Wisdom

So September is upon us, bringing with it all of the new term joys. Jake was back at school today, and from what little I've managed to glean so far it sounded like the day went well - top of the heap now in Year 6. One of my main memories from 4th year juniors (to use the old money) was our teacher frequently reminding us that we were due for quite a shock when we moved from being the big fish in the small pond to being the minnows in a rather larger pool. I'll do my best to let Jake enjoy being one of the big kids for a while before I start mentioning it.

I've been back at work since the beginning of the week (ignoring the Bank Holiday) and I'm still struggling to get back into it. I suppose it's the sign of a good holiday, but I'm not really back in the work groove yet - need to get that sorted soon as I've got something of a testing time coming up over the next few weeks and months. My employer doesn't like to make things easy for you if you want to progress to the next stage in your career.

Getting back into the news agenda having managed to ignore all current affairs whilst being on holiday, but back into car commuting territory I can't help but catch the headlines even if I'm on 2 rather than 4. Seems to be lots of politicians in the news but not much politics - Tony has written down that he thought Gordon was weird (there's a surprise - mind you it's the most tempted I've been to actually buy a political memoir, even if it is out perhaps a little too soon - with a bit more time maybe a more rounded view will emerge), brotherly love seems to be stretched a bit thin with David and Ed (both of whom went to the same college as me, but had both been and gone by the time I put in an appearance), and William is defending himself against some dodgy allegations. What to make of it all, I have no idea!

Listening to the songs that appear in between the news summaries, I see that Robbie and Gary have recorded a duet. Couple of things: firstly the guitar at the beginning reminds me a bit of a Chris Rice song (an artist we heard on the radio on holiday in Florida a few years back - the Cartoon Song is just priceless!) and secondly, what do the other three make of it all? Don't you think that they might be a bit pissed off that after all the fuss about the return of the prodigal Robbie, the first release might include all of them, rather than just the talented ones?

Oh yeah, and, happy days, I had a visit to the dentist today. Didn't go according to plan, and I emerged minus a few hundred pounds and minus one wisdom tooth. My face aches!

Home again

Back to Southampton early this morning and after a final breakfast on board (no need to eat again until October methinks) we were away up the M's 271, 27, 3, 25, 26 and 20 to home, making it back indoors before half past eleven.

Apologies to anyone who has been bothering to stop by on this site over the last week or so, my blogging seems to have drifted off rather in the second half of the holiday. To pick up where we left off, Rome was hot, again, and Nicky and I both lobbed a coin in the fountain so we should be back there sometime soon. We went on the open top bus tour after lunch and having been told by our tour guide that there are 13 obelisks in Rome we managed to bag photos of 6 of them. Jake, Nanny and Grandad enjoyed their tour of the Coliseum, although again struggled a little with the heat - understandable given that we saw a time and temperature display just after lunch recording 42 degrees Celsius. We bought a clock from a shop in one of the lanes inbetween the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. Appropriately enough it has Roman numerals around the face, although surprisingly it has IV rather than IIII - maybe it's a British Roman numeral thing to use IIII and not a Roman Roman numeral thing?

After Rome came Sardinia. John managed to walk into town and have a little explore, but the rest of us didn't get very far and enjoyed lazing around on board after three full days of touring (Monte Carlo followed by Pisa/Florence followed by Rome). The day after was another sea day, so more sunbathing, sporting challenges (mostly table tennis with a little bit of shuffleboard thrown in) and reading - during this holiday I polished off Numberland and Dave Gorman's Unchained America, both taken with me, along with three books from the ship's library - a John Humphreys moan about the English language, and the two most recent books from Kathy Reichs - move over Scarpetta, Tempe Brennan is the new grave-digger in town!

On Tuesday we arrived in Cadiz. Jake stayed on board, but the rest of us enjoyed a pleasant stroll around the historic town, and on Wednesday we were back to Lisbon. John, Nicky and I took a (scary) taxi up to the top of town to the main shopping centre and then walked back down from there to the old town. Last time we went to Lisbon we were really impressed, but this time not so much. Difficult to pinpoint exactly why, but just didn't come across as well as last time.

Thursday was Vigo. Not much to say about the town - I don't think there is any particularly good reason for stopping there other than providing a staging point before the return leg across the Bay of Biscay (which was a bit friskier than on the way out but still not too bad). Our last day at sea was taken up with a final trip to Johnny Rocket's, chilling out, packing, our last dinner and farewell to our waiters Fidel and Marco, and a final trip to the casino, which was the liveliest we'd seen it. I tried really hard to hand over my final $50 but the croupiers kept giving my chips back to me, so after an hour or so, I cashed in with exactly the same amount as when I'd started.

As for the ship itself, Independence of the Seas is huge. This gives rise to two very noticeable points. Firstly, there are loads of facilities and all of a pretty high standard. Secondly, there are many thousands of people on board, and at times the numbers can be a little overwhelming, especially when it came to organising excursions, dining in the self service restaurant, or participating in a number of other activities. Also our overall impression was that Royal Caribbean seem to have decided with their ships that they want to cater to a new type of customer, who perhaps wouldn't previously have thought of cruising as the right holiday for them. A few years ago, I would probably have described us like that, but now I think that we are more suited to a more "traditional" approach to cruising, and whilst we will certainly be going on more cruise holidays, we may look at some different cruise lines next time around (as well, obviously, as looking forward to a Disney cruise - hopefully in the not too distant future!).

As always, one of the tasks for the last day of our cruise was selecting which photos to purchase from the many taken by the cruise photographers during the fortnight. Eventually we managed to get the selected set down to seven, and I've just been scanning them in to the Mac. Here we are enjoying the last formal night on board.

Cruising part IV

And so to Rome. We are on coach 35 heading for Rome after another early start, and our tour guide is telling where and when to meet at the end of the day. Hopefully we will be getting about five and a half hours to explore Rome on our own. Jake is on another bus with Nanny and Grandad to visit the Colosseum - more stops and less walking for them.

Yesterday we were in Livorno and took the tour to Pisa and Florence. The leaning tower was great - lots of the comedy photos were taken (the funniest thing being seeing the long lines of people stood with their arms stretched out - "left a bit, right a bit, ok don't move!").

Our first stop in Florence was a Trattoria in Piazza Santa Croce, and then we tried and failed to get on the open top bus tour. Still it turned out that the city centre is very compact and we were able to see some fantastic sights - the Duomo is just breathtaking.

We didn't get long enough to see everything, but another city has just been added to the must revisit list.

Must stop now, our guide is advising us about where to go in Rome.

Cruising part III

Getting the train from Villefranche to Monaco may be good value (13 euros return for the three of us) but it's not exactly a timesaver. We had to queue for about 20 minutes for the tickets and then about the same again for the train here, and now we are waiting almost an hour for a train back again.

Monte Carlo is as ridiculously affluent as ever and I have a large number of photos to prove it - Ferraris, Rolls Royces, Bentleys, and mega-yachts a-plenty.

Jake has been kept going with croissants, milkshakes, ice cream etc, but true to form he doesn't enjoy the heat and so we are looking forward to getting back to the air conditioned splendour of Independence. At least for the next couple of days he will have coaches to take him to and from the sightseeing.

Talk has already turned to plans for the next holiday, as concern is mounting that we won't have any active countdowns once we get home. Apparently the next cruise will either be Celebrity or Disney.

(By the way, a rather lovely golden retriever has just come and sat near us at the station café - Nicky is finding it hard to restrain herself.)

Cruising part II

It's just after five and we are somewhere mid-Med on our way to the South of France. The list of what I've done so far today extends to being pampered at the barbershop, eating, reading my book and playing Jake at table-tennis and shuffleboard. It's a hard life!

As we have another formal night tonight I decided, based on John's recommendation, to have the 10 o'clock appointment at the barber - he nobly agreed to get up earlier for the nine o'clock slot. 100 bucks seems like rather a lot for a shave, but it was a whole hour of pampering including massage and facial treatments.

Yesterday was Gibraltar, and after my initial comments about it getting warmer all the time we actually had some rain (normal sunshine service has been resumed today). We didn't opt for a tour of the rock - we went to visit the cheeky monkeys last time we were here, so we took the shuttle into town. Not much to blog home about - reminds me of the Channel Islands in that home but not quite home way. Highlights were a trip to M&S (!), two new PSP / DS games for Jake, and an opportunity for Nicky to reacquaint the credit card which her favourite jewellery shop. It had moved since we were last in Gib, but that didn't stop Nicky's retail compass from homing in.

After a restful sea day today we have a few "busy" ones coming up. Tomorrow we are in Villefranche (and going to Monte Carlo), the next day is Livorno (going to Florence and Rome) and the day after that is Civitavecchia (going to Rome). Better make sure that the camera batteries are well charged.

John and I went to the casino last night for some roulette. Without going into too many details I can confirm that I have some new lucky numbers - 9 and 12, and that I came out ahead. No doubt I'll be giving it all back soon enough.

One other thing - Nicky has seen some dolphins, and has the photos to prove it - ambition achieved.

Cruising part I

And so the cruising has begun in earnest, and we are en route to our first stop in Gibraltar tomorrow, where hopefully I will be able to send this post.

We left an overcast and occasionally rainy Southampton on Saturday afternoon and we're now on our way down the Iberian peninsular having traversed a splendidly calm Bay of Biscay. With every mile travelled, the sun shines a little bit brighter and the mercury expands some more. Jeans have been relegated to the bottom of the wardrobe and its shorts all the way from now on.

As always with cruise (and lots of other) holidays the first 24 hours or so were a little frenetic, with kids' club registrations, getting unpacked, organising excursions, and, most important of all, leaving the cares of the world behind us for a while. Now the pace is slowing down just so, and as I type we're all happily doing our own thing - I'm diarising away, having just come back to our cabin from a couple of hours of sunbathing and reading up on deck, Nicky and Margaret have returned from their pedicures and are chatting on the balcony, John is snoozing / reading over the way in their cabin, and Jake is off with his new mates Tom and Alex - no idea what exactly they are up to but I would guess a shortlist of table tennis, arcade or ice cream!

Yesterday was John and Margaret's 40th wedding anniversary, and a jolly nice time was had by all with champagne, canapes, chocolates, cake and more champagne.

Other highlights so far - a few games of shuffleboard and table tennis, our first trip to Johnny Rockets and my first, sadly unsuccessful, trip to the casino. Must improve - clearly need more practice.

Pre holiday

We're getting to the "pre holiday rules apply" stage in our house. This means that I'm wearing a pair of old tracksuit trousers this evening, as everything else is either currently in the wash or no longer allowed to be worn as per the pre holiday rules. It's omelette and chips for tea, as the pre holiday rule of no more food shopping kicked in a few days ago. Oh yes, and the other, rather more annoying rule will be enforced later this evening - get the work PC back out of the bag and carry on in a vain attempt to get everything up straight before fleeing the office for a couple of weeks.

N&J enjoyed a visit from the Pitt family on Monday this week, and unfortunately I wasn't able to get home in time to see them, so I am making do with Kate's excellent daily blog. Does rather put my occasional ramblings on here to shame, both in terms of quality and frequency of output - anyone would think that Kate was a professional!

As to today's blog question, it's a good one, and no doubt a number of others have been flinging boulders in my path for some time now, mostly at work. Having said that, the truth of the matter is that I probably put most of them there myself, which makes it all the more tragic that I continue to jump over them even after they've been cleared away!