Planet Ruby Starrs

This is a warm-up post... I'm slowly but surely packing for a very different kind of experience to anything I have had before.  Next week Dr Fred and I are going on a two-week cruise across the Bay of Biscay and down to Morocco and back.. all this is courtesy of Dr Fred - well sort of - Dr Fred's up and coming exploits are soon to include being the stargazer extraordinaire for some of the Fred Olsen cruises.  This is all down to being part of the Go Stargazing team https://gostargazing.co.uk/ who have recently made a comittment to providing on board astronomers for a large number of cruises over the next year.  Dr Fred is doing the inaugural Go Stargazing cruise leaving Southampton next week and heading for Morocco via Madeira and home via Portugal. What's rather fabulous for me is that he's allowed to take a companion with him and although he has been threatening that unless I behave myself he'll find somebody else he does realize that if he doesn't...

This post is way overdue... in my jet lagged... senior moments... whatever I forgot to post it and as it is written I am posting it several weeks after the event!!!! Well - we are home from the southern hemisphere safe and dry... its taken some readjustment ha ha - but the weather has picked up and while the tan faded really quick its good to be home.   The holiday feels a distant dream now but we are about to sort the extensive snaps - a lot of rock - sea - sand and various random other things... flowers,birds, endless bush.... a different world to where we are now!! I'm finding it hard to sum up the trip - it was so varied and the highlights were also quite different - the dolphins at Shelley beach took my breath away - as did in a completely different way - the snorkeling - both amazing experiences.  The land based wildlife - especially the kangaroos at Kalbarri were special and some of the views were just so vast and fabulous.....  We stayed in some brilliant cam...

I'm in Budapest travelling with an old school friend we're just having a few days away with staying in a really nice apartment in the Jewish quarter.  its full of funky artwork and pictures and paintings on the walls it's in a classic Budapest Courtyard building.  we are on the second floor, actually it's a bit like Fort Knox I'ts got a grill with two locks on it, a door into a communal area that locks and then the door into our flat so we are definitely very safe... we've been out for a wander and a coffee in a cafe sat on the street so it's real cafe Culture it's warm not like Northumberland Cafe culture probably not like Bath cafe culture ... it is nice to feel some nice warm sunshine. I'm writing this speech to text so will be very little punctuation but it does mean there are spaces in between the words which I don't seem to be able to manage when I type it on the tablet. one of the problems I'm having now is that blogger has co...