Silversea Water Cooler: Part 3, Welcome!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers! Another day of sunshine!

 

J....I hesitate to offer suggestions for you and Mrs. J because we are in the same boat. If we can't figure something out for ourselves how credible would those suggestions be for you? Nevertheless....I will venture in where angels fear to tread. You and Mrs J seem to have really enjoyed the work you did with your own company. I think the challenge of "thinking outside the box" for your clients and the satisfaction of seeing your advice leading to a successful outcome for them is now missing from your life. You still enjoy helping people on this forum and that is giving you some of what you miss. Now to my point......there is no reason why you could not return to what you love. You could start another business. This time you would not necessarily have to charge substantial fees for your service as you are quite comfortable with your assets. That would broaden the target market for your services. And with technology having improved since you last "worked", the travel aspect may not need to come into play. You could quite easily "work" from home or seaside. The beauty of that idea is that you could occupy your mind with a challenge you enjoyed without the hassle of travel. Just a thought!

 

Have a great day all!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks Camesl and TTS,

 

Camels, a few years ago I did write the odd column in some of our weekend glossy suplements. It's a long story but a sometime TV talking head who also publishes regular columns and books mistakenly published his email address but gave a domain I owned so I was receiving all his mail. In fact I still am. He is well known for writing and broadcasting on style and class, and travel, and cars.

 

So when for example the BBC would send him extremely confidential briefings and pre-warnings of questions they would be asked (the public were told that the panellists never knew the questions in advance ......) on panel radio programmes and other mail we started corresponding and he eventually asked to buy me lunch. It was a nice lunch parituclarly as he bought it, He told me he loved reading my emails .....(I once wrote in length about how I only get bored when someone asks me to do things but I'm never bored when doing nothing .... ) and he asked whether I'd ghost write some of his columns as he felt he was running out of steam. I took his fee and the feedback he got from my columns was better than for his own. I quite enjoyed it but let no one tell you writing is easy.

 

Helgs was purchased to do one job. It is to get us from Home to Seaside and back again. However it is clear that she doesn't like that job. She objects. The problem is that there is so much to go wrong on such a technically complex car they all take there turn.

 

On one trip it got as far as Stonehenge and ground to a halt. The accelerator "fly by wire" sstem had stopped. So it was carted back home and Mobilife gave me a nice brand new stretched S class for two weeks. The deal is with Mobilife is that they provide assiatance for anything for I think up to 25 or 30 years and if the car breaks they give you a car of equal value or greater. So they gave us a car so big you could have fitted a swimming pool in it. Because we were going to Seaside they said I could keep it for two weeks. The rental for htem was aound £3k.

 

Then there was the time when she became convinced the her top was half off and wanted to stop and have it either up or down and however mucyh we tried to reassure her she wasn't having any and imposede safety driving mode ie a maximum of 20mph and going ding dong for several hours. The look we got on the motorway dawdling along at 20 mph. ....

 

On another trip a few miles from Seaside the brakes stopped. Well I should say "didn't stop" they had failed completely. What to do? A sensible person would have given up but it was 3 am and I wanted to get home. Some years ago when working for "The Corporation" I road tested an advanced driving course we were thinking of buying for all our staff who had company cars as they were having too many seriopus accidents. I calculated that the cost of the courses could be paid for out of reduced insurance premiums and having our key staff in hospital or worst. It was called "Drive and Survive" and was run by ex-Police driving instructors. It was three days with two instructors. One of the days was taken up with me not being allowed to use the breaks so was all about anticipation. You had to commentate on everything you could see happening and plan ahead so that the brakes weren't used. So I thought it safe to drive Helga home. The best day was high-speed driving around country lanes and understanding accelerating and dedcelerating vanishing points on roads. It is a way of predicitng and judging how sharp bends will be before you arrive at them. Not something I wanted our drivers to learn.

 

Anyway, Helga is haughty and beautiful. She doesn't like either home much and clearly just wants to doze. But she is special. It is an extraordinary car when moving at speed and I guess we put it into the self-indulgence box and simply pay up whatever is demanded of us.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Greetings Coolers! Another day of sunshine!

 

J....I hesitate to offer suggestions for you and Mrs. J because we are in the same boat. If we can't figure something out for ourselves how credible would those suggestions be for you? Nevertheless....I will venture in where angels fear to tread. You and Mrs J seem to have really enjoyed the work you did with your own company. I think the challenge of "thinking outside the box" for your clients and the satisfaction of seeing your advice leading to a successful outcome for them is now missing from your life. You still enjoy helping people on this forum and that is giving you some of what you miss. Now to my point......there is no reason why you could not return to what you love. You could start another business. This time you would not necessarily have to charge substantial fees for your service as you are quite comfortable with your assets. That would broaden the target market for your services. And with technology having improved since you last "worked", the travel aspect may not need to come into play. You could quite easily "work" from home or seaside. The beauty of that idea is that you could occupy your mind with a challenge you enjoyed without the hassle of travel. Just a thought!

 

Have a great day all!

 

Thanks M,

 

The work I did was intensely personal relationship and reputation orientated and I've no desire to start a new business.

 

A few years back I was helping an international charity I have mentioned once or twice on the forum when the lady who started it and ran it asked to come to us with her family for the day. She came here and basically what was on her mind was that she wanted me to take it over. It was a charity very dear to our hearts and we'd made both personal contributions and had a way of supporting them through the surveys we did. Basically for every survey a customer completed we would give them a set amount. On some of the surveys it was just a pound each but on several business to business programmes it was £200 as it was CEO's completing the detail. This was enough to buy a school and lot's of other projects. Wifey and I use to personally pay for several hundred street children per year to be taken for a day to the beach with picnics etc. These city street kids had never played on a beach. I also use to help a London charity providing food to street people and some accomdation. I have an interest in homelessness and know what it feels like.

 

But I realsied that I'm not good at working through others on committees etc. I don't have the patience. I would be unsuitable. Knowing when you cannot do something is as important as thinking you can do anything. So I turned it down. She wasn't happy but understood.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Camillus112]

Ghost writer! Jeff, your experiences cannot be beaten. Most retired people who like to write concentrate on memoirs, but not many have such interesting experiences to write about. In my case, with not much in my life to interest others, I write ( say invent) short plays. Lots of fictional fun!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks C,

 

Oddly I find writing and reading about the trivial and absurd things in life much more interesting than most other stuff. I think you often olymsee life's absurdities when you read something written.

[Camillus112]

Yes, when one undergoes an absurdity, one tends to react very seriously...given time, and pen to paper (or rather click to keyboard), one tends to enjoy the experience...

[Joc123]

JP, we are still in Tremezzo and absolutely loving it here.

Some answers to your first questions.

Give Hahndorf a miss. It consists of a Main Street with craft, coffee, local food shops etc. and apart from the names of places and the German flag flying from some properties, it bears no resemblance to any part of Germany I have been to - IMO!

Adelaide is a small city, 1.2 million, but in March we have a lot of festivals on. Also a city car race if that's your thing.

We have the usual chain hotels, but I think the Intercontinental is in the best position. If you prefer smaller hotels I can let you know of some.

KI is a lovely place but I would think twice about taking the ferry. Although the weather should be calm at that time of year, if it turns bad the ferry will be cancelled and you could be left stranded.

I will investigate wine tours when we return from Italy (being a local we haven't actually done one). It will be vintage at that time so there will a lot of activity.

Hope this helps a little.

[Tothesunset]

That Tuscan sounds like a beast. I had to Google it to read about what it was but that's some impressive 0-60 numbers.

They were produced in different states of tune from 350 bhp to mid-400s, mine was one of the first 400s but tweaked to 420- that might account for the chocolate camshafts! I think it was 2003 that I took delivery - sometime thereabouts. No traction control, ESP or even ABS. I did, however, specify air con and it did have power steering. As you might imagine at approx 1000kg the power to weight, especially in those days, was exceptional. They were supposed to top out at 195 mph but only a true hero would have trusted the rest of the car enough to do that. The truly firghtening aspect of that much power was that at 100mph in 3rd gear, flattening the pedal would cause wheelspin. Needless to say, travel on wet roads needed a midwife's touch. And the sound...

 

The handling and braking were also fearsomely direct but with rear wheel drive and such balance it could be pushed sideways with no drama. If they could have made it reliable I'd have another but the company actually ceased production a few years ago; I believe new owners are planning a comeback

 

In real life, though, it was pretty much unusable yet the joy to be gained from allowing the BM, Merc, Porsche or whatever to pull alongside on the Autobahn then blast off away from it was the stuff of schoolboy dreams. Everyone should have something so manic at least once in their life

[mysty]

JP....When Myster and I visited Adelaide in 2004 we stayed a wonderful hotel called the Medina Treasury. It is now called the Adina Apartment Hotel Adelaide Treasury. It is currently rated number 3 on the Adelaide Hotel rankings on tripadvisor. Just another hotel option. Adelaide is extremely walkable and the hotel is located on Flinders St.

 

We also visited Cleland Wildlife park outside of Adelaide (I think about 22 km). We really enjoyed walking among the animals. Here is the link if you are interested.

http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/clelandwildlife/Home

 

We loved Adelaide and would love to go back!

[ShotsnCruises]

I love reading about all the travels. I must admit that I am a bit jealous right now. I have no planned time of until our March cruise. I have time I could take, but have not planned any yet. Our company just started its new fiscal year (July 1), and my paid time off (PTO) bank just reset. I am going to spend some time this weekend planning for how/when to take some time off.

In other, more exciting news... We decided to buy a boat! We have not found the right one as of yet, but we are looking at sailboats around our area that are for sale. Lots of lakes in Michigan. My husband's mother had a boat for many years, and I used to sail smaller boats when I was in high school and college. We are hoping for something around 25 feet and that has a cabin to sleep 2 of us comfortably for a night. Our plan is to start on the small inland lakes and maybe we will get confident enough to take her out on the big lake!

[Camillus112]

Exciting news, Shots! Sailing must be very rewarding, being so close to the water and maneuvering directions must feel very empowering. You both will much enjoy this activity, I'm sure. Our son in law just re-named his boat (a motor one) and called it Cielo (meaning Heaven). That's how he feels about it.

[ShotsnCruises]

Exciting news, Shots! Sailing must be very rewarding, being so close to the water and maneuvering directions must feel very empowering. You both will much enjoy this activity, I'm sure. Our son in law just re-named his boat (a motor one) and called it Cielo (meaning Heaven). That's how he feels about it.

 

I am hoping we can re-learn as we go. It has been a while for both of us. I am hoping for that "riding a bike" thing.

We will have to think up names. I hadn't even gotten that far yet, but that will also be fun for us.

[spinnaker2]

Shots,

I learned to sail on a blue jay and then a lightning.

Then I crewed in some races.

Of course my favorite was the spinnaker run. Hydroplaning.

Pure bliss to sail with the wind, water up to the gunwales.

DH gets seasick on small boats.

I miss sailing.

I will follow your posts eagerly.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good evening all,

 

As she has been on reduced quality rations for the last week or so, I did her a roast shoulder of Welsh spring lamb with stove roasted Charlottes. Hers came with broccoli and mine without.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Camillus112]

Lovely food pictures, and in real time I'm sure will be delicious! Enjoy.

[Lois R]

Hi folks, Jeff, I LOVE lamb:D.......looks delicious...........:)

 

Shots, congrats on the boat.........my sis and bil have owned several over the years.........I learned a saying a long time

ago.........the best day of your life is when you buy one and when you sell it.;)

[ShotsnCruises]

Lois, I too have heard that phrase a lot! I am hoping we are an exception to that. Not sure if we will buy this summer/fall or wait until next year. It might depend on if we find "the one" this year or not.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[UKCruiseJeff]

Wish you well with your boat search Shots. :)

[tgh]

There is a well worn truism that the best days of your boating life, are the day you buy and the day you sell.

We sipped nice champers as we exchanged paperwork (while my ex mistress was floating quietly outside on his pontoon).

It was indeed the best day of my life ( for a while anyway ) ..

Otoh , my bro in law is quite excited about becoming a sailboat owner soon (Seawind 1200) so his life's best day (so far) is coming up… :-)

[spinnaker2]

Oh the irony...

[spinnaker2]

The opposite of wrinkly...

[UKCruiseJeff]

....... ylknirw ?

[spinnaker2]

Well sorta.

Not really.

:-)

[UKCruiseJeff]

Is this better?

 

The opposite of "wrinkly" is "not wrinkly"?

[spinnaker2]

Egads

The opposite of irony is wrinkly.