Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Well this week didn’t start too well for the ‘Krazy’ family. Firstly, my wife Wendy came down with the ‘lurgy’ (stomach bug) and was very ill for 24 hours which meant I had to ‘baby-sit’ our little Hannah for the day.
Not that Hannah minded – we watched three kiddie movies back to back. (Which Wendy would never have allowed).
Then, poor Hannah caught the bug and did a good job of projectile vomiting for Englan. Oops, you probably don’t want to know that!
Then it was my turn; I came down with it on Tuesday night and don’t know how I survived doing the Wednesday morning radio breakfast show. Did you know it takes two music tracks (or just one Hotel California by The Eagles) to get to the toilet and back on time for the next track? Well, you do now! It’s funny, a listener telephoned me and said: “Don’t worry, the weekend’s coming up so you can get a rest then”. Didn’t I wish it were true!
On Wednesday night, I went to the airport to pick up my good mate Barry Upton and his band ‘Wild at Heart’. Arriving on the same flight was ‘Lady’ Elizabeth Richard, who is a Queen Elizabeth look-a-like (and nothing to do with the band Queen). They were all here to perform for the St George’s Ball on Thursday night. After formally greeting the Queen, I took the ‘Wild at Heart’ gang to their hotel. We had a good old chin wag and then I went home to get ready for my ‘restful’ weekend ahead.
Thursday morning, I, of course, did the breakfast show on Radio Bahrain, followed by an hour on Voice FM, and then later went off to a do sound check with the band at the Sheraton Hotel. When that was sorted I headed home to get showered, changed and spruced up, and ready to rock at the ball. The night went very well. The Queen’s speech was funny, lots of raffle tickets where sold for charity, ‘Wild at Heart’ played brilliantly and got everyone up and dancing. Later on in the night I came on and duetted with Barry to the Proclaimers 500 Miles song (sorry about my dodgy Scottish accent everyone!) And at the end of the night I dropped the band off and went home to close my eyes at about 4am.
Friday rolled on and when I eventually awoke, I headed straight down to The Bahrain International Circuit; for the 3rd annual Wheelathon. You’ve heard of ‘Bahrain Time’, well even worse than this is ‘Kevin Time’… I’m afraid I was running a smidgeon late, yet somehow made it in time for the hospital bed race and what fun I had …watching!
The teams had to run 500 metres down the track. Our gang from Radio Bahrain had a team together of highly-trained professional athletes; including Nadia Swan, Olivia Da Costa, Maria Ramos (who wore some very nice shoes incidentally), trainee doctor Mohammed Shaban and Darshan Singh; the Wolverhampton Warrior (so called because funnily enough he’s from Wolverhampton).
I’d unfortunately hurt my knee the day before and was going to lie on the bed but it was decided that David Bloomer; Radio Bahrain’s intrepid out-side broadcaster, would go on it instead (out of respect for his age, I think).
Anyway, our team roared down the straight, turned round the cones and came back slightly slower. We won against arch rivals the GDN. (I hope that poor Eunice recovers soon – she looked a ‘little’ worse for wear after the event – full points for effort though).
Times were taken and the Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation took honours with the fantastic winning time of 2 mins 26 secs (which was 20 secs faster than us). I gave medals to the team and also gave a special award (a Zimmer frame) to the American Mission Hospital because they had the slowest time.
After the bed race, the track was opened to everyone. Folks from all walks of life and of all ages came with their bicycles, roller blades and skateboards and even wheelchairs. My little Hannah and her friend Melis looked ever so cute on their Thomas the Tank engine and Barbie bikes.
I talked to lots of people, including a sweet young lass called Enya Ferreira. She’s 10 years of age and goes to St Christopher’s School. She cycled three times round the circuit and liked the steep parts the best. Enya said that she’s been riding since she was five-years-old and her favourite subjects at school are Art and PE. Sounds like my kind of kid.
I also talked to Sebastian Licence who went round the track eight times and just loved going down the slopes. So did Farris Brough who went round six times. I spoke to Tim (AKA Peter Crouch) who went round on roller blades pushing his son who was on a scooter. Hopefully his back is feeling better by now.
The gang from GulfWeekly were also there; hi to our vivacious new reporter -RdS- and the main man with the lens Andrew Morton. A great day out was had by all. Well done to the organisers; especially David Axtell, and the best part was that over 6,000 dinars was raised for charity. (See Social Scene’s centre-spread!)
On Saturday, I DJ’d at David Hill’s 7th birthday party and the theme was something close to my heart; football.
We had a fun time with all the usual party stuff! But, I had to play a Manchester United song … Argh!! Everyone should know my feelings about Manchester United. But it was good fun meeting David’s mum Nancy and his dad Shaun. And what a small world we live in. Shaun was born just round the corner from where my granny used to live in England.
Enough waffle from me, until next week … keep smiling!
Well done to last week’s winners of the Paul Frank quiz. They are Ben, Andrea and Savio.
