I will say night night to you all now and look forward to catching up with you all tomorrow. Oh, did I say, - its pouring down and the rest of this week is not looking too clever either!
Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
Good evening everyone . Busy morning in the garden, tennis this afternoon.The Nadal match was great . Watching Serena now . It’s been very overcast here .
We have had a productive day. Spent too much at the SM, but it could be the bottles of wine that OH put in the trolley. He usually pays for wine, seeing that he drinks most of it.
This afternoon I cleared a load of stuff out of the toolroom so that OH could get to the shelves and cupboards to put tools away in, DIY, not gardening. I swept the lower terrace and put the two garden armchairs and coffee table on it. They'd been in the barn since last autumn. Didn't put the sofa out, too heavy on my own. I raked up loads of leaves from the mulberry tree. We need to go to the tip tomorrow.
Then we had a drink sitting in the armchairs.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
Good evening one and all. We're home. Got in at 6.30pm today (Tues) having started our journey at 10am on Monday. It'sbeen a very long day (2 days!) indeed.
(As you know) we had a truly fabulous cruise. Very comfortable, fabulous weather and scenery and excellent crew. Very well looked after indeed and saw lots of lovely things.
Trying very hard to remember all the positives because, to be honest, the last few days of the holiday have not been great. Left the boat very early Saturday morning in Seward and were transported to Anchorage. Should we just say that Anchorage is not a place we will revisit without a compelling reason. It's run down, full of tourist tat stores and clearly has big issues with unemployment, homelessness and substance abuse.
Unfortunately it's also the only large transport hub in the area so all the cruise lines use the town's facilities to start and end cruises.
Our hotel was truly dire and did not appear to have been refurbished in the 40 years since it was built. We thought our room was bad because it was hot (S facing) and extremely noisy (overlooking the railroad station with trains at all hours and over a very busy road junction) and had a broken window - but we soon realised we'd got off lightly.
Some rooms were really skanky dirty (ours was shabby but clean), others had no curtains, broken doors etc and some had no hot water. They were all situated in a 25 storey tower with only 1 elevator working. (It's been like that for at least 2 months). Some of our fellow passengers used sticks and were hobbling up and down 16 plus flights of stairs because the elevator just didn't come when called.
The hotel managed to lose several sets of suitcases by putting them in the wrong rooms etc and, 2 days later, one poor couple still hadn't been reunited with theirs and they were due to leave yesterday.
The hotel charge an extortionate $500 per night to enjoy these delights. As you can imagine there were 300 extremely angry people - all very upset that the end of their lovely holiday had been spoiled - and all of whom will be complaining in the strongest possible terms to the cruise line. Unfortunately I'm not convinced other hotels in the area are that much better - but I don't think they could have been worse.
We had to endure an extra night because BA cancelled our return flight on Sunday 🤬
We flew from Anchorage to Seattle yesterday. Our BA flight from Seattle to London was delayed due to 'baggage discrepancies' but we eventually got back to London. Unfortunately our bags were part of the 'discrepancy' and none of them have made the trip across the ocean. After waiting 90+ minutes in baggage reclaim, BA finally accepted the bags were missing. We've just had an email to say they've found them in Seattle which is a bit of a relief. However, the earliest we can expect to see them is late on Thursday - possibly Friday.
After all the delay we kicked out into rush hour on the M25...
Really hoping that once we have our bags home we can just forget the last couple of days and concentrate on remembering the great time we had on the boat. At the moment we're just stressed and knackered.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
Evening everyone, son arrived safely and is enjoying himself 🕺🏻 Welcome home Topbird, what a shame your fantastic trip ended in this awful way it sounds like a complete nightmare. I hope that your luggage finds its way to you safely and you can forget that portion of your trip. Hope all was well when you got home, Hazel Those freesias are beautiful thank you. Glad you managed to bookmark the page, hope it helps stop the text from reducing in size, Sorry to hear of the wet forecast LB, good job the tennis is keeping you enthralled for now, Busy Sounds like a good days work today, nicely rounded off with drinks on the terrace lovely 😊 Rosie Hope you feel better for the snooze and have enjoyed watching Serena play, Rubee A good morning spent in the garden, hope you’ve had a relax this afternoon, SGL Hope you’ve had a good day, Signing out Goodnight everyone hope you sleep well.
I wrote post last night and forgot to press Post button.🙁 It was horrible hot day and I was at cottage. Didn't felt quite well when I came home. We must endure few more days of this temperature. Now is time for tea.
Good morning all just popping in to say hi, been a hectic few days at work we are now 3 staff members down due to covid and hoping nobody else succumbs. Today there will be 3 of us doing the work of 6 or 7 so hoping the customers are understanding. We are a busy pharmacy so work quickly builds up during staff shortages and we have a 2 day backlog now. It will only get worse.
T'Bird, I read with horror the story of your last couple of days. After such a magical cruise with all those fascinating sights, sounds and creatures, to be reduced to such terrible treatment. It read like the worst nightmare a holidaymaker could have. I am so sorry that you have had to deal with all that and hopefully you will be re-united with your baggage soon and you can put it all behind you eventually. Breathe deeply, count to ten and a quadruple Tanqueray (medicinal purposes of course) might soften the situation.
Hazel, I watched Sherwood and am even more confused. I agree about trying to understand what was being said by the killer. It was extremely difficult. I hadn't realised that they were going to make another series, at the end of the programme they announced more drama was being produced but I thought that was a general statement. I would not watch another Sherwood. I think I just wasted 4 hours of my life on that.
I switched over and caught the end of the Serena v Harmony match - what a cracker!
Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
My thoughts go out today to the family of Dame Deborah James. It was a tough watch on the news today hearing about her passing. What a brave lady. R.I.P.
Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
Posts
This afternoon I cleared a load of stuff out of the toolroom so that OH could get to the shelves and cupboards to put tools away in, DIY, not gardening. I swept the lower terrace and put the two garden armchairs and coffee table on it. They'd been in the barn since last autumn. Didn't put the sofa out, too heavy on my own. I raked up loads of leaves from the mulberry tree. We need to go to the tip tomorrow.
Then we had a drink sitting in the armchairs.
(As you know) we had a truly fabulous cruise. Very comfortable, fabulous weather and scenery and excellent crew. Very well looked after indeed and saw lots of lovely things.
Trying very hard to remember all the positives because, to be honest, the last few days of the holiday have not been great. Left the boat very early Saturday morning in Seward and were transported to Anchorage. Should we just say that Anchorage is not a place we will revisit without a compelling reason. It's run down, full of tourist tat stores and clearly has big issues with unemployment, homelessness and substance abuse.
Unfortunately it's also the only large transport hub in the area so all the cruise lines use the town's facilities to start and end cruises.
Our hotel was truly dire and did not appear to have been refurbished in the 40 years since it was built. We thought our room was bad because it was hot (S facing) and extremely noisy (overlooking the railroad station with trains at all hours and over a very busy road junction) and had a broken window - but we soon realised we'd got off lightly.
Some rooms were really skanky dirty (ours was shabby but clean), others had no curtains, broken doors etc and some had no hot water. They were all situated in a 25 storey tower with only 1 elevator working. (It's been like that for at least 2 months). Some of our fellow passengers used sticks and were hobbling up and down 16 plus flights of stairs because the elevator just didn't come when called.
The hotel managed to lose several sets of suitcases by putting them in the wrong rooms etc and, 2 days later, one poor couple still hadn't been reunited with theirs and they were due to leave yesterday.
The hotel charge an extortionate $500 per night to enjoy these delights. As you can imagine there were 300 extremely angry people - all very upset that the end of their lovely holiday had been spoiled - and all of whom will be complaining in the strongest possible terms to the cruise line. Unfortunately I'm not convinced other hotels in the area are that much better - but I don't think they could have been worse.
We had to endure an extra night because BA cancelled our return flight on Sunday 🤬
We flew from Anchorage to Seattle yesterday. Our BA flight from Seattle to London was delayed due to 'baggage discrepancies' but we eventually got back to London. Unfortunately our bags were part of the 'discrepancy' and none of them have made the trip across the ocean. After waiting 90+ minutes in baggage reclaim, BA finally accepted the bags were missing. We've just had an email to say they've found them in Seattle which is a bit of a relief. However, the earliest we can expect to see them is late on Thursday - possibly Friday.
After all the delay we kicked out into rush hour on the M25...
Really hoping that once we have our bags home we can just forget the last couple of days and concentrate on remembering the great time we had on the boat. At the moment we're just stressed and knackered.
Welcome home Topbird, what a shame your fantastic trip ended in this awful way it sounds like a complete nightmare. I hope that your luggage finds its way to you safely and you can forget that portion of your trip. Hope all was well when you got home,
Hazel Those freesias are beautiful thank you. Glad you managed to bookmark the page, hope it helps stop the text from reducing in size,
Sorry to hear of the wet forecast LB, good job the tennis is keeping you enthralled for now,
Busy Sounds like a good days work today, nicely rounded off with drinks on the terrace lovely 😊
Rosie Hope you feel better for the snooze and have enjoyed watching Serena play,
Rubee A good morning spent in the garden, hope you’ve had a relax this afternoon,
SGL Hope you’ve had a good day,
Signing out Goodnight everyone hope you sleep well.
I wrote post last night and forgot to press Post button.🙁 It was horrible hot day and I was at cottage. Didn't felt quite well when I came home. We must endure few more days of this temperature.
Now is time for tea.