Queen

You were all I'd ever known

I stupidly thought you'd always be there

Now you've gone

And this is going to take some getting used to

Goodbye

God bless

Thank you

Santorini

The Santorini holidaymakers are on their way home late today (we took them to the airport very early on Monday Mira is collecting late tonight). Judging by the photos we've been sent through the week, it looks as though they've been having a rather nice time.

Maisie

 Time to restart after another pause, and where to begin other than with the newest member of the family. Maisie was located, visited, and brought home all whilst I was on my Indonesia visit in the first half of July, and has settled in quite happily since then, not to mention having grown rather a lot as well.

Regent

Having failed to do any posting whilst on holiday before Christmas, here are some random thoughts from our cruise:

Travel

Airport noticeably quieter on the way out. Shame that Dixons travel stores are no more, obviously another victim of lower travel volume during the pandemic. Breakfast at the Ramsay restaurant at T5 was decent but not spectacular. I spent the entire outbound flight watching the LOTR trilogy on the plane - certainly passed the time - made it half way through part 3 by the time we landed in Miami. Immigration still a pain, but wait probably less than an hour. We were last to our little minibus group to be transferred to the Mandarin Oriental for overnight stay. Mandarin good, but not a patch on the Four Seasons where we stayed for the last leg of our trip in Feb 2020. Slightly disappointed that we were sent to one of the conference rooms for breakfast with the rest of the cruisers rather than being able to use the main hotel restaurant.

Ship

Explorer awesome. Hard not to gush! Our 'penthouse' cabin (even if it was on deck 7) was extremely nice. Going to be very hard to contemplate going on a different cruise line in the future, although I would be willing to consider stepping down one level to 'concierge' to avoid the slightly painful butler. Food onboard amazing - main dining room (Compass Rose) had a great menu, and the speciality restaurants (Prime 7, Chartreuse and Pacific Rim), all of which we tried, were even better. Our favourite location for breakfast was al fresco on the veranda, and lunch at the pool grill. Spa was fab, and yes, I did have three massages during an 11 night cruise!

Ports of call

To be honest, some of the ports of call were not all that much to write home about. Nassau continues to be a bit of a dump, and Bridgetown (at least the parts of it we saw) didn't seem a very nice place. Most of the islands seem to be heavily reliant on the tourist, and in particular the cruise trade. A couple of the excursions were pretty good - the cocoa plantation in Dominica and the Rainforest adventure in St Lucia (where we thought we were going on a leisurely tram/gondola ride through the rainforest and ended up ziplining as well - along with the legend that was 84-year-old Bob).

Roast

Life definitely starting to return to some semblance of post-Christmas normality, even if I'm still emerging into the world at an shockingly late hour - Tuesday is going to be quite a shock to the system. Finished off Louis Theroux's book this morning (early, having let the dog out, and before going back to sleep!). His lockdown diary was alarmingly honest (family rows, alcohol consumed etc), but it made me realise even more the benefits of regular diary keeping, given how much I have already managed to forget of the grip of full lockdown, and what 2020 was like with the world completely shut and no sign of a vaccine.

As for today, the signs of normality included Sunday roast with Nan, Nicky starting to remove some Christmas decorations whilst I took Jake out for a drive (in Nan's car - much easier to drive than mine), and watching the Sunday afternoon footie on the TV (Chelsea Liverpool) on the TV with Jake. Might have to watch some of the darts with him later on which we have bizarrely found ourselves gripped by!

New Year

Time to start over with the blogging. Shame to have missed out on updates from our rather spectacular Caribbean cruise a couple of weeks ago, but hey, we were just too busy enjoying ourselves! Maybe one or two photos to follow in the dull weeks of January to follow before we are off again on holiday at the end of the month.

Not a massive amount to report from Christmas. Quiet inevitably thanks to the virus that shall not be named. Brief opportunity to see Bec and Mark on Christmas Eve but that was about it, and since then Mark has tested positive - hope he's not feeling too rough. I think we've all had a bit of a bug over the festive period - all been a bit tired and lethargic, but hopefully turning a corner now.

Out for a walk in the woods with the dog today (in the record breaking mild weather) and clearly one of my resolutions needs to be to get out a little bit more and do a bit more exercise. All a bit feeble really.

And finally, on the TV this afternoon we had the Sound of Music. Starting to get concerned that we might have gone a whole Christmas holiday without it showing up.