Splice the mainbrace

Looking at the bbc forecast this is the start of nice dry warm weather. We go away next week on a round Britain cruise and it’s looking good even in the Orkneys and Stornaway, so far!

When I was growing up in Southampton we never went to Portsmouth apart from the historical dockyards, it just wasn’t done!! If we were travelling to a nearby city/town it would be Salisbury, Bournemouth or Winchester. Southampton doesn’t promote itself very well as a historical city, you only need a day but there are plenty of things to visit and see. I haven’t lived in the city for 38 years but my parents continued to live there so we visited the area regularly and now my Cheshire born son lives there as he feels at home there. In fact I have family connections there traced back to the 1400s when one of my ancestors was mayor of Southampton, so I am biased.

Same here. No buses for a number of years go through our village so people can’t go by public transport even to our 2 local towns even though they are both only 2 to 3 miles away. Our village also has lots of older people who don’t drive anymore making it difficult to get around without resorting to taxis. To make matters worse for everyone in the wider area Arriva pulled out of the area altogether at the end of April, some routes have been taken on by other bus companies but the frequency has in some cases halved and many have not been taken on and have ceased to run.

I have 2 future cruises booked with P&O because of their itineraries fitting in with our ‘ bucket list’ destinations. We were on Arcadia last October and had a really enjoyable cruise.

Booked another long cruise last night, the discount was a lot more than we were expecting (15% discount). In the next 16 months we will be cruising for 106 days, think we’ll throttle back after that only Nile Cruise, the west coast pacific highway and USA to Australia via pacific islands are left on our bucket list.

My travel insurance isn’t affected by taking statins, I am ‘allowed’ one medication for no additional charge. My wife was recently put on statins so she now takes 2 medications so it cost us an additional £40.

I’ve been on statins for 15 years after having a blood test at work and have never had a problem with any side affects. My total cholesterol is over 5 but within that I also have high ‘good’ cholesterol so the ratio is ok. There must be a reason why not but even though heart attacks and strokes are one of the biggest killers there are no routine scans to identify arterial problems at a certain age (60?) on the nhs like there are for bowel cancer.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/23518829.southampton-holidaymakers-seen-walking-gridlocked-traffic/

The cruise season is really getting going now with 4 ships today, 4 tomorrow and 4 on Sunday departing from Southampton. Apparently there has been bad traffic congestion in the city today.

My insurance says that you SHOULD report any ailments because if you don’t you won’t be covered for THAT condition. Not that I won’t be covered at all for declared conditions. So if I don’t declare a BCC for example I would still be covered for a heart condition as I have declared that I take statins. I guess that’s how the insurance companies make their money charging for conditions that are not likely to need treatment while travelling.

I’m surprised that they increase the premium for things like that, you’re hardly likely to have to need emergency treatment for those progressive things whilst away on holiday. To me travel medical insurance is to cover costs for accidents and unexpected medical emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes etc.

Our pre-cruise diet goes to pot this weekend with a coronation family tea today. Pork pie, sausage rolls, quiche, scotch eggs, coronation chicken sandwiches and salmon cucumber sandwiches and clotted cream and jam scones. Bottles of champagne as well😊

Really looking forward to this weekend and the coronation. We’re having a coronation tea with the family on Saturday and a street party Sunday. It may be the only coronation that I experience so I’m going to make the most of it. Yeh the money for the coronation could be spent on ‘better?’ causes but what a boring world it would if we can’t celebrate events.

Just been out to vote, it’s only a 5 minute walk to the polling station. My wife and I vote for the different main parties so we cancel each other out but having the right to vote is a hard fought right so we still do so. We don’t argue about politics, she moans and expresses her opinion and I don’t respond but I know she is wrong!!😉

I think that the Cabin Balcony edit section is a misleading, to me it makes it look like I am editing the cabin type i.e. changing it to inside rather than taking me to choose a cabin number. If I just press continue without editing it just takes me to checkout.

After QM2 cancelled 2 of it's trans atlantic crossings at the weekend due to 'technical' problems Cunard have now hurriedly arranged a 5 day Coronation Voyage next week from Southampton to Liverpool and back. Prices are really good Queens Grill Suites From £599 Princess Grill Suites From £499 Britannia Club Balcony From £399 Britannia Balcony From £299 On sale from 1.00pm tomorrow. The Coronation Celebration Voyage - May 2023 - Cunard

There have been reports from people on board before docking in Southampton that she was going at 22 knots to get into port early to try and sort out the technical issues. Also QM2 had tug assistance once it approached Southampton (see below) so I am guessing that it is more to do with the manoeuvring than forward propulsion. Southampton doesn't have a dry dock now so if any work of that nature needs to be done it would probably have to go a European dry dock, such as Rotterdam which would involve a longer time out. It depends if the problem is on board or external beneath the waterline such as the azipod manoeuvring units.

I suspect that QM2 will just be moving dock berth location because other ships are due in that berth from early on the 28th April.

My phone didn’t go off but is an iPhone 6 with the latest software update for it but apparently not of a sufficient level for it to work with the alerts.

11c here this morning, rain has been just south of us for a few hours but creeping this way. It’s so dull though almost need the lights on. I made good use of the good weather the past few days with long walks, gardening and washing the car. Today will be spent indoors and I will be batch cooking a chicken curry this afternoon which uses 14 spices!.

This is what I can see, I don’t know when it changed. https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/cunard-world-club

On the face of it the $80 credit does buy 3 days of internet instead of only 240 minute previously, however the way that I use the internet on a cruise I would prefer to use less hours on more days. Even on the previous plans I thought that it was strange that you get the same minutes and now credit whether you are on a 7 day or 21 day cruise.

Previously on Cunard (5 years ago) being platinum members we got an allowance of 240 ‘free’ minutes which counted down as you logged on and off, this was more than enough for our use. Now it seems there is a $80 credit towards an internet plan but from what I can see all the plans are more cost than that, so in effect it is no longer ‘free’. Is my understanding correct of the current situation? We also used to get minutes for every leg of a longer cruise, for example one for a transatlantic, one for the Caribbean and another for the return transatlantic leg. In this scenario do we now get 3x $80? We are booked on a Cunard cruise in May and have just started looking at things such as this.

Lovely sunny morning here but still breezy 9c. I hope that it stays that way and we avoid any showers because even though I only cut the lawns 9 days ago they really need another cut. I’ve also been neglecting my walking exercising the last few days due to the stormy weather so I must fit that in as well.

I’ve been sorting out some travel related tasks the past few days. Paying for our August Iceland and Norway cruise, renewing our flexplus travel insurance now with the cruise extension seeing as we are cruising for 71 days in the next 10 months! and booked our flights to Cape Town and back from Sydney for our QM2 cruise next February. For once we have nothing booked after next February, we are normally booked up to 2 years in advance but we haven’t made up our minds what we want to do during the rest of 2024 or early 2025 yet. However we will have been away for 102 days between February 2023 and the end of February 2024 maybe we’ll just have some time at home😊