Category: travel

Cruise last, cruise next ?

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November 8, 2024

8:44 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’m on leave again ! Not sure if I mentioned it (probably did but memory is goldfish) but I’m disappearing out of the world again for a little while. I’ll hopefully be able to post while I’m out there but I did think I should probably finish up posting what happened on the last cruise before the next one starts.

Picture. We're looking at a little red dragon figure sitting in a Norwegian Viking style longboat. There are 5 shields on the side of the boat with Norway flags, the red and white striped sail is full and there is a Norway flag at the top of the mast.

This next one came about from a fairly random asking of the Google for “cruise November 2024”. I’ll post more about that later. Gotta wrap up the last one first ! I left it last time with the visit to Rødøya Island on the middle Monday, after a magical trip to the top of Norway where we saw the huskies and got the selfies with the aurora. If you click on the “travel” label then that will be the easiest way of taking you to the Northern Lights cruise posts.

Tuesday saw us visiting the little coastal community of Bessaker, we might have tripled the population for the day. Charming place, absolutely lovely people, very tasty noms there, coziness and a very friendly representative of the natives :

Picture. We're looking downwards at a road. A large dark curly haired poodle is looking back at us from down the road. There are three people there, two in the red Hurtigruten coats, one in normal cold gear.

They also have a wall of trolls there. I didn’t manage to bring back any goodies though because I’d been forgetting to put my wallet in my coat (oops). They have a big staircase up to a view point as well here which I have to admit to chickening out on because my back started turning even more to glass around this kind of time. (Spoiler, it’s still glass)

Next up on the Wednesday was Loen, which has a cable car lift up to the top of the mountain. We were being menaced by multiple storm systems in the North Sea and North Atlantic around this time, so the weather wasn’t great …

Picture. We're looking at a fog bound scene. To the left is the fences for the mountain top facility. There is a cleared path on the left and a snow covered side of the mountain to the right. We can just about make out an orange wind sock in the centre.

Yep. We in the clouds.

There was also a bit of excitement caused by a power failure, so we were a little delayed going up the mountain. However, there was consolation in a hot chocolate and a delicious cookie in the shop at the top of the mountain with a lovely lady behind the counter with a charming sidekick.

Picture. We're looking down at the bits and bobs on a shop counter. On top of a black box, we can see a black rubber vampire duck with bat wings and fangs

Best shop mascot ever.

Thursday saw us sheltering from the storms in Hardangerfjord, with a quiet chilled out day that included the expedition team taking us for a rigid inflatable boat ride up and down the fjord. I didn’t get many pictures to share but it was going being out and about there. There is one picture that I’ll save to close out the post on.

The Friday was a trip to Stavanger, which became the oil capital of Norway. The geology of the North Sea meant that Norway got a big prize in terms of being able to control the oil reserves off the coast and Stavanger was the city that sprung up to feed the exploitation industry. The petroleum museum is well worth a visit, although I do regret being a bit too low on batteries that day to seek out the more tourist areas.

Picture. We're looking at a building by the dockside to the left. The building has a magnificent mural painted on it. On the right, an astronaut holding painted letters spelling out "Stavanger Houston".

The Saturday was a sea day as we made our way back across the North Sea to England, with us arriving back in Tilbury a day later than scheduled on the Sunday. It was an incredible trip, a good one to have as my first cruise holiday. It’ll be interesting to see what the contrast is for the next cruise. The ship I’ll be on is more a purpose built cruise holiday ship that’s more than 3 times the size of MS Maud (now back in service after the incident in Dec 2024 and renamed back to Midnatsol).

We were really well looked after on Maud. A small cruise ship but very cozy, relaxed and it was a fantastic holiday. I’d thoroughly recommend the cruising. On a normal hotel holiday, you’re based around the same place and explore under your own power. On a cruise holiday, there will be stuff to be enjoying on the ship and the ship will be moving from port to port (usually while you’re sleeping) giving you a new place to explore.

Picture. It's the morning before sun up. We're looking out from the ship towards the shore. On the left, the bulwarks of the ship and a Norway flag hanging down from a pole. In the distance, the town of Loen in the gap between hills to the left and right. It's a very cloudy sky.

This was the port entry to Loen on the Wednesday morning. The Loen visit was another where the tender boats were required to get us to shore. This was a very well practiced, well grooved and above all safe exercise for guests not particularly used to being at sea.

Last one for this series before signing off :

Picture. We're looking out from the windows of the ship towards the V of the Hardangerfjord closing towards a bridge at the end. To the left are hills, with more terrain at the end. We can see 3 boats full with people with red jackets. The boats are moving away from us, down the fjord.

There we go. It was a great experience, actually economical and affordable too and I’d thoroughly recommend looking at cruises as a way to experience something different. You are a bit at the mercy of the weather. 15 minutes later, the fog had come in and you couldn’t see the terrain at the end of the fjord there.

See you all next time, hopefully it won’t take me nearly a year to finish off the next series !

Mountains, bugs, plans

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October 25, 2024

10:48 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while ! I needed to go under the covers for a little while to attempt to rest up and recuperate. I’m reasonably sure I had another round of covid … But first, thumbnail ?

Picture. We're looking at a black train with the wheelhouse to the left, the train is pointing to the right. We can see the train's engine. The train is parked at a platform on our side of the train.

Wales trip may have involved a train.

I was being very aware while writing the last post that I was increasingly struggling for brain power as the post was going on and it was a bit of a squeeze getting it out. I didn’t get hit badly physically by the bugs this time, I just got very heavy brain fog from it. It will have been picked up from the Creator North event, with a cluster of people reporting getting bugs not long after. (Wonderful event, have enjoyed the two so far) Some got hit pretty hard and were pretty much bedridden. Whereas I head off to North Wales feeling just mildly off. And then the weekend came and being able to turn off after Wales meant that I very definitely switched off for the weekend. (And had very crunchy upper body too).

It felt like I was working off only less then half the usual amount of brain power and even there, only had brain batteries for like half a day. It hit work quite a bit, although that’s part rationing out what you apply the brain cells to. Some stuff needs doing but doesn’t need that deep thought ? Not quite sure how to say that without saying that I may have been slacking. Sometimes stuff needs the deep thought, sometimes it’s just stuff that can be done on near automatic. Both types of work are needed to get everything done.

Yeah, that affected me for far longer than it should have done. I could still function physically (as far as I can these days) but everything mentally was a big effort. So I stayed away a little bit and also just stayed to familiar games that I didn’t need to learn.

Snowdon ?

Picture. We're looking out of a window at a set of train tracks going into the distance. On the windowshelf in front are three more little train models. We can see the platforms to the left and right.

I’ve been up Snowdon before, a little over ten years ago. We took one of the walking trails that time. I’m not close to that level of fitness these days, plus I fancied looking at the train ride this time. Link there to the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which is 1 hour up, half an hour there, 1 hour back. A leisurely train ride.

Picture. We're looking out of a train window, over a deep valley cut into the hills. We can see a road winding its way through the valley from lower left to middle right.

And a wonderful view out of the side windows (pardon the reflection!)

Picture. We're looking out from the top of Mount Snowdon at the countryside rolling out in front of us. There are several small lakes visible as the valleys connect. The sky is full of thin white cloud, some of which is faintly obscuring the distant view.

And a great view at the summit. I have to admit to struggling a bit at this point. Perhaps the bugs were affecting my lungs a little bit. I didn’t go all the way up to the summit as I was feeling a bit off, light headed and unsteady at the 1085m up that is the Snowdon Mountain Railway station, cafe and shop. Half the pictures are looking at the sky thinking that the clouds were the valleys !

Picture. Another view from the top of Snowdon. We're looking out over the craggy stone path at the rolling countryside of North Wales. It's good weather again, with wispy thin cloud in the sky, covering the landscape in increasing mist.

More view ? Spot the hair between the lens and the camera sensor ! That’s something I’m learning about the mirrorless fancy camera, because you can change the lenses dust and obstructions can get in. Will bear that in mind in future :-D.

Picture. We're looking downwards out of the train window towards a trail cutting its way through the hillside. There is a small building halfway up. The ground is tinged with the green of parched grass that needs a bit of water to waken it up.

There’s people on that there trail … Well worth going up there. Maybe could do with a bit more time up there before the call comes to come back again ? There is a canteen cafe down at the bottom of the hill though.

Picture. We're looking at the railway as it curves to the right. A train is side on to us, ascending the mountain. There is a stony walking trail to the top left, with a small collection of people scattered around it.

Also train, with assorted people dotted around above, descending. It’s a single track railway with a few passing points, which dictates the schedule with trains needing to pause to allow the up train to pass the down train.

What goes up has to come down some time though, so it was back down to Llanberis (home of this railway) and back home again. I could feel the bugs getting in (hope I didn’t pass them on to too many people, I know some people got the bugs from me) and I had 200 miles to go home. It should have taken 4 hours plus a stop or two. It took 7 hours on the road as a couple of incidents on the M6 motorway led to standstill traffic. I did trust the satnav this time, which got me in range of those incident points. I’d gone a different way, more cross country, on the way up. I like to vary the routes I go on.

Mentioning that … there has been some gaming going on in the last month :

Well and truly fell off the Little Big Workshop wheel again with a series of completed runs on that. I’ve been doing challenge runs and making up challenge runs for that. It’s a lovely cute little factory building game where I can set up things for the delightful little idiots (their AI can be a bit flawed and awkward) to assemble to sell.

Star Wars Outlaws took a bit longer than intended (2 months of Ubi+ renting) to finish. I’d thoroughly recommend this one, I really enjoyed running around that world for a while. It has a sizeable Tatooine area around Mos Eisley and other areas of the first films. It’s actually set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and there are a couple of cameos in there from the films.

I’ve also gone back to the two Truck Simulator games this week, with a restart in Euro Truck Sim 2 (to get explorer achievements0 and continuing American Truck Sim. They’re good ones to turn the brain off to again and I’ve been needing to ration the rational thought. Need a new controller though, my one is failing.

I had a look at Shapez 2 and Production Line (car building game) but brain was giving me the nope on those.

There’s also been a bit of reading, maybe more about that in a later post. Highlight of the books was Deep Black by Miles Cameron, continuing on from the very well done space thriller Artifact Space. He’s made a wonderful universe there. Also Thornhedge by T Kingfisher, a very sweet short tale with a twist on Rapunzel and other maiden in the tower stories.

I better hit post there again. Apologies for it being a while again, I wasn’t feeling too well and it took a while to shake it this time. It has been good looking at the pictures again.

I have something special lined up next month too, it’s a … mystery. But it brings me back to last year as well, I need to finish off the cruise posts !

A meet up, 2 castles, 1 mountain, several trains and no boats

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September 24, 2024

7:28 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while again. Things were getting a little bit draining for a while, although that’s probably a bit down to me not having any time off since June. That’s maybe a bit too long for me. (And I might need another break to recover from the last one!)

Picture. We're looking at a small white saucer, on which is a tasty looking brownie, with a dwagon next door sporting an apron with the words "Feed Me". In front, a ribbon with "Creator North 2024" on it.

First up, heading up the motorway to Sheffield and Creator North for the Saturday. This is an event (linky) run by a little group of wonderful people, that’s LookItsTilly, Maddog, Billietrixx and the always lovely Tashnarr. I’m not going to write too much about this one this year apart from saying that I really enjoyed the day, including being adopted by Ninja Space Unicorn’s people, seeing MiyukiPanda’s new game coming along and having a lovely natter with the other people there.

It did come right at the end of my energy though, with my last break before this one being back in June. Still, it was awesome seeing everyone and because I do act as a bit of a mirror to the people around me, happy people meant I was happy too. Good to see everyone. And a mention for the lovely Curlylocksgamer too, who had been struggling lately but it’s been too to firstly see her back streaming again and second to see her pop up at Creator North and have a great time there.

After a travel day and a chill out day, I was off on the move again …

Picture. We're on the pedestrian part of a bridge, looking across a road (with several cars) towards a castle. There are 5 turrets on the castle, with battlements. The sky is a clear blue with occasional wispy cloud.

I’d abandoned thoughts of something more ambitious like an Isle of Man trip (the ferry crossing timings were NOT working out) and spotted a North Wales trip on GreatLittleBreaks. After one trip with them, I’d go back for more and check out what other options they have. The booking process was easy and there were no issues with anything that was set up. I think it was good value, although it does seem set up for at least 2 guests with a big solo supplement.

Not so much with the hotel … The Sheffield hotel was great, with an older style layout. The Conwy hotel, not so much. The people there were great and the food (fish and chips on first night) tasty but the room was set up with one of those open plan layouts, where the bathroom section isn’t really split off from the rest of the room. I.e. attack of trendy. So that would be … a shower cubicle that has frosted glass to the rest of the room and no full length door to keep the steam behind. Oh and there was a puddle outside the frosted glass short door after the shower too.

Not so good.

Picture. We're looking out over a river / harbour from an elevated position. The town is to the bottom left, with more buildings just about visible on the far side. There is a series of boats tied up alongside and at anchor in the bay. The sky is overcast.

Lovely town though and a great castle visit too.

(gotta note I’m fading a bit as I type and should probably put the dinner on!)

That’s Conwy and the castle was a good little visit. They’ve put a lot of restoration work in to Conwy Castle, with the spiral turret staircases being in very good order. A lot of these castles tend to have worn down steps which can get a bit dangerous, however Conwy’s gives good confidence that you’d be able to get up and down these stairs easily if you’re able to do so. (It’s a little sad that this is an able bodied thing, no wheelchair access, use of cane would be very awkward). And that picture was taken from one of the turrets. The castle is mostly ruined with no internal buildings but most of the towers are in good condition and you can walk around the ramparts.

Worth a visit, great castle. Although I’m still on the hunt for a castle that could be visited by some of the streamer friends who depend on walkers and wheelchairs. They love the pictures I post into discords and it’d be good to find them a castle they are able to fully enjoy if they find themselves visiting the UK.

Picture. We're looking across the shell of the inside of the castle, from the ramparts. In the foreground, is an archway bridge, behind that is a tower with 2 spires. The other side of the river banks are in the distance. Overcast skies again.

Great castle though. And I enjoyed a gentle wander through the town too. But I think I picked up bugs at Creator North and while I was thoroughly ignoring them, I crashed out hard when I got back to the hotel. (Enjoying reading and listening to streams via the hotel wifi). At least, on the second evening, the place across the artificial lagoon wasn’t in party mode (very loud music).

Picture. We're looking out over an artificial lagoon towards hills in the distance and a very yellow Moon. This is light enhanced by the phone, so it's a milky white sky and far brighter than the almost full dark of the day.

Nice place though, peaceful. That’s actually the Moon there. No stargazing on this trip because we had peak moonlight but it was nice walking most of the way around that artificial lagoon on the first evening. That picture is what came out of the phone on the day, it did a lot of light enhancing as the actual conditions were almost full dark with a very bright super moon.

Castle 2 ?

Picture. More castle, we're looking over the top of a series of cars towards the imposing tall walls of a castle citadel, below clear blue skies.

I’d booked a ticket for Snowdon Mountain Railway (might actually leave that for another post, am fading!) for 1500 on the return day, which gave me a morning/early afternoon to play with after checking out of the hotel. I’d been given the idea to visit Caernarfon castle, which was another really good recommendation.

One bit of a surprise is how good the condition of Caernarfon and Conwy Castle is. Whereas the south Wales castles are typically intentionally destroyed and demolished, the two castles I visited in the North were still mostly intact. Part of that is due to Caernarfon Castle still being in active use, it was used for the ?inauguration? ceremony for Prince Charles becoming the Prince of Wales way back when. (Is King now).

Picture. We're inside the castle, looking out over a beautifully mown grassy interior. We can see the castle walls to the left and right, with an intact tower to the left and a somewhat crumbled gate house to the right. Clear blue skies with wispy clouds and the distant towers have a pair of flags flying.

There we are, quite a bit there still, including a very fortified gatehouse (ramp to enter but broken lift). I was definitely feeling impending illness at this point and needed to reserve energy for Snowdon and the drive home so I wasn’t pushing myself at all around this castle but … Well worth a visit again. I think the towers were open and there’s a few good displays in there as well.

I think I will save Snowdon for another post (need to put food on and Pain is happening) but … a couple of great castles to visit, lovely people looking after everyone in the hotel (shame about the attack of trendy with the room design) and I needed to get away for a few days as the temptation is to just stay home, stay in, play games, listen to music.

About that …. I did pick up bugs up in Sheffield. I could feel them starting to take effect on the Tuesday driving up, plus I was hearing reports that other people there were being affected by the bugs too. I also hurt the shoulder again on the Saturday afternoon, one of those where I turn to face someone but leave the arm behind, which is where it gets crunchy. I didn’t feel it on the day (never do) but it’s been very crunchy for the last couple of days. I’ll do that, I’ll keep myself going while I need to (albeit limited at the moment) and then collapse when I don’t need to maintain that level.

Like now ! Time to put the dinner on and look at hopefully posting the Snowdon pics later this week.

Later everyone, before I go though :

Picture. We're looking at a cracked white egg, on a white sheet. Emerging from the egg is a small red dwagon. They're looking up at us with wide, adorable eyes.

There we go, totally adorable new profile pic and one of the bits of loot taken away from North Wales last week.

Island excursions

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December 12, 2023

10:36 pm

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Hello everyone,

Apologies, been quiet for a while … I managed to pick up bugs that affected me all last week and instead of knocking the bad vibes post off quickly (last post was a grumble and not great vibes), it’s taken a bit of time to summon the finger tapping. Back to cruise stuff !

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a sandy beach, in shadow. The calm sea is to the left, in the background is rock with a square mountain top in the background. The mountain is half in shadow, half lit orange by the morning sun. On the beach, we see a boat coming to shore with a small number of people on board. More people in red jackets are off on the high part of the beach to the right.

The middle Monday of the cruise saw us heading off to explore Rødøya island, as we headed back down south again. (Rødøya is going to be a stretch for the old copy/paste so I’m going to call it Red Island from now on !)

Red Island is one of the landmarks going up the Norwegian coast. We went from the ship to the shore in the Zodiac boats as there is no dock or jetty here :

Picture. Photograph. We're on a boat, looking backwards. The black plastic of the engine is lower middle and there is a square metal frame with rounded corners above. Within the frame, we see our ship. The lower part is black, with "Hurtigruten Expeditions" in writing at the back (left). There is a red band and the upper part with portholes and windows is in white. We can see a black funnel and assorted radio antennae on top of the ship.

There’s our ship, MS Maud, resting at anchor while we were off having a wander around the island. We got ashore in the small Zodiac boats and I was really impressed with the systems in place to get the guests transferred ashore. In the picture, you’ll see some platforms coming out from the middle of the ship at the waterline. These are tender pits. The boats are driven up alongside the tender pits and you literally step straight from ship to boat, with very little hassle or difficulty.

It’s a system that seems extremely well practiced, it’s secure and safe, with assistance from the crew all the way. Very impressive, especially when you consider that the average age going on the boats is 60+, probably 65+ and I’d include myself in the groups that have some mobility issues. (Getting older)

When we got to shore, it was a similar operation :

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at one of the Zodiac boats. It has black rubber sides and a grey plinth and coxswain at the back with a 12 on it. The metal frame is at the back to the left, the front of the boat is to the right with netting. 7 people in red jackets are on board. 1 is being assisted off the boat by one of two ladies wearing yellow and black waterproof outfits.

Yep, steps ! We went from ship to boat by stepping over the side of the boat, for shore side we went over the bow. The two ladies in yellow and black you see there are Maeva and Holly of the Expeditions team, who were absolute legends tirelessly pulling the boats in and making sure everyone got to the dry bit of the island.

While we were all off taking in the scenery, Holly and Maeva were non stop on the boats pulling them in and helping everyone off. We had some amazing people looking after us on the cruise and these two were brilliant throughout.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a small snow covered hill, in shadow. The mountain is to the left, half lit by morning sun. Standing above us in traditional tunic is the blond haired Magnus, mid exultation of his latest story about trolls.
Norwegian man tells stories

That’s Magnus, telling us about the mountain. It’s actually one of the trolls, who was too busy arguing to see the sun come up … and now the troll is one of the navigation landmarks on the coast. Magnus was great, he’d tell us about the myths and legends and totally true stories about Norwegian history.

It’s a rich country for culture and they’ll surprise you. They’ve been a subject nation to one of Denmark, Sweden or Finland for so much of their history but now, with North Sea oil bolstering them, they’re fully independent. The country doesn’t actually need the oil for energy, they have ample hydroelectric power from the landscape. They’ve been very smart in turning the proceeds into a rainy day bank and it’s made sure they can stand on their own. And they’re also extremely humble with it too, they haven’t been changed by the oil wealth.

I’d thoroughly recommend visiting, it’s a lovely country and the people are very welcoming.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snow covered hillside that's about 10 feet away. There is a hollow in the rocks, with a small but cozy looking camp fire waiting to grow. Beside, looking proud of the fire, is Peter the Norwegian standing tall with an arm resting on the rocks.
Norwegian man makes fire

And that’s Peter, who was really fun to listen to when he was telling us about his country. Very proud fellow, lovely guy, with a great humility. It was a pleasure to be around Peter, Magnus, Holly and Maeva and the others in the team, Geraldine the photographer, Fran the antarctic scientist, Emile the organiser and all of the others who were a bit more background but who made sure everything went incredibly smoothly.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over a rippled sea towards the rocks of the island. The sun can just be seen on the horizon, it's about to disappear below. There is a long ray of sun reflection on the sea.

After a little wander, it was time to head off again as the sun was setting. It was about this time in the cruise that we were starting to get warnings of very heavy weather coming through with multiple storm systems starting to gather together to have a fight where we were looking to pass through the North Sea on our way home.

(I can feel my shoulder getting a bit sore again so just Red Island today)

Red Island was a lovely little interlude on the trip, away from civilisation. I had big feelings of trepidation about going on the boat transfer but a big part of me was going “You will not get the opportunity to do this again for a long time, DO IT” and that part won. Just like booking the cruise in the first place, I’m very glad I let that part of me win over the overcautious side that likes to hide away a bit too much.

This was also when we came back across the Arctic Circle, pretty much exactly at sunset.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking through one of the ship windows to a slightly choppy sea with islands in the background. The sun is all but disappeared over the horizon to the left. There are a few wisps of cloud in the sky above. To the right is another ship, with lights blazing away.

There was a bit of a race to get there, with a German cruise ship steaming across a bit faster than us. Bit too much of a hurry, needs to chill out and enjoy the milkshakes some more :-D. We got to the landmark just as the sun was fully going down.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a small island in the sea with a plinth and a metal frame globe on top. The globe is lit from below and by the ship with white lights. In the background, the rocky outcropping of islands and above that, a red glow of a sunset.

Not a great picture but the best of the series. That’s the monument which marks the boundary of the Arctic Circle. We didn’t see it on the way up (passed in the night I think) but it was good to see it at dusk with the fading light.

And that’s where we’ll leave Norway for this post.

I mentioned bugs … I also fell up the stairs (oops). The bugs weren’t too serious but I stayed working from home with sniffles on Monday and by Tuesday, didn’t have much of a voice available. But they’re mostly gone now, pretty much all better. I’m feeling the aftermath of tripping up the stairs though. I basically missed the last step and almost faceplanted myself on the landing. Oh well.

I’ve been feeling the damage in my wrists and shoulder. They basically took the brunt of me going thud at the top of the stairs. Didn’t feel it much at the time (was about to sleep half the weekend to get rid of the bugs) but the wrist is a bit sore now. But it still works so I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.

Time to hit post, listen to Tashnarr learning guitar Rocksmith (linky) and head back into the latest book. It’s The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher, not too sure what to make of it so far but T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) does write lovely, very readable books that steadily draw you in with the characters, style and steadily unfolding story.

Laters 😀

Cruising car

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November 30, 2023

10:57 pm

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Hello everyone,

I kinda got out of the habit with the blogging since I got back on shore ! Don’t worry, the cruise posts will start up again next time, I just need to talk about some after cruise stuff … and maybe get back to a little cruisey summary too for some good vibes at the end.

Picture. We're looking at a cute little green dragon, curled up asleep with head resting on their front paws.

This is skipping ahead a little bit with cruise stuff but the not too spoilery summary is : storms happened ! They were looking pretty serious, so our return was delayed a day with that day being spent sheltering in a fjord. More on that in a future post. But it did mean that instead of me returning on Saturday and having a sleep day on the Sunday, we got back on Sunday and then I was up the road again for a car service on Monday before restarting work on Tuesday.

I’ll be either for a bit of quiet over the coming weekend.

The car service is drawing a bit of a rant actually … It could well be Strike 3 for the Lexus organisation. They make wonderful cars but I’ve had them delivered with pre-delivery defects that in two cases, should have been picked up in the 150 point pre delivery quality and safety inspections they talk about for the used cars.

The least bad one was the IS with the battery terminal that popped off leaving me with a dead car incident. I think this would have happened as a consequence of the cars probably being shipped (by ship) with the batteries disconnected … and then all the predelivery configuration gets done and the battery’s connected. It was just bad luck that it wasn’t tightened up enough, but also careless.

The serious one was my last car, I think it was shipped with a fault in the back suspension which led to massive understeer and excessive body roll. This would have been picked up in a test drive and it would have been a factory defect. It also wasn’t picked up in two services.

And I got a £700 service bill for my latest car. The extra cost was for wheel alignment and a new tyre because the old one had excessive wear due to the poor wheel alignment. Red’s a 68 plate car, which means it was registered in the second half of 2018. When a UK car is 3 years old, it has to start having annual road worthiness checks, which is how stuff like bald tyres and faulty wheel alignment get discovered.

So when it comes to having a car delivered 3 months after one of these checks, with faults like that … you could call me rather ticked off about it. I don’t think it was anything I’d done post delivery, I can’t remember whacking anything. (Although I had another bout of covid not long after getting the car) Especially as it had the wobble vibration kicking in between 35 and 50mph which is indicative of either alignment or balancing. (Or a faulty wheel bearing)

Yeah, I’m decidedly unhappy about it. But it’s not something to immediately change the car about, like what it was with the Blue car with suspected suspension fault and the Silver one which had a power steering fault which was also skipped over in a service. My impression of both those was pretty much “Ok, you’re not finding and discovering these obvious faults, so I’m not going to tell you about them as part of the negotiations for me changing to the next car.”

This might be giving a bad impression of the brand though … The 6 Lexii I’ve had so far have been fantastic cars. Their drive by wire behaviour fits exactly the behaviour I want from the cars I drive. I like to be able to settle into a chilled out essentially autopilot for cruising, with the option of going very quick when I need to. The CT200h (aka Posh Prius) is on the low side for power for me (10 sec to 60, 134bhp system power) but when you ask it to, it cheerfully gives you everything it’s got. And what it had was far more effective at getting down the road quickly than the performance Focus ST170 I had before.

The toys are great too. I’d like to keep going with the brand, except they’ve caught the marketing urge to move everyone into SUVs … which is not something that I can support. They get a lot of things right though, with no design stupidity like you’d get with Ford or dodgy electronics which you’d have with the French cars. Or cars which just disintegrate like certain other EU cars, cars which have special modes to cheat emissions and economy figures, or cars which are excessively difficult to repair by design.

Toyota (and Lexus) make excellent cars. Maybe it’s a Corolla next.

Book stuff ! I read two books while off on the holiday :

Erebus by Michael Palin. It’s tagline is that it’s the story of a ship. Essentially, two ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. They were special Napoleonic War ships, with the war ending before they could actually do their purpose. So after being mothballed for a while, visionary people saw their potential as extreme exploration ships with them being dispatched to the Antarctic and later the Northwest Passage. This book is the story of the ships and what we know of their expeditions. It’s well worth a peek as a look into life on the ships and the discoveries that were made when so much of the map was Terra Incognita with “Here Be Dragons” labels on it.

It was a bit of a slow one though, perhaps a bit too much in there and it felt like a bit of a slog. Still worth checking out though.

Next up was Winter World by A G Riddle. This one’s set in a near future Earth, which is becoming steadily colder. It’s like an Ice Age is coming but it’s not from planetary conditions, it’s ALIENS blocking out the sun. Good book too and it sets up a trilogy. I’ll be looking forward to reading the next two in a while when the book 2 is on offer. (Bought book 3 in a 99p offer)

Ref the cruise though, there will be more posts with pictures to come there but the quick summary is :

It was a Hurtigruten Expeditions cruise on MS Maud. She’s a small cruise ship accommodating around 300 guests. Cozy. The crew were amazing, making it a lovely experience from start to finish. The expeditions team were fun, super motivated, friendly people with an infectious spirit that got us massively looking forwards to what was coming up to see. And Norway supremely delivered on that promise of good things to see.

I’d thoroughly recommend them, when I do more cruising (and that’s a definite), I’ll be looking at Hurtigruten again. You see cruise ship and you think Party Boat. It was a fun atmosphere but it was much more about the getting out there and seeing great things than a dress up for dinner party ship. Just what I wanted and what I didn’t realise I needed.

Economical too, I was able to book less than 5 days before the sailing date with a nice little discount and … there is no solo traveller supplement like pretty much everything else applies to the cost of going away. The atmosphere on board totally supported solo travelling as well. You’d be placed with other people in the main restaurant for food but the guests were lovely too and meal conversations were very pleasant. I could have picked up a collection of great new friends on the trip. (I hope some of you remember me and are reading this – you’re amazing and made the trip much better !)

Disclosure note time – I paid fully for the cruise, the only freebies were what every traveller with them gets : free coffee, cookies, wifi, food, selected expedition things. There was absolutely no nickel and dime behaviour here (like you might remember me complaining about with Novotel)

It was a very rewarding, informative, pleasant, educational (camera, science, people) trip. And it was the getting away from the world that I desperately needed, even though I didn’t know ho much I needed it.

Last message ? Sometimes we need to get away from the world for a little while and do something different. The world can get you down. I hope you all get that chance to escape from it for a little while. I was having lots of fun out there and I hope the posts here about the trip and the pictures I was sending around the various parts of the internet brought out smiles.

Land ? Huskies Ahoy, Lights Ahoy

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November 26, 2023

1:16 pm

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Hello everyone,

Last post from on board ship today. It’s a case of LAND AHOY on each side of the ship as we start making our way up the Thames. But that’s something for a later post. It’s been a wonderful cruise, talking to the other guests has been lovely and we’ve been incredibly well looked after by the crew. I’ll definitely be doing another cruise holiday at some point when I can see how to fit it in and it’s almost certain to be with Hurtigruten again.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snowy scene, with a lady and a dog standing on a platform. The dog is a white furry Husky coming up to between her knees and hips. Husky is looking over to the right, surveying all. The lady is reaching down to give Husky a bit of stroking.

Saturday saw us heading into Tromsø, which is a larger Norwegian city set on an island in the fjord, with additional settlement spreading into the mainland on either side. We had a little look around the city itself with a little bit of scouting in the local souvenir shops. But it was a little limited for me because ….

HUSKIES

Yep. I didn’t sign up for many of the additional trips but I didn’t want to miss the visit to the Huskies. And it was a magical couple of days too. The Huskies were just one evening, we’ll get back to Sunday later. We visited a farm where they breed and train up the dogs, taking the best ones into the racing team and looking after the rest of them. Whether that’s using them as sled dogs or looking after them until they can be adopted by loving homes.

And they’re lovely dogs too.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a man standing up, holding a dog in his arms. There are more people in the background, everyone is wrapped up warm with coats and woolly hats. The dog is looking directly towards us, with a curious white and grey face as he's enjoying a view from higher up than usual.

That’s one of the puppies. Very curious, very bouncy, totally acclimatised to the conditions. Ready for running across the snow, very happy to have all of the attention they can get.

Picture. Photograph. The foreground is lit, showing a snow covered field extending into darker fields in the background. We see a wooden snow topped dog kennel in the lower right with the names Fjord and Katla. In the background, a series of sleds with dogs harnessed eager to run.

And there they are, ready to run. And run fast. No rides for us because the snow isn’t old enough yet to support guest safety but it was a definite case of feeling the excitement in the air as the dogs were getting ready to do what they were born and bred for.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a wood fire in the centre of 4 posts. In the background, is a table with cups and a kettle. Everything is lit by a faint purple.

And then we disappear back inside a hut and enjoy a warm fire, a bit of cake and some hot chocolate. Best trip of the cruise. And I have a few more pictures too, including a couple that went to Geraldine, expedition photographer. We’ll be getting all of her stunning photographs later (I’m in some !) and I’ll be sure to drop the link when we get it.

And then there was Sunday. The morning was in Narvik and one thing about this trip has been educational about Second World War history. Terrible things happened all of the world, Norway definitely wasn’t spared. We don’t hear enough about it … The northern parts of Norway above Narvik were essentially Scorched Earthed as the Germans made their way out and that’s just one of the terrible things. It’s well worth educating about it, more than I’d want to go into here. And it does make you ask the question : we seemed to be winning the Battles of Narvik and pushing out the Germans. And then we abandoned the town to try and protect France. What would have changed if we’d held that northern flank of Norway ? That’s a definite one for the alternate historians.

Yep. Check out the Norwegian side of the WW2 story, it’ll be illuminating.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over a faintly lit ship deck, with the railing on the right and chairs stacked in front. In the sky, there are a couple of dark clouds but behind them, a band of green glow in the sky going from centre bottom to up and left.

And then there was the continuing transit south … With a break in the overhead conditions too ! I have to admit, the pictures are much better than I could see. The assembled Northern Light Hunters were limited to seeing a grey on the horizon as our eyes couldn’t make out the lights.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking across the deck of the ship towards the rail. Above the horizon, there is a patterning of dark clouds with a green aurora glow behind them. You can perhaps make out bands in the green. Oh and in the centre foreground, a grinning idiot in a bright yellow hat, a dark jacket and a blue and white scarf.

I’d mostly figured out how to get good pictures out of the Pixel 4 camera by this stage and then had a bright idea involving the camera timer … A guess at a good spot, a tap of the timer, a gentle saunter across to the rail and there we go.

This was about the last chance we got (except maybe last night, faintly) to see the Northern Lights, the remaining nights saw the clouds coming in a bit too much. It was an amazing sight to see though, definitely a Bucket List thing if you do those.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking across to the ships rail again. Clouds are on the horizon but above, we see the green bands of aurora stretching across and upwards. Quite pretty. Oh and there's the grinning idiot in yellow hat, dark jacket and white and blue scarf over in the bottom right.

There we go. Last one for now, this was just after midnight on the same day. It’s the Pixel 4 camera again on a tripod, with me gently sauntering over to the rail to do the timer selfie. This was the best spot on board for these, there wasn’t enough incidental light on the flight deck to pick up the grinning idiot.

I should probably hit post now and start to pay more attention, docking soon !

I’ll do more steady catching up later. Tilbury Docks are very nearly in sight …

Orcas and Alta

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November 21, 2023

1:47 pm

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Hello everyone,

We spent Friday last week at the top of the world. Well, nearly 😀 The northernmost point of this cruise is Alta, at 69 degrees 58 minutes North. It’s quite far North. Sadly not much in the way of Northern Lights for most of us (too cloudy) but the group that went out and about did catch some good lights. There will be more about that in a later post …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a dark metal deck. In the foreground are two balls of snow, forming a tiny snow person. Behind, we see a group of people around a growing mound of snow.

More about that little one later. Actually, let’s rewind a bit further and give another special mention to photographer Geraldine, who is part of the expedition crew. I mentioned Orcas earlier, let’s see if this Facebook Post Linky works … Hopefully that’ll take you to a page with pictures of whales on.

It was good seeing the pod of Orca swimming alongside us for a little while. I was able to catch sight of them but wasn’t anywhere near fast enough to get the camera up in time for a picture. However, there should be plenty behind that link. Plus the MS Maud page has more of the various pictures from this fortnight’s cruise. Go take a peek :-D.

Norway has waters that are warmed up by the same Gulf Stream that keeps Britain warm, so the Orca and other whales like to visit.

(Note – there’s a very sleepy vibe going on in the Explorer Lounge at the moment …)

So – Alta !

Picture. Photograph. We're looking up and over a snow covered walking bridge, lit regularly on each side. Behind that, is a sloping building made up of cylindrical floors of decreasing radius as we go upwards.

Alta grew into a city a few years ago, which also meant they needed a bigger church too. Cue the Northern Lights Cathedral of the picture. Good place, it also serves as a community centre as well.

The textured sides that you might be able to make out in that picture are actually titanium plates, which are slotted together to provide the shell of the building. They reflect the mood of the environment around the building. For our visit … that meant grey and cloudy :-D. Oh well, no Northern Lights for the town that day. But there are several microclimates around Alta, so the group that went out and about hunting for clear skies were given a treat.

However, we had a treat of a different kind … With the explorer group going for a building of an impromptu snow person. Norway doesn’t seem to go in for building snow people. Perhaps it’s because the trolls don’t like the snow people and bop them all on the head while everyone is sleeping. It’s another curious difference between Norway and the UK.

Picture. Photograph. A group of very happily smiling people are gathered around a tall and thin mound of snow, steadily resembling a snow person. A lady with long blond hair carries a snow ball about twice as large as her hands, she's about to place the ball on top of the mound.

There we go. Almost complete. I’ve been staying quite wary of my back and legs, so I was just doing the spectating thing and taking pictures. (it’s a bit cold, I’ve been needing to defrost a lot and conditions were treacherous)

Picture. Photograph. A cheery snow person looks as us in front of a gathering of 9 assorted people standing and kneeling behind. The lights of the harbour can be seen behind them.

And there we go ! The members of the expedition crew (not searching for Northern Lights) proudly presenting their new snow person. I think it might be still there too (this was from Fri 17th) and also gained a friend.

As I type though, I’m really struggling to stay awake 😀 (It’s a very quiet, chill, sleepy vibe up here in the Explorer lounge) So it’s time for me to retreat to the cabin after taking just one more picture of a lovely sunset.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a fairly calm sea towards a horizon with low hills and islands. The sky is clear blue with a milky haze at the horizon. To the middle right, we see the sun about touching the horizon, with a reflection on the water.

(I’m cheating this was Monday 20th). Later everyone, have a wonderful rest of the day.

Svolvaer and the Trolls

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November 18, 2023

7:10 pm

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Hello everyone,

This could be another race post today, there’s a tomorrow’s activities thing starting in 50 minutes from this point in the post :-D.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out to the sea in the harbour, over a small fence with 3 notices on. Beyond and above the fence is our ship docked up, black below with a small red band before a mix of white hull and glass above. It is day time but quite cloudy.

We spent Thursday morning in Svolvaer, which is one of the traditional fishing towns on the coast of Norway. There isn’t so much fishing now due to the quota system, which is aimed at maintaining the fish stocks. Not too much fish caught, to balance the rate at which the fish can replenish their numbers.

We had a good little wander around the town, with 3 talks on the cod fishing ways, the fishing industry and the evolution of the nature of the local population. It’s been very interesting listening and learning about this part of the world. And I can never resist a little tall tale as well.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a mirrored surface on top of a hill. It is oval, longer vertical than horizontal. There is a circle cut out of the middle. Several figures in red jackets and yellow hoods are standing around on snowy ground. There are trees behind the oval mirror.

That was an interesting and curious little art feature on top of the little hill by the church. Or was it a coastal defence, designed to keep the fisher people from the South of Europe away ? Because Norway isn’t part of the EU, they can set their own rules for fishing limits, which means the fishing people from Portugal and Spain are banned. But if they get too close …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snow covered side of the dock, looking out over rippled seas. In the distance, we see more land with an array of triangular structures on which the cod is placed. In the foreground, 2 solitary boot prints in the snow.

Boom. Not even boots remaining. In the distance there are the racks on which the cod is put to dry out after being caught, a process which takes months. But it leads to preserved cod which will last for years.

We arrived to quite closed in cloudy conditions but things cleared a bit later to reveal some spectacular hills behind the town.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over the harbour. The main dock side is to our left, with buildings further to the left. A small pier stretches out from the right. Several small boats are docked up. In the distance, triangular peaks reach upwards to the sky. Thin grey clouds can be seen above the peaks.

Very pretty.

But also time to move on further up the coast and along the way ….

Picture. Photograph. We're looking towards a narrow entrance between two triangular sections of rock coming down to the flat calm sea surface. It's very dark, the rocks are very dimly lit.
Spooky

This is the entry to the Trollfjord, which we reached at just after 7pm. Very spooky, very dark, with the ships lights illuminating the sides of the fjord which were perhaps within 5 metres of the ship on each side. Lovely sight.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking down the side of the ship, with the ice covered rail on the right hand side of the picture. The sea is absolutely flat calm, mirroring the rocks reaching up to the left. They are a mix of white and grey. A search light is illuminating the rocks up towards the front of the ship.

Very tight confines in there. We were able to get in there, turn around and come out again by virtue of the Azipod system the ship has. Instead of propellers on shafts, an Azipod is a propeller that can turn through 360 degrees. It allows the ship to turn in place, which let us get into and out of the fjord.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at the end of the fjord, with faintly rippled water reflecting the dim shapes of rocks ahead of us. There are lights on the shore to the left and right.

A very beautiful little corner of Norway that we were quite lucky to be able to visit. Oh ! There was also …

Picture. Photograph. We're inside the ship, looking at a low table and a couple of chairs, with a window behind. Outside the window is the harbour side and its lights. On the table is a cup of black coffee and an inviting vanilla cake.
CAKE

Cake was good. Have a great weekend everyone.

Lighting up and a little ceremony

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November 17, 2023

11:47 am

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Hello everyone,

I’ve now seen the Northern Lights ! We’re also above the Arctic Circle now so it’s definitely a case of wrapping up warm when we venture outside. We were greeted by this fellow, after a rousing cheer to wake him up.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking upwards at a manic looking figure leaning over the white deck rail and gesturing upwards with an open right hand. He's wearing an orange tunic under a thick white woollen cloak. He is wearing a pointy white hat.
NJORD

That’s King Njord, who led the Arctic Circle crossing ceremony on Wednesday morning, where crew and guests were (optionally) baptised with a spoonful of codliver oil followed by a “drink” of water. And by “drink”, we mean a bucket down the back of the neck.

I’m sad to say that I kinda hid when the baptising was occurring, mostly because my back has been giving me the warning signs to tell me to look after it better in case the pain levels increase to where I’m going to have to restrict the movement even more. But it also let me disappear to the stern of the ship where …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a sea with small waves. Above the horizon, we can see a scattered low level of darker thinner cloud with blue sky above. On the horizon, peeking out behind low hills is a very bright sun, with a reflecting glinting off the waves below to the left of the wake of the propellers of the ship.

Sun says hi. We’ve been treated to some lovely sunrises and sunsets as we go up and down the coast. It’s a fairly extended period too, so that picture was at 0935 and it was already pretty light outside at before 0900 when we passed this lighthouse.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over the sea towards a lighthouse on an island. The lighthouse is a tower painted in bands of red and white. The light at the top is shining towards us. There are a couple of small houses at the base.

That was from Wednesday morning and at time of writing, we’re headed past glacier covered hills on our way into Alta. But that’s for a later post as I catch up more. Alta is a northern town/city and we’ll be visiting their Northern Lights cathedral. I’ll have the old (yep, the one I’ve owned for 7 days) tripod with me and we’re hoping for clear skies so we can see more of …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a dark night sky, with occasional dots of light from the stars. But the main thing here is a thin strip of green light, hazily starting to the centre left and going upwards to the right hand side.

That’s from my Canon Ixus 265 as I steadily figure out how to get the best out of it. I think I’ve learned a fair bit so far. One of the expedition team is the lovely Geraldine, expert photographer. While there isn’t much scope to do much with my little Canon camera, Geraldine’s tips to us all have pointed me towards the settings needed to start getting pictures like that on the little camera (high ISO, long exposure and the tripod is coming in handy too). And I’ll hopefully get more aurora pictures soon.

Geraldine’s excellent tips and advice also let me figure out what was going wrong on the more automatic settings … like a night setting with ISO 100. ISO is a sensitivity setting. Lower settings are less sensitive, so pointing the camera at an aurora at ISO 100 and long exposure time was just giving me a black screen. The picture above is ISO 1600 and I have another click to ISO 3200 to try. I have some decent pictures of one of the bridges that we passed under that may make it to a later post.

But one real start with the aurora is …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at Aurora Borealis again, with a much bigger green glow covering most of the upper part of shot. Down below, we see the rail in black, with three ghostly figures with red jackets visible.

Cor. Looks good doesn’t it. That’s from the Pixel 4 mobile phone camera in its night sight mode. It’s given me some spectacular looking views of Trollfjord. That’s on an automatic setting, on a tripod and I’m really impressed with how that one has turned out. Maybe a bit over exposed at ISO 5877 but I really like the picture, especially having the ghostly figures below.

I’ve really enjoyed seeing the lights and also learning how to get the best out of the tools to capture the memories of them.

If you’re curious about the equipment, the compact camera is a Canon Ixus 265 and I’m now doing the night shots in P for Program mode, which lets me open up the ISO settings. It’ll be sitting on a tripod for these shots and I bought the cheap £30 National Geographic tripod. It’s simple, does the job, although I have trapped fingers a couple of times with the smart phone attachment. (It’s a springloaded thing with sharper edges than need be). The mobile phone camera is a Pixel 4, running the automatic settings of Night Sight.

I might be steadily catching up with posts. Since King Njord gave us his blessing yesterday morning, we visited the pretty fishing town of Svolvaer, with a longer visit coming up to Alta today. Pictures later ! For now though, I’m wondering how they fit everything they need to into this boat …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking over a rippled sea towards a short ship. She's blue below upper decks painted white. In the small space are winches, a crane, the bridge with radar and communications above, a small orange boat and then the engine exhausts with more winches and crane at the back.

That’s not processed or squished at all … She really is that short and is packing a lot in there. She’s the fishing vessel Skolmen and is just 27.4m long. (Marinetraffic link)

The port there is Svolvaer, with drying racks for cod visible in the upper right. More about Svolvaer later. Sadly no souvenir because I forgot to bring my wallet with me … oops :-D. I’ve seen several Orca as well this morning but sadly wasn’t fast enough to bring the camera to bear.

It’s probably getting time for food though before a couple of activities prior to the ship coming into Alta. More on the weekend :-D. Have a lovely day everyone.

A Dwagon in Bergen

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November 15, 2023

5:02 pm

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Hello everyone,

Last post was a bit quick … I didn’t have long before disappearing off for another of the excellent and informative lectures that we’ve been having throughout the cruise so far. We’ve been hearing about the history of Norway, the culture and the places we’re heading in to visit.

Picture. Photograph. We've looking from the back of our ship, towards Bergen harbour, lit up by the houses and the pre-dawn light. The blue cross in a white cross on a red background Norwegian flag is flying, slack from lack of wind, from a pole to the left. We can see a couple of ships to the right and houses on the bottom of a hillside.

So yesterday, we headed off in to Bergen for the morning and most of the afternoon. That’s Bergen in the picture above, with us sharing the port with a series of research vessels and offshore supply vessels.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking downwards on Bergen harbour. The sea is very calm, disturbed only by the herringbone ripples and wake of a small departing boat. We can see a series of ships alongside the land pointing out to the sea.

You’ll have to forgive me getting a bit spotterish about the ships. In the picture above, Maud has her portside (with the doors) alongside the dock, with her pointing outwards. The 5 vessels on the dock to the left are all offshore supply vessels. I think the yellow is for Viking, the blue and white is for Maersk and I didn’t catch the other ones. They all have the really tall wheelhouse where all of the power and crew areas will be. The deck behind is open and flat (for containers) and they’ll usually have a massive crane on board as well.

That picture is from the top of the Fløibanen funicular, which took us to a viewpoint above Bergen. And a lovely bit of walking around a nature area.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a goat with a pair of short horns. The goat mostly has white fur, with some black patches towards their head. The goat is far more interested in the grass on the ground than in paying attention to us. The goat is surrounded by trees.

May include goats.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at the side of a hill, with scrub grass and thin trees to each side of a cliffside rock fall.

This is what happens when the trolls are going home drunk, fall off the top of the hill and are still there in the morning.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a lake. The lake is frozen but with a mirror surface reflecting trees on the other side. There are also thin trees and grass on our side, to bottom right. The sun is very bright to the top middle/right and we can see it reflecting off the lake.

The troll was guarding the way to the lake above. Unusually for Bergen, we have brilliant sunshine and clear skies all day. Possibly the only day in the year that’ll happen. A good respite after the bad conditions we had coming across the North Sea on Monday.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking down a hill, with a cobbled road in the centre, with hills above in the distance. Houses and shops are to the left and right.

And that’s one of Bergen’s streets, looking down the hill from the entrance to the lower funicular station. Lovely place. And the ladies in the cafe at the top were also happy, smiling and I suspect quite amused at all of us cruise people coming through. But in a chuckling with us way. The best way.

Bergen is also being a victim of climate change and is being affected by how the world and landscape are changing around us. That’s illustrated by the Brygge houses :

Picture. Photograph. We're looking across a cobbled pedestrian area towards a series of houses. The one in front is a light brown house labelled "Enhjorningen Sjøboden" with a couple of light grey doors. The doors and the lower right edge of the house are on a small lean.

The houses weren’t built that way, with the lean … they’ve moved over time, with active preservation and renovation efforts ongoing to hopefully keep them there despite the land moving underneath them.

Being on the harbour, they are of course somewhat of a tourist trap. But also filled with a mix of lovely little items plus more practical winter weather gear. Something nice to remember Bergen by. Like …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a little crafted longboat. The boat is about 5 inches long, sitting on a wooden top with the front end to the left and a little towards us. The boat has red and white sails in vertical strips with a Norwegian flag at the top of the mast.

I got a boat, on a boat. That was only £16 (I think, will check in a bit to see what the exchange rate adjusted amount is). And there were many more things like that, I was very curious about the varied little figures that could have been turned into a chess set. Actually, there’s another boat on the boat … a not-quite-Lego but you get the idea representation of the Hurtigruten ships. I am very tempted.

And I’ll leave you with a bit more temptation there …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at yesterday's lunch. On a rectangular plate is chicken on a bed of vegetables, with chips to the right. A white milkshake sits behind that. It looks delicious.

That was lunch yesterday after 14,000 steps around Bergen. It was delicious and definitely filled a spot. If you’re feeling hungry looking at it, I am too :-D.

There’s been aurora sightings announced though so … (hits publish buttons)