Snow Hill

Perhaps priority is being given to those cruise companies which start and end their cruises in Venice and this need nearby access to Venice Airport, that would possibly limit the availability of berths for other cruises & those available were quickly snapped up by other companies leaving P& out in the cold so to speak.

In the case of airlines, it at least reasonably clear what those reasons are, 2 words that can’t be mentioned in this forum and action taken by the airlines & airports during the last 2 years, the same can’t be said for P&O.

Fortunately we have a large garage which would take most cars we would be tempted to buy, so one car is garaged the other stays on the drive, but agree most garages on new build properties can’t accommodate a reasonable sized family car. A friend of ours has lined the walls in his garage with thick sponge so when he does put car in he does chip the doors when gets out, plus he can put the front of the car against the wall which enables him to close the garage door.

It would appear from reading these posts that P&O are not transparent with their reasons for missing a port or cutting short time in port by using the cover all words “operational reason”. It does appear to clear why they do this, I suspect if the reason was explained to passengers, many would accept it, instead they antagonise people by not making the reasons public, why? Is this a particular P&O issue or do other cruise companies also deliberately keep passengers in the dark about reasons for a port being missing or time there cut short?

I am wondering if the restrictions placed on cruise ship use of scrubbers at Marseille have affected port calls for Britannia? According to Carnivals Sustainability report many of their ships use the open loop scrubber system discharging was water back into the sea, this has been prohibited in ports such as Marseilles and others. https://www.nepia.com/industry-news/no-scrubs-more-ports-declare-ban-on-egcs-discharges-update/ Extract from report OPEN LOOP SYSTEM Carnival Corporation’s AAQS are open loop systems that use a sea water spray for removing sulfur from engine exhaust, converting it to sulfates (which are abundant in the sea) before returning the seawater to the ocean. The seawater is monitored by pH, PAH and Turbidity sensors through this process to ensure that it meets or exceeds the IMO required standards before returning to the ocean. https://carnival-sustainability-2021.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/assets/content/pdf/2018_Carnival_Sustainability_Report.pdf

I don’t have that problem as we have never had any pets.

The Norwegian Freedom of Information Act could be used to obtain the information, I would doubt Carnival/P&O would have the power to silence state port authorities.

All self charging hybrids, plug-in not an option as no power to garage. The CR is outside of my budget

I guess we could ask the local pilots if that is the case?

One test drive booked for Monday, another to be booked Saturday, looking at a possible third at some point next week. Cars being tested Renault Captur Hybrid Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid Hyundai Kona Hybrid will be a first for me as all hybrids are automatic and only ever driven manual gear box cars.

It’s probably not surprising giving that it appears that Iona is unable to us the sea walk due to incompatibility between the ship and the sea walk leaving tendering the only option, which given the number of passengers and crew onboard could be a very long operation. The port schedule at Geiranger has had the Iona crossed out for about 2 weeks now, not sure why P&O have been tardy in informing its customers of the inevitable change.

Our 2 fire alarms are mains powered, with battery backup, last year they started beeping, fortunately I still had the manual, which said if they beep then the battery power is low and needs replacing. For the first time in since they were fitted during house retiring I had to change the batteries. They have been set off previously by spiders getting inside, so I frequently vac them with the Shark cleaner tools to suck any unwanted arthropods out.

The recent rapid rise in fuel is in part caused by the £s fall against the $ Oil & fuel is priced in $s, the recent fall from $1.30 in April to $1.21 at the beginning of June has pushed up prices at the forecourt. There has been a small recovery in last few days but still exchange rate is volatile.

During the oil crisis in 1973 the motorway speed limit was reduced from 70 to 50 in order to save fuel. I notice that a number of EU countries are looking to reduce their speed limits as a temporary measure, perhaps needs to be applied here to. On the Smart motorways easy to do just have signs set at 50mph, the speed cameras would pick up anyone exceeding speed limit.

Currently 170.9 at Sainsburys and 172.7 at Asda. I have a meeting with dealer on Saturday, as my PCP deal comes to end in January, but there is a lead time if 6 months on a new car. I will be shopping around for best deal, currently looking at hybrid options, but wondering how much it would cost to get electricity from house consumer unit to garage around 40m away, for charging of either PHEV or a EV car.

Gone from 161.9 to167.9 here in the last 10 days, the pice of diesel is eye watering, it’s no wonder food prices are rising given the increased cost of transport to bring it to market. To think only 2 years ago petrol dropped below a £1 a litre.

Guess she was added to the line up after they saw she was coming to perform at Glastonbury in a couple of weeks.

We very much enjoyed the concert last night, the production was outstanding, I was looking forward to seeing Queen with Adam Lambert again and they didn’t disappoint. Never was a Diana Ross fan, but at aged 78 she gave a good performance. Duran Duran took me back a bit as I remember them as the house band in the Rum Runner in Birmingham in 1980 just before their first hit. Also like some of the newer artists performing, such as George Ezra & Celeste. The speech from the Duke of Cambridge was powerful and I know from my own children and grandchildren they won’t accept the status quo in respect of the environment. As for the Queen, once again she showed she has a wonderful sense of humour opening the event with tea with Paddington Bear and tapping Will Will Rock you on the spoons. I am no great royalist, but you have to admire her achievements over the last 70 years. And now time for a marmalade sandwich.

Will watch my first jubilee event on TV Tonight, although depending who is on I might dip in and out. Apparently Elton John is prerecorded, wonder if we will get Brian May playing National Anthem again from top of Buck House.

Same here with Clotted Cream which was unavailable on our Tesco order, went out to 3 supermarkets, local Coop, Farm Shop to no avail, seems there is a nationwide shortage of Rodda’s clotted cream.

Appears it’s beyond that date according to port schedule https://www.stranda-hamnevesen.no/cruise-calls

Sunny here at moment, forecast is for it to cloud over later will stay dry as I have a lot of plants to plant in the garden, lawn to mow and a driveway to de-weed in the next couple of days.

On our last but one cruise, I split something down my suit on the first formal night, but never noticed it until second one, clearly couldn’t wear it, so wore the blue jacket I also pack, plus some blue trousers that almost matched, shirt and blue tie and wasn’t challenging when we went to the MDR, technically I wasn’t wearing a suit, but was in smart casual, but no one seemed to notice. The said dinner suit was cleaned on return home, I no longer have it as was given to charity shop in order to make space in my wardrobe for more casual wear. I still own one suit, which is a tight fit to get into and I have no intention of replacing the dinner suit, so on next cruise might have to “wing” it once again to get into MDR or I could wear the “formal t-shirt”. 😬

I remember my one and only visit to Skegness in 1961, I was 9 years old, the memory was due to have my legs sand blasted by the strong easterly wind, fortunately only went there for a day trip from Mablethorpe where we were staying.

I remember spangled & Opal fruits and the jubblys, on a hot day would buy one Brom local shop near school before catching the bus home. One my favourite chocolate bars was the Aztec bar. We buy very few sweets or chocolates these days, usually a bag of wine gums or a large bar of galaxy chocolate, don’t care for Cadbury chocolate since the recipe was changed.