Dreaming of a White Christmas

Do you remember the warm fuzzy feeling that Christmas songs would evoke? Songs such as Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman and Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, made little school children wish to celebrate Christmas in countries where there was snow.  Traditionally the expatriates and their families as well as those educated in North America and Europe would make the trip to visit friends and experience snow. Those left behind would feel that they were making do in the heat and faux snow.

But there is another side to the story.  The cold weather means inconvenience as the heating bill increases, the roads are blocked with snow and fallen trees and the airports are snowed in.  In those conditions it becomes a miserable Christmas.

Note that this is the second time this year that there has been chaos at major airports across the world because of natural hazards.  There was the Icelandic volcano eruption that spread ash clouds across Europe and today, the weekend before Christmas, many travelers are stranded because of the blizzards. Flights across the world are once again delayed or cancelled.

I am glad to be here at home in sunny Trinidad and Tobago and I would like to extend warm wishes to all the teachers and children this Christmas season.

Expensive sand castles in the East

At school vacation times children would accompany their parents to the beach, as at this one in Manzanilla on Trinidad's east coast.  The children would invariably build sand castles.  They gave much effort to the task and had a lot of fun but we all knew what would happen to the sand castles in the end. 

This person is obvisouly concerned about his investment.  Should it be in the sand?  Should he be mining sand from the neighbours to fill behind his rubble wall?  What do you think would happen to this sand castle?