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.

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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