the next 2 days at sea...

The sea days were sunshine filled rather unexciting days... the first day passed - posh lunch in posh restaurant, drinks at 7.00, - it was formal night and yet another theme - the masquarade ball.... well.... what happens on the ship stays on the ship 🤣🤣 so another opportunity to embrace cruise life. My friend on board runs the drama classes. She has a bottomless suitcase which includes all sorts of goodies like masks and trimmings to make them match my 'formal' frock... we dressed up, went for dinner and in honour of the occaision we dropped into the neptune lounge where the masked shindig was happening.

We just wanted a quick looksee at the entertainment. It was packed - lots of peeps in classy frocks and elaborate masks dancing the night away.... that might even have been the track playing. We withdrew, headed up to the quiet solitude of the comfy seats aft, (latest term for back of ship) where we had a night cap before once again ( as we had to walk past) risking the mayhem of masks - still deciding not for us and finally turning in for the night.

The next day disappeared - Dr Fred had another well attended lecture in the morning - all about star formation - lots of interest and a lot of questions making him late for posh (edible) lunch... then there was an afternoon party on the pool deck side.

Live music and complementary cocktails - which got stronger at every pour....

now we are pally with some of the waiters 🤣 this was lethal. Meanwhile out at sea drama was unfolding... a ships annoucment declared we were delayed, we needed to slow down, and investigate a potential incident. It became immediately evident that there was a capsized vessel some distance from our ship. The Balmoral circled round the overturned boat to determined the situation. It wasn't a comfortable feeling... but in the end after obvious communication with the rescue services no further action was required- it appeared everyone had been rescued and the ship fired up the engines and we carried on back on course for Malaga.

Several sangrias... rum punches later plus a fabulous dollup of sunshine we had to admit to being quite tipsy and checked in for a nana nap. As I said the day disappeared - we did wake up and could have made 7.00 club but it felt like hurrying. We chilled out, had a lazy cup of tea. Decided the image in the mirror looked like we were on the space station

(Oh dear prob still tipsy) and slowly got ourselves into star gazing mode... we had nearly 3 hours to reorientate ourselves.

It was am almost full moon but a reasonabley clear night - still lots of people up on deck 11 - with a moon so bright it was difficult to see many stars bur there was still something to observe.

We need more binoculars especially for nights like this one where the moonlight obscures the stars.... Finally after a lot of questions and chatting with interested people we went to supper club - only the second time on this trip - the novelty of chicken wings has worn off 🤣🤣

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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