more sea days.... Istanbul to Malta

After the mammoth long post re Istanbul...This is a filler post covering sea days. some people really enjoy doing nothing but looking at the sea but I find them a bit tedious... although this time...

...the sea days were a welcome relief... we would have liked a lie in but Dr Fred had to up and organised as he had a morning lectur and the was hosting a lunch. I was expected at the lunch as well so straight after Dr Fred excellent lecture on Saturn - I had to drag him away from questioners and we went to the main dining room - where we sat like lemons until we asked the waitress to chase up and check the booking. 5 mins later the head waiter came over very apologetic as apparently the lunch had been cancelled.
This is incredibley frustrating and yet another example of the total lack of organisation by the entertainments team. They were obviously aware and didn't bother to send us a message.... There appears to be very little regard for star gazing activity and its very disheartening. Dr Fred has had some lovely comments and feedback from a lot of guests. So there is really quite a lot of appreciation on board.

I spent a very entertaining afternoon observing the drama group - I had been invited to do face painting as it was halloween but in fact there wasn't enough time but I really enjoyed watching the dramas unfold...

The ship is awash with skeletons, spooky ghosts, carved pumkins and artificial cobwebs. Many of the guest have made considerable effort to dress up so thete are a large number of esoteric witches drinking dodgey looking cocktails. Even the staff are dressed up there is definetly a party vibe going on.

We pooled face paints and painting abilities and did some impropmtu face paper for speakers and guests in the art room late afternoon befote meeting looking like a motley collection of gruesome misfits for 7.00 o clock club. Even Dr Fred wore his halloween t shirt.

The long day in Istanbul had taken itsctoll and we were abed early - looking forward if I'm honest to another lazy sea day.

And thats exactly what happened. The clocks keep changing overnight- some mornings we are at total odds with what time it is - mostly it doesnt matter unless there is a plan for the day.

My plan for day 2 at sea was to use the measured mile walking around the deck to see how accurate my step counter is🤣🤣... yes very exciting...

Using my normal stride I walked the mile counting the steps... interestingly at each lap I checked and the results were consistant. Ok... I was bored by this point so no more exciting step measuring....

We had a very nice lunch in the avon restaurant and I spent the afternoon stitching my coat - which is coming along nicely but is going to be quite a big project...

There was a stargazing session in the evening - we spent most of the day expecting to do plan b as it was quite cloudy. As it happened the sky cleared and everyone was delighted to see quite a lot of stars.

incidentally the answer to a previous query... yes we always knew about main dining room but never bothered expecting the food to be as bad... thats why I am so shocked at how they get away with serving such poor food in self service..... also we usually skip lunch which is only time we can eat in mdr. 🤣 now we skip dinner🤣

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...

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.

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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