last few weeks I have been home. I love my car even though it may have led to the early demise of Peter the Polar Bear and what I love about it the most is not its V8 engine or the voice activated blueteeth telephone thingy ……. nope ………. it’s the cup holder.

Think about it. Your car, technically, might have tires made of wale scrotum and treble wishbone suspension with pick-up points made of caviar and frankincense. But when you’ve an open can of Diet Coke balanced precariously on the center console you’re not going to explore the outer edges of the handling envelope. Or it will fall over. Heidi and I always used to rent a big American SUV when we would drive from Miami to Orlando on vacation and we always used to be amazed how the deep cup holders managed to handle even the Big Gulp thingy I bought at the Citgo station…………….you see, British cars never had them……until now. Finally we have cup holders………….and I love them.

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Weekends used to be so much fun but these days they are just one big blur of reality TV while every grunt and groan from Heidi has me leaping out of the chair thinking that the Thingy is ready to enter the world. Last night we were speaking about what life would be like after the Thingy is born and Heidi told me we must find time for each other and I knew exactly where this was going and I was right…………..dance lessons. For a few years now Heidi has wanted us to learn how to dance and in the past a retort of ” bugger off ” would have been suffice to stop any thoughts of having dance lessons taught by some chap called Guido Santrini whose real name is actually Bill Smith. Nope…………..these days us men are expected to dance.

No longer can we lurk on the gloomy sidelines of dance floors and mumble “Yeah, in a minute” to our wives and partners. There’s no choice, men, but to face the music and dance. It’s the popularity of shows such as Strictly Come Dancing With The Stars that is to blame for this latest erosion of masculinity.
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I hope you enjoyed the photos of the Carnival Dream yesterday, doesn’t she look absolutely magnificent and how about that Twister Waterslide? …….. Extraordinary ……….unless you are like me a rather large person and get stuck half way down. I know we have a height restriction…………I wonder if we need to think about a width restriction as well.

Talking of the Carnival Dream, I spoke to her very excited Cruise Director Todd Whittmer yesterday. We are planning to meet up in the shipyard in early June so I can introduce him to his new home and meet some of the yard management. I will then head on over to the double naming ceremony for the two Costa ships. More about that soon. So, along with all the Carnival Dream talk and a fun conversation yesterday on the phone with my mate Adolfo, who provides Carnival Corporation ships with all the shore excursions at the Italian ports, I realized I missed Italy.
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How to make a boy band.

Ridiculously good looking boys in matching outfits? Check.
One who sounds like a cat climbing over an electric fence when he sings but because he has a six pack and looks like he has a cucumber in his underpants he’s in the band – check

A law that says you can’t get up off your stool until the key change two thirds of the way through the song, at which point you do a funny pointy thing with your right hand? Check.
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I have been invited to a stag party. It’s a weekend in the beautiful town of Prague but because Prague is a hundred times more deviant than even Amsterdam ………I am not going………….and Heidi is unanimous in that.

Actually I am not really that bothered and for two good reasons. A) While the groom and ex Carnival employee Mark is a good friend of mine I would not know any of the other chaps. B) The Thingy will only be a few weeks old and I hardly think its fare buggering off to Prague leaving Heidi knee deep in poo.
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Isn’t every kid supposed to have that fireside talk with their Dad about the time you first start noticing that the opposite sex don’t smell?……..Well……..I never had that chat. Now I’m 44 and it’s too late for me, but I’m worried that before I know it I am going to have that chat with our Thingy.

So, I thought I would test my speech here on the blog to see what you all think. So …… here we go and I have chosen to do this as if I was talking to a male thingy just because I would find this just a little easier than if the Thingy is a girl…….besides the fact that if any man touches my daughter before she is 55 years old I shall give their genitals the good news with a cattle prod.

Anyway……….here we go.
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It’s funny how things come together.

Last night I was watching a documentary about Elvis and then this morning I get e-mailed a question if I new anything about the Elvis Cruise later this year…….well, yes I do and I will come to that a bit later in the blog thingy.

Now I must admit that I am not an Elvis fan. There is no doubting he was and still is “The King” and that nobody wore tighter trousers than he. However, I did find last night’s documentary about him fascinating.
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