The sailors - home from the sea

It's been a bit quiet on the blog recently, the reason being Mrs PBT’s and I have been away on a short cruise across the North Sea to the Netherlands. Our destination was the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, and the short two-night stay represented my third visit to this friendly and easy-going city.

We arrived back in the UK yesterday morning and after disembarking from the ship had the joy of calling and waiting for a taxi to take us to the hotel where we had left our car. This was after dropping it off last Thursday evening. Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up a cold whilst on board ship, my first since before Covid, and I’m wondering whether the lack of mask wearing – voluntary, or otherwise, might be to blame. Once consequence of what Mrs PBT’s describes as “man flu” was not sleeping particularly well on Monday consequently, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to be driving home, and certainly not on the motorway. So, apart from a stretch along the M3 from Southampton, until north of Basingstoke, the rest of the journey home was by "A" roads.

With the unpacking finished, and the suitcases just waiting to be placed back in the loft, I finally got some spare time to catch up with the blog, although not before completing an outstanding task. This related to the new monitor for my desktop PC that I treated myself to in the Black Friday sales. As this was just a few days before we departed for Southampton, I left the installation for our return. This was a good move, given that it's almost twice the size of my previous monitor - coming in at 24”, compared to just 15”, and given the extended footprint of a much larger screen, I had to de-clutter my desk before installation (“plug & play”) could commence.

The night before we went away, news broke of the death of Bob Dockerty, the founder, former Head Brewer and driving force behind Larkin's Brewery. Out of respect to Bob’s family and close friends I didn't post anything at the time, but now that the sad news has become official, I am mentioning it here. I will leave it until the dust has settled some more, before posting an appropriate tribute to Bob. Suffice to say it will be sorely missed. he was quite a character and well known locally, particularly in the part of West Kent where I work.

I'm not returning to work until Monday 5th and so, once I've shaken this cold off, I shall be catching up on jobs both indoors and outdoors. This bout of enthusiasm is unconnected to the major seasonal holiday event looming on the horizon, and although Mrs PBT’s and I have never really gone overboard on Christmas, we were impressed by the efforts made for the crew of the Queen Victoria, to give the ship a real festive look.

Going away at this time of year represents the return of something of a tradition within the Bailey household, namely taking pre-Christmas breaks at the end of November - beginning of December. Between 2013 and 2016, we visited places such as Prague, Salzburg, and Barcelona, during the run-up to Christmas, and the reason for taking holiday at this time was because son Matthew is employed in retail. This meant he was unable to take holiday for the whole of December and for the early part of January as well.

Somewhat ironically, Matthew didn't come with us this time, due to some potentially exciting and rewarding (for him) developments at work. We have promised to take him away with us on a short cruise in the spring, as we are sure he will enjoy it. I do miss the short city breaks we were taking with the likes of EasyJet and Ryanair, although given Mrs PBT’s current mobility issues, travelling by sea does seem a lot easier, and a lot less hassle than flying.

Back to the cruise, where we were really lucky with the weather, given the unpredictability of sailing at this time of year, and whilst there was a bit of a swell in the English Channel, on both the outward and return voyages, the North Sea itself, particularly close to the Dutch coast was calm and serene.  I mentioned Queen Victoria earlier, which of course was the name of the cruise ship, we sailed on. This now completes, for us, voyages on all three of Cunard’s queen ships, (Elizabeth, Mary, and Victoria). These gracious vessel's will be joined next year by a 4th queen - the Queen Anne.

This particular cruise seemed almost exclusively made up of UK residents, unlike last June’s voyage to the Norwegian fjords, where there was a large contingent of passengers from both North America and from Germany. This may have been reflected by the culinary offerings on board Victoria, where roast meats, casserole's, grills, and other British staples figured prominently on the menu, in contrast to the more international cuisine of previous cruises.

To sum up, we had an extended two-night stay in Amsterdam and being berthed within easy walking distance of the city centre gave us the perfect excuse to get off the ship and explore this friendly bustling and easy-going city. I shall be revealing more of my thoughts and observation about the Dutch capital in a later article, so for now it's back to the re-modelling and tiding of my office area.