Kaledo Jewellery Sale

 

 

 

Just wanted to let you know that my very creative sister is having a big pre-Christmas sale in her Etsy jewellery shop - 50% off everything from Friday, 28 November until Monday, 1 December 2014. All the jewellery is designed and made with love by my sister, Kathryn.

 

The link to her Etsy shop is www.kaledo.etsy.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duck Flu and Scare Mongering Media Nitwits

 

 

 

I am SO sick of London media nitwits when they immediately start the scare mongering stories as soon as something like bird flu hits a small town in East Yorkshire.  These people won't even know where East Yorkshire is.  The fact is that sometimes, like all living creatures,  birds get sick. When they are cooped up in pens in their thousands, the sickness will spread.  Humans cannot catch flu from a duck.  It is not the H5N1 virus which is a man-made virus, developed in a laboratory by scientists (that will never be announced on Sky or BBC News). 

 

I can see what's going to happen.  The media frenzy will blow it all out of proportion again and suddenly the Christmas turkey industry will collapse because everyone will be buying a hunk of beef for Christmas dinner. The sad thing is that the masses believe what the brainwashing media tell them.  Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 today made me particularly mad today in likening the bird flu outbreak to Ebola in Africa.  There's something wrong with that man.

 

I am watching it all from the sidelines and I really hope that the majority of people realise that the media is deliberately spreading fear.  Christ, I hope Kay Burley from Sky News doesn't turn up in East Yorkshire!!

 

 

Silent Night

This beautiful video made me cry. It speaks for itself.  I am just sorry it's an advert for Sainsbury's. 

New Ducks on the Block

Well, blow me rags!  First of all we couldn't get white ducks for love nor money and now we have eight.  We acquired two fully grown ducks a couple of weeks ago.  Their previous owners called them Donald & Daisy (I know, not very original).  They are fully grown and very, very spoiled.  Daisy seems to just sit on her duck's a*se all day eating and sleeping while Donald goes for a wee swim with the guys.  I am slightly worried about the fox because we have seen it in broad daylight a couple of times but the ducks seem to sense it and stay in the pond, just sitting there in silence.

 

Donald and Daisy Duck

Yesterday we had a 'phone call from a friend who knew someone who was selling six white ducklings, so naturally we jumped at the chance.  They are 12 weeks old and still have some downy feathers so we are keeping them in a shed for a week or two until they get a bit bigger and lose their downy feathers.  They are still a bit grubby and scrawny (think they were just kept in a yard) but as soon as they get into the pond, they will be pristine white again. I will have to teach them about the fox before I release them.  I lost several lovely white ducks to a fox about 4 years ago and I was heartbroken because we had reared them from tiny little balls of fluff. Anyway, here's a first picture of them in the old shed.

 

 

Don't stand in the drinking water, you plonker!

I will keep you updated with their progress.  They are still a little bit bewildered but they'll soon settle down.

The Last Leg of our Cruise

Before I continue, I just wanted to mention something I saw on Sky News while we were in our cabin one morning.  Good old P&O, only two channels on the TV - Sky News and Sky Sports. What a great marketing ploy to keep your passengers out of their cabins and up on deck spending on the ship. Anyway, the presenters were discussing Brad Pitt's new World War II film, which I think is called Fury.  Apparently Brad employed the services of a 90-year-old war veteran to advise him throughout the film.  I bet the old boy thoroughly enjoyed doing that.  The elderly gentleman didn't have a clue who Brad Pitt was when he was first contacted and said something like, "If you're not Alex Guinness then I don't know who you are".  Brad took it all in good humour (he's a lovely lad is Brad - kind face).

 

FEMALE SKY NEWS REPORTER: "He didn't know who Brad Pitt was?  Where has he been? 

 

Who are these people?

 

I'll tell you who they are.  They are the kind of people who eat in Marco Pierre White's restaurant in London and rave about it to their media bubble friends. The same nitwit female reporter will order the consommé and then say, "this is to die for.  I must ask Marco for the recipe". 

 

"It's a Knorr stock cube with boiling water, love, and you've just paid £100 for yours".
 

 

...AND MOVING SWIFTLY ON - NEXT STOP, TOULON IN FRANCE

 

Toulon Harbour

 

There wasn't a great deal to Toulon and we were originally going to catch a train to Cannes but decided against it because the journey was an hour and a half and the trains were not that regular so we didn't want to be stranded as the Ventura set sail for Barcelona. We wandered round the streets of Toulon, through the market streets filled with the scent of wonderful fresh fruit and vegetables and herbs.  I could just have stood there and breathed it all in for hours.  It smelled as if all the fresh produce had been picked that morning, which it probably had. We stopped for a coffee and to my great delight, the French waiter was quite snotty...but not enough.  We should have stopped off at Nice the other day for some super-snottyness. The best snotty waiters are there.

We walked a bit further on and found an indoor shopping centre with a huge supermarket as well as other shops.  I turned round and saw Roberto dashing up the escalator and wondered what the fluff he was up to.  When I got to the top of the escalator, I realised what it was.  No, it wasn't a shop that sold special NASA baseball hats.  It was his old favourite shop, C&A.  Great joy! He used to love C&A in the UK because it was one of the only shops that didn't mess around with the sizes and their shirts always fitted him perfectly.  We found him three nice shirts and when I got to the checkout, the very nice French checkout lady told me there was 50% off two of the shirts - even greater joy!  We didn't do much more in Toulon as we were still quite tired from all the gadding about the day before so we just had a cold drink at the harbour and then went off to join the queue for the tender boat and went back to the ship.  

The next day was a welcome sea day and we just chilled out, sat in the sun, walked round the deck and just generally faffed around, as you do.

Sunday and we are in Barcelona.  It was incredibly busy with thousands of tourists.  There were also three other huge cruise liners docked up beside the Ventura.  We walked the length of the Ramblas and then came to a big shopping centre, which was closed.  It's not that we only went to shopping centres on our holiday, but I always find it interesting to see what the shops are like in other countries.  We found out that the big stores don't open at all on Sundays in Barcelona so I was a bit annoyed with P&O for that one because the Sunday docking was probably cheaper for them.  I loved the Spanish people though.  They are so patient and even if they didn't speak much English, they tried their best (I don't speak any Spanish) and the thing I liked most was when you were crossing a road at a crossing, they weren't revving up their engines like Formula 1 drivers, ready to run over your toes (like they do in France). 

Christopher Columbus statue (left), Barcelona

Our last stop on the cruise was Palma in Mallorca. I loved it!  I had only ever been to Mallorca  once when I was about 23 years old on a girly holiday and all we did was sunbathe and swim and go out at night, as you do when you are young.  I would love to go back to Mallorca for a proper holiday, hire a car and go exploring.  The weather was fantastic for October.  At midday it was about 28 degrees. Even more exciting for Roberto....we found another C&A shop - WHOOOPPPEEEEE!! It was funny because it had autumn and winter woollies in when it was so hot outside.  Maybe they were for the British tourists.  Anyway, we both bought a winter jumper each - no, not matching.  Roberto now wants to plan a driving tour of Europe, based on where the C&A shops are located.

The Cathedral in Mallorca

The harbour in Mallorca

Well, that was just about it mes amis.  We had one more sea day and then on arrival at Malaga, we were transported to the airport at 6am and homeward bound, arriving in a dull grey Manchester at around 12.30 and then getting stuck for two hours on the M62 because of an accident.  Never mind, we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed our first cruise. We can't wait for the next one.  Better start saving.

Monaco & Antibes

During our recent cruise we had surprisingly good entertainment in the evenings. I was expecting typical cruise ship crooners (there were a few) but we had a really good Elton John tribute singer, a Kenny Rogers and a Phil Collins.  They were all very good.  Then one night in the theatre we had Tom O'Connor.  He is still going strong and is much funnier than some of the younger comedians you see on TV nowadays. There was a ventriloquist one night but that was just a step too far for us.  We gave that one a miss.

 

...and onwards to Monaco....

 

Early morning arrival in Monaco

We were out on the balcony again in our jimmy jams to see the ship's arrival in Monaco.  I don't think I've told you before chers amis but I lived in Nice for about a year when I was in my late twenties and had a job in Monaco as a secretary in a shipping agency (it's still there).  Please don't think it was all glamorous and exciting.  It was the most boring job I have ever had and the hours were long but it was a lovely place to work, and I didn't have to pay tax - result!  Anyway, because we knew Monaco quite well, we decided to take the train to Antibes for part of the day and then have a walk round Monaco when we came back.

 

I couldn't believe how much Monaco had changed.  We thought it would be easy going to the train station which wasn't anything special the last time we were there.  Now, it has  been completely modernised and extended and is all under cover.  We walked a mile along a moving walkway and followed directions for the ticket office.  The ticket office was closed.  Of course, it was still before 9am.  So we tried to suss out the ticket machine, which took a while but we managed in the end and then we had to try and work out which platform to wait on, which also was not obvious and there were no  screens on the platform to help.  Anyway, we eventually got our train and made our way to Antibes.  It is a lovely train ride along the coast in the bright sunshine.  I can't remember how long it took, maybe half an hour or 45 minutes.

 

Back street in Antibes

The harbour at Antibes
My boat's bigger than your boat!

The last time we had been in Antibes was quite a few years ago, maybe 15, and Roberto remembered going into a little café/restaurant and having the best chicken club sandwich ever, so we went in search of the Key West....and we found it!  He was over the moon, and the menu was still the same.  So if you are ever visiting Antibes, go to the Key West for your lunch. 

 

Key West Bar/Café in Antibes.  It isn't anything special
but their chicken club sandwiches are just fab.

I bought a big bag of herbes de Provence (a magic ingredient for my winter soups) and some lovely lavender soap from one of the little shops in Antibes and then we were off back to Monaco on the train.

It was hot, noisy and crowded in Monaco.  There is building work going on everywhere you go.  I was really tired by this time and I couldn't face the climb up the hill to Monte Carlo so we found the lifts that took you most of the way up.  There was a wedding going on in the Hotel de Paris. We didn't see who it was but you should have seen the cars parked outside!  There was quite a few million squid in cars alone. We just had a wander round and took a few photos. I was just about past myself by then so we wandered slowly back to the ship and had a look in a few shops on the way.

Monaco harbour with our ship the Ventura docked up.
 

Sun setting over Monaco as we sail away

Update on Roberto's lost hat.  No we haven't suddenly found it but he's still chuntering on about it, saying that some old b***d is wearing his special NASA hat on the way to the Caribbean on the next leg of Ventura's cruise. I might just go online and see if I can still order one from the NASA website and pretend that the old b***d felt guilty and sent it in the post. 

Arrivederci Roma et Bonjour Ajaccio

Ajaccio from the top of our tour bus

If felt a bit strange arriving in a different country each day, but it was a nice kind of strange.  We looked forward each morning to exploring the new place we had just arrived at. I forgot to mention that every time we disembarked, the P&O photographers were waiting for us like paparazzi.  They took a photo of disembarking passengers at every stop and then later on you could go to the photo gallery and find your photo and pay...wait for it...£11.80.  They also took photos of you at the black tie evenings (if you wanted a special portrait) and those photos cost £17.95.  The special album to collect all your photos cost £21.00, so if you were daft enough to buy every photo and an album, you would be out of pocket to the tune of about £200 squid or more.

 

Anyway, we made our way out of the port in Ajaccio and found an open top double decker tour bus and decided to do the little tour.  Quite a few of the other passengers came along as well and it was a lovely tour round the coastal road and then back through the town.  For some strange reason, we didn't take a lot of photos in Ajaccio so I can't show you much of it.  Again, it was a lovely old town with a market in the square and lots of interesting little shops. After the bus tour, we went to a café to have a cappuccino and decide what to do next.  I saw this couple from our cruise ship sitting at the end table in the same café.  I don't like to speak ill of my fellow British passengers but they were both very large and round and I'm sure I heard the woman asking the French waiter if they did English breakfast.  I wasn't sure if I heard it right because there is no way those two would have missed breakfast on board the ship, but sure enough, the waiter brought them a menu. Later on when we were back on board the ship, we went up to the buffet restaurant for afternoon tea - how lovely is that? They did little dainty sandwiches, cakes and toasted tea cakes and it was all very British.  I came upon the round couple again, plates piled high with the little sandwiches and cakes.  I don't like to judge people but I couldn't believe how much they ate.  Maybe food is an addiction for some people. To the Rolling Room with them!

 

A week into our cruise and we arrive back in Italy, this time in Genoa.  For most of the stops, we had done our own research into what we wanted to see, train timetables etc because the P&O organised excursions were quite expensive.  However, we noticed there was a trip to Portofino and there is no way we could have found our own way there so we splashed the cash and booked the trip and we were very glad we did. 

The coach took us to a little fishing village called Camogli to catch the boat to Portofino.  We had an hour in Camogli to go for a coffee and explore a bit.  It was really lovely, with all the high flats painted different colours.  The tour guide explained that this was for the fishermen years ago.  After they had been at sea for days they would look out for their own apartment by the colour and it would cheer them up and make them feel as if they were nearly home.

Camogli, Italy

 

Arriving in Portofino

 Portofino is not that big but it is absolutely beautiful.  After having a walk round we stopped at a café for a gelato.  They were expensive but we thought we would treat ourselves.  We thought they would be big and fancy with bells on.  In fact, when they arrived, it was 3 scoops of ice cream in a small silver dish.  Never mind, at least we can say we had a gelato in Portofino. We would like to have stayed for longer but the tour guide told us all to meet up at a certain time to get the boat back for the coach.  We didn't go back to Camogli, however.  This time we went onwards and were dropped off at Santa Margarita which was also a lovely town but we didn't have time to see it properly as we were marched to the coach to go back to Genoa.
 

 

Portofino



Portofino

Right, onwards and upwards.  Monaco and Antibes in a day next....think I need a rest.