Ship Ahoy... random experiences..

We have thrown ourselves into cruise life with gay abandon.. the house band who are really very good doing covers first set disco stuff and then a selection of rockier numbers, then a young woman with a stunning voice doing more covers.... and then we actually did a quiz!!! What a night...

Today we were in our last port of call... Lexois - about 18 ks from Oporto... we havent bothered to go into the big city we are citied out but left the boat to have a, walk along the local town promonade to ..... yes.... some rocks!!!!! Dr Fred has started a bad bad case of rock yearning so it was a complete relief to see this little craggy promontory at the other end of the esplanade. Hopefully it has given him a fix until we reach Southampton in a couple of days.

Dr Fred had what should have been his last evening stargazing tonight, but the weather was terrible and the boat moving about so much the water flying out of the swimming pool made it unsafe.

We both attended a formal lunch - really nice interesting people - one chap was a coffee taster and another guest gave me a great idea for alternative bread and butter pudding... but mostly the chat was about Dr Fred and space.. we've been very clear when 'working' that I'm there as the 'help' with no expertise on astro matters - wouldn't do to get negative feedback due to people thinking I was an incompetent stargazer, but everyone is so friendly and welcoming I'd be surprised if there was bad feedback about anything Dr Fred was involved in.... of course I didn't execute any of my plans about activity disruption or staff stalking so no reprehensible behavior to report 🤣🤣. No rich husband either but I'm quite happy with what I've got.

Dr Fred gave his final lecture on the last sea day. It was very well received. Its been a busy fortnight... fun but quite a lot of work.

The weather has changed..its raining and windy.. the Bay of Biscay has a little more movement and the ship is rolling quite a bit. But we have our sea legs and its not an unpleasant feeling. Actually i really quite like it.. its lesss biring than just motoring along. The 2 days at sea on the way home didn't seem so far ... mainly because we spent a lot of time chatting to people we have met... some really nice people - some we might keep in touch with - most of the guests are very pleasant and I've only witnessed a couple of unpleasant exchanges - as long as you stay away from polictics all is good.

We went to the farewell party... I really don't know what to say... very surreal experience... a couple of large glasses of wine made a lot of difference🤣

We've eaten a lot of food - it's going to be a shock going back to shopping and cooking... its only been a fortnight but its amazing how quickly you can get used to being waited on... thinking about it.. I dont really need an astronomer at home but maybe theres another role to be filled...

We have enjoyed this whole experience and look forward to the next one. Its been great fun - surreal at times and very different to our usual adventures. Its so good to have seen some interesting places and have some winter sun.

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

Search This Blog