Planet Ruby Starrs

Honfleur was an additional port stop. The ship raced across the Bay of Biscay to try and keep ahead of a storm.   This meant timings  were a little bit earlier and we were able to dock in the town of Honfleur for a day.   This turned out to be a really pleasant addition to the cruise and a very nice place to end on. It's a very pretty little port town with lots of interesting buildings - a lot of timber framed, timber fronted,  and a variation of different stone and brick walls all making for a very higgledy piggledy jiggledy up and down skyline.  Everywhere you looked there was an interesting building and even tucked away in little parks and up by the viewpoint they were some really pretty cute houses. Even the shops were quite interesting there was, of course, the usual tourist souvenir type places and there were quite a lot of clothes shops but there were also a lot of art gallery and antique type shops.  ...

It was a dark and stormy night and I'm pretty sure our cabin is haunted. How else can I account for the sudden levitations from the bed and the strange clanging in the room...... possibly the storm raging as the ship.... all however much tonnes of her is tossed around the bay of Biscay.... Yes a couple of rough days at sea - by far the worst we've had to date. Fortunately nothing much was required of us and a couple of sea sickness tablets did the trick and we just had a quiet day sorting out luggage and Dr Fred planned his future lectures.  Once medicated I didnt mind the bouncy ship but it became quite difficult to move about with any grace🤣🤣 as Dr Fred said the movement of the boat makes you feel for one moment you are on the moon almost wieghtless and then you are on Jupiter so heavy you are stuck to the floor. I went to art class and as the studio is in deck 10 right at the top - the motion of the ocean was very evident and several people had to leave. I ...

Started late today after a really good nights sleep in a really comfy bed with no alarm or time constraints... so we wake up totally refreshed to a to a gloriously sunny day, not a cloud in the sky.   We ate our continental breakfast and then we head off walking back down towards the river, passing through the Place de Edouard VII - a beautiful but little visited square... across the various squares boulavards..rues... we are well lost by now 🤣 we chance upon a square commemorating  Napoleon - thereno lack of monuments, obelisks or squares.. until eventually we finally hit the unmissable Jardin des Tuileries where we sat and ate our 2nd brekie.. pain de raisons and then walked across the river to the Museum D'Orsay.  This is an amazing space.    It was originally built as a train station and has been restored keeping the original art nouveau decor to showcase an amazing collection of Modern Art mainly impressionists... ...

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 ...

Hanging out in Geraldton which appears to be quite a nice place. Much bigger than anywhere we have been (other than Perth).   However its Easter Sunday and most places are shut except... the art gallery.  We have just enjoyed a really wonderful installation/ art work called  ' The Peregrinations of a Citizen Botanist' by Susie Vickery.  To be honest the title nearly put me off but I'm a sucker for galleries so we thought we would have a gander. Susie Vickery is an extremely talented and clever textile artist. Using embroidery and natural dye techniques to produce stunning artworks which in this case tell the story of the 18th century french chap Jaques-Julien Houton de Labillardiére  who came Australia in 1792 on a ship as a Botanist.   This is still potentially a bit off putting until you see the work... Beautifully curated and intregrated automatated textile 'tableaux' (for want of a word) telling the story from a very different perspective.. ie...