part 2 ramblings at sea...

Its day 20 something on the good ship Borealis... 2 full days from landfall... Pria de Victoria. Sunny, calm - no wind all that is lacking is a comfy seat in a quiet spot..

Yesterday we had the scrap heap boat building competition.

It was well supported and there were 8 amazing entries. Seriously stiff competition... 7 of the 8 floated but the fantastic - or rather the astonishing model of the actual Borealis couldn't handle the turbulence And she capsized...

In the end, after all the models holding the 10 'passengers' - actually cans of pop- had been floated in the pool the winner had to be decided by the loudest cheer.

Our ship 'The Astonishing Icon of the Pool' got a cheer to match its size🤣🤣. By far the biggest boat produced.. floating beautifully, incredibly stable with the 10 cans disguised as jolly pirates and prisoners peering out of portholes, it was greeted with a positive roar and shrill whistles... outright winner!!!! Our friends stepped up to receive the prize... bottle of fizz and a book about the RNLI - our boat could probably serve as a lifeboat🤣🤣

Moment of triumph😍😁😍

In the evening it was the captains cocktail party...incorporating the welcoming of the haggis - celebrating Burns night.

Copius amounts of free alcohol and canapes ensured a good atmosphere - it was formal dress so had our gladrags on - the 7 oclock club started there and then continued upstairs.... everytime I sit next to the artist in residence I seem to drink too much... obviously shes a bad influence!!

Last nights wine inhalation left me desperately thirsty for a drink of something (non alcoholic) at 7.00 am this morning... we can only get hot water from our tap so I got dressed as quietly as I could and went up to deck 8 for an early breakfast - too early - the cafe didnt open til 7.30... I finally grabbed a cuppa, watched the sunrise, rare occurance for me, and then went back to bed.

Dr Fred had another lecture in the afternoon... good crowd... went down well... stargazing in the evening didn't happen.. it was cloudy and windy. There was also a noticable chill in the air. Dr Fred executed plan b.. the scale of the universe, talking about the different planets as he disappeared past the cafe into the library... He followed up with his demonstration on the expanding universe which led to some very interesting and complicated questions - which he just took in his stride. Given that its 11pm people were still keen to sit and chat about thermal dynamics.... In fact once again some guests said that this plan b session had been better than stargazing as you can look at stars any night but you dont often get a small group audience with Dr Fred........ his fan club is growing🤣🤣

We've got over the excitment of the availability of unhealthy food at supper club - been there, done that (too often), now we just a pinch a couple of biscuits to have with a cup of tea in bed!

1 sea day left before we weather the storm and land at Praia de Vicoria - it was a quiet day - we are feeling the clock changes an hour every second night losing so far 3 hours... one more to go. More reading, more sewing, theres a very definete change to the weather. Still sunny but getting fresher - and quite a rolling sea. The ship is rocking this last leg and we are warned it will get worse. We drank the prize cava from our boat win and whiled away the evening watching a film.

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...

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 ...

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished... it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh... I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic! there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Planet Ruby Starrs

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