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Hi everybody! Well, to say that I've had a weird week would be an understatement! Probably you've already heard or read about what going on at the radio so I'll tell you more about that in a moment.
Firstly, we've been out and about as a family visiting people again, which has been great fun. And, as I told you last week our little Hannah wanted to make some presents up from her old and unused toys to give to her friends.
An ideal opportunity presented itself when we went to visit one of my favourite newsreaders; Nadia Swan because it was her husband David's birthday. My wife Wendy and Hannah baked him a chocolate cake and decorated it with lots of hundreds-and-thousands and Smarties on top.
Hannah also wrapped up some gifts for their daughter Lianna who is one of her favourite people and we popped round to see the Swan family at home. David made up a beautiful plunger coffee for us to have with the luxurious and 'nutritious' cake - nutritious because Wendy is fond of throwing lots of 'extras' such as flax seed and wheat germ into everything.
The next day we were invited to Debbie and Jackie Beedie's house in Venice (oops, I mean at Amwaj Islands). Their house is a cracker, on a corner and overlooking the beautiful canals. Wendy and I looked at buying there four years ago. At the time it meant buying off the plan; we went to look over the place several times when they were still in the process of reclaiming the land and decided not to go for it. Boy, are we kicking ourselves.
We were very dubious about the success of such a massive and new undertaking in Bahrain and also thought they were squeezing too many houses and people into too small a place. But, as lots of people say, if I'd known then what I know now ... we'd be lapping up a wonderful lifestyle too and waking up to a glorious view. Instead we are still crammed into our tiny two-up, two-down and bursting at the seams.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing! The whole Amwaj Islands project has come on leaps and bounds and looks amazing.
Well, back to the news of the day ... Yep, it's true ... I'm being moved from my beloved breakfast show to the lunchtime slot from noon through to 3pm.
Why, I hear you asking? Well that's for the management to explain; I prefer to stay tight-lipped on the subject.
To say I will miss the breakfast show is a massive understatement. I've loved the interaction with listeners.
I'd never worked in radio before I came to Bahrain, so maybe that was good - or bad as some people might say!
Anyway, I had no preconceptions about broadcasting. I remember one of my first shifts on the radio, when I hadn't put a song on correctly and just as one was finishing in came one of our lovely newsreaders with a cup of coffee for me. Just as I was handed it, the song finished and then ... nothing.
What was I to do? Me, being me, I put the coffee to my lips and had a short slurp! Live over the airways I said: "Wow that's a great cup of coffee".
Then I put on the next song and thought nothing about it, until the next DJ came in (someone who's been a dj for a very long time) and told me that I was "very unprofessional, that morning with the coffee".
Silly me, I took it to heart and on the next show I said a big sorry to all the listeners for being unprofessional and guess what ... the telephone lines lit up with people saying things like "that's stupid, you're only human after all!"
I've been told that some people don't like the way I'm so happy and exuberant in the mornings. But that's just me. All my life I've been the same. I'm happy-go-lucky and consider myself very lucky to be blessed with a lovely wife and daughter and my health (except the last week with this horrible cough)!
So I'm going to focus on the bright side of this change; especially the bit about waking up at the same time as my family and getting to kiss my daughter good-bye when she goes to school. Wendy is pretty pleased too. She's already told me which days I can do the school run.
I was worried that I'd miss all the young listeners because I really love the phone calls and the chats I have with them on the way to school, as well as so many regulars that I have and the banter with everyone.
But, as everyone keeps pointing out, there are plenty of mums sitting in the cars waiting in their cars every afternoon to pick up their kids who really need cheering up. And, of course there are all the kids going home from school that I'm looking forward to calling me up to tell me what they have got up to that day in school.
I would love any feedback and suggestions with my new timing! Maybe we'll have a best teacher of the day, or a moan about how much homework you've got today.
There are lots of things we can do and talk about at this time and I think we should be a community type of radio - but don't get me wrong the music is still very important to me.
So look forward to the brand new lunch-time show from 12 til 3pm because it will have plenty of laughs, guests, quizzes and lots of chat, because I'm not going to change!
It will still be Krazy Kevin with you, but just on a different time slot ... we will be having a joke of the day, the 'golden album' slot, a special "Our Tune' segment, plus, as I said, lots of surprise guests popping in.
If anyone has any ideas of spots they would like me to do just drop me an email or write to GulfWeekly. Keep Happy! All my love until next week - Krazy Kevin
