Saturday's hen

The weekend got off to a good start - I was actually running on time. We were due to head up to Windsor for our friend Becky's hen party. We was me, Vicki (designated driver) and Shelley who we collected from the train station on route. It was a remarkably quick trip up the M3 (for those heading south it was more like a car park). We were not going to my 1st choice of Berkshire attraction (I'm desperate to go to a certain Scandinavian brick based theme park), but to a posh hotel / spa which would be a new experience for me.

We had a good initial catch up in the car. One of my fellows was rather worried about her bikini line, but I doubted that we would be looking. Continuing with the on-time theme we were only the second group to arrive and made ourselves comfortable in the bar chatting to Becky's mum, Mary, and sister, Sarah.

It was drinks all round once everyone had arrived. Most people wisely went for a soft drink. This was wise because:

• it was a super hot day (according to my husband Windsor was the hottest place in the country) 
• the alcohol was super expensive (think over £7 for a standard gin and tonic)

Most people was everyone except Shelley, who is a fan of half a lager. I got one of my five a day in with a sparkling apple juice.

There were 15 of us all together, and Jean-Paul the restaurant manager appeared to be in charge of making sure we were fed. Despite my best efforts to entice him otherwise Jean-Paul was not interested in speaking French to me (he was actually French; he even had some rather Gallic ear hair). 

After lunch (a melted smoked cheese and tomato baguette with too much tomato) we prepared for the spa. There was a bit of a palaver to do with acquiring our dressing gowns (or robes if you're embracing the posh thing) and slippers, but we soon settled into the spa, helped by a glass of champagne. I am not a fan of sauna or steam room or bubbly boily pot at the best of times, let alone on the hottest day of the year in the hottest place in the country. Instead I did a couple of lengths and enjoyed cooling off in the pool before it was time for my mini-pedicure.

It really was mini (file and polish would have been more accurate), but I really enjoyed chatting to the lady who did it. She has recently gone back to college to train as a beautician, after spending over a decade on the stage and screen. She was the lead in a lesser known Andrew Lloyd Webber show for 2 years, and subsequently to that had spent 10 years presenting on television shopping channels. Apparently it is very difficult to be enthusiastic about a kaftan for an hour. I think I came off better than my friend who's mini-pedicure experience (begin your own sci-fi style soundtrack here) seemed more akin to an alien abduction.

Then, after a little time in the relaxation room, it was time to get ready for the evening phase of the hen party. It wasn't unrelaxing but I find it basically impossible to relax whenever that is designated as what you should be doing (random relaxation is much more effective). But there were some fun rocking chairs and a read some interesting stuff about Gibraltar while my nail polish dried.

The instruction that we had from Sarah was to get glammed up, not an activity I am terribly familiar with, although I had recently had some practice on a cruise. With the help of my super chic friend Charlotte, I chose to wear a one shoulder deep fuchsia dress. I even ironed it. Taking advantage of the occasion (rather than any style advantage) I donned my new gold high heels (with toeless tights of course to show off my new deep fuchsia toe nails).

The heat was making me very thirsty so before we headed down to eat I swigged a bottle of fizzy orange juice (possibly another one of my 5 a day). I skipped a pre-eating drink (except for a small glass of champagne that I think was given to us in the mistaken belief that we were wedding guests), but did try a little bit of my friend Helen's gin and tonic. I am usually a gin and tonic fan but this one tasted of face cleaner. Sarah had made us up some lovely hen-party party bags:

• earrings (she even swapped out mine for some with screws rather than hooks)
• bubbles (everyone loves bubbles)
• heart straws (very tasteful compared to previous hen-party straws that I have experienced)
• a badge (even more tasteful)
• decorative sweets (which was very useful as I forgot to pack any jewellery) 

Jean-Paul had arranged for us to have tea outside (dinner on the terrace if you're embracing the posh thing); it may or may not have been cooler than it was inside. But we all just about managed our way through a delicious 3 courses. And we even managed to wangle some bonus vanilla ice-cream to go with the chocolate fondant pudding.

After letting our food and wine go down a bit we bundled into taxis to get to the town centre. The destination was a cocktail bar. The details (for now) are restricted to the hens. Suffice to say a good time was had by all. Can’t wait until the wedding.

Friday's trip

A short hair cut

Thanks to a late night I was reasonably well prepared for my 9am departure to catch a train across south west England. All that I needed to do was eat breakfast, pack one item off the washing line and prepare a picnic for the train. Getting up at 8am gave me plenty of time to stay on schedule. That was until Matt decided that he wanted his hair cut. In fairness, I’ve been saying for a few weeks that he should get a haircut but up until today he’d been more tolerant of it than me. Our usual hairdresser, Katherine, being unavailable, the only course of action was for me to test my hairdressing skills. I was keen to use the kitchen scissors but Matt was insistent that I used his beard trimmer (he doesn’t really have a beard). 20 minutes later Matt was considerably de-haired (more de-haired than had been the original intention, but it was at least even) and I was no longer on schedule. We were both covered in lots of small bits of ginger hair.

I didn’t think that the schedule would permit me a shower to remove the small bits of ginger hair from my person, but in actual fact I made it to the station with plenty of time to spare. I was even able to position myself on the platform in anticipation of my allocated seat. Here I observed some teenage boys indulging in the peculiar practice of spraying deodorant all over themselves. They have clearly not yet learnt about the biology of sweat but I resisted indicating to them the parts of their body that would better benefit from the application of deodorant.

Phase one of my trip to Southampton Central station passed uneventfully. My allocated seat was in the quiet carriage. It wasn't very quiet but I didn't mind. A rather haughty sounding woman did mind and made an unofficial announcement that could everyone please keep the volume down. Which was mostly met with barely disguised sniggers of laughter from the rest of the carriage.

Phase two was so uneventful that I even managed a little snooze. That was until Sherbourne, when a posh couple boarded. At least they seemed posh to me. They had a rather dilapidated shopping trolley from which they extracted their picnic packaged in bags from a high end supermarket before precariously shoving it into the overhead stowage. The woman was pleasingly eccentrically (sorry about the double adverb use) dressed:

• bum-bag - which wasn't removed or ventured into at all
• sunglasses - even though she wasn't in the sun
• sunhat - even though she wasn't in the sun
• headphones - even though she was relentlessly talking the whole time
• elastic band around her wrist

Her picnic seemed to consist of lettuce leaves freshly plucked from a lettuce, which she did not pause in her talking to masticate. I felt rather sorry for the young lady from Jersey who happened to be sat next to them who did remarkably well whilst they argued about how she could best get to Regent Street (I think they thought that she'd never ventured onto public transport before). The posh lady wasn't wrong when she described the countryside through which we were traversing as ravishing though.

My tiffin

It wouldn't affect me, but there was much consternation when it was announced that the train wouldn't be stopping at Clapham Junction - apparently it was too hot. I just had time eat my picnic, which due to the morning's time constraints consisted of the leftovers from the day before's tea (sweet potato, mushroom and spinach curry). I don't know what the posh lady would have to say about this as she was now in full swing about her tea the day before:

• fish pie in which she couldn't find any fish
• meringue which surely wasn't made with free range eggs
• and if they could afford such good wine why couldn't they have organic potatoes?

With one stop to go, the train was ominously stationery. It was hot on the train and I was uncomfortable from all the little bits of ginger hair all over me. Apparently someone had driven into a bridge (apparently this is creatively called bridging) so we would have to take a slight detour. Still, I was only 10 minutes later than scheduled and hadn't kept my dad waiting too long.

Before heading home, dad kindly agreed that we could pop into the shops. It was a successful mini-trip as I bought no more and no less than had been intended (apart from a possibly unnecessary purchase in a large toiletry store to use up a voucher).

Dad's driving was funny, he kept insisting on pointing out various highway regulations both to me and other drivers (imagine a finger pointing at the speed limit sign).

Stag beetle - spotted whilst walking

After catching up with my friend Katie, it was time I made my way down the road to the Waterside Arts Festival event: "Jazz at the Grove". I was to join my parents and all my aunts and uncles (at least all those that I know about), and was to bring my mother-in-law's Yorkshire terrier, Fred, who is temporarily residing with my mum and dad. It was a very pleasant evening for the 1.7mile walk; unfortunately Fred didn't agree and refused to walk any further after less than 0.1miles. This meant that I had to carry him the rest of the way in his special carrying bag. I suppose he can be forgiven as he is 14 years old (which possibly makes him 98 in dog years although I always thought that whole thing was a bit dubious), but I think a few car accidents were only narrowly avoided as people gawped at me while I walked along with him cradled at my bosom - I have found this to be the most comfortable and secure way to carry a small dog. 

Friday's toilet scenario

Friday, May 10^th 2013

It was a good job we gave our feet a rest last night as we spent most of our day in Cannes walking. I loved Cannes and I even got to wear my anorak. We had to take a tender from the ship to the port and I thought that it would be cold / windy. It was actually warm and draught free but I was still pleased to be able to wear my anorak.

In terms of High Things to Go Up, Cannes tempted us with the Super Cannes observatory. However, it was not obvious how far away this was, or how we would reach this and we weren’t really tempted by a possibly time consuming detour to the tourist information to find out; plus it was looking like a bit of a hazy so may not even have been worth the trek even if we had tried. We could see it up a hill; today’s touristical map did at least have a scale but no isobars. It looked like the walk might be about 5 km but there was no obvious pedestrian route marked and with no road names marked either it would be a bit risky.

Instead, we started the morning with a promenade around La Croisette – taking numerous detours to gawp at the super yachts. It really was something to see them in situ, rather than at a boat show. I don’t’ think that I believed that anyone actually bought them before. But here they were. And people were polishing them; they were polishing the insides of cupboards. When I say people I think it must have been “staff” – apparently it costs at least €1 million to run one of these things each year. We enjoyed posing with our favourite Bond Villain-esque vessels.

 

We also amused ourselves by looking in the yacht agents’ windows – a variation on the more common touristical activity of looking in estate agents’ windows (we did that too). We will not be buying a super yacht any time soon (nor a villa on the Côte d’Azur for that matter). Maybe we exuded an air of the luxury yacht type though as a man on the quayside seemed to think that we could do with some luxury transfers – private jet anyone?

Now Matt was getting rather keen to use the toilet. He followed the sign to the sanitaires in the marina, while I perched under a palm tree and wrote a postcard. Next thing I knew my phone was ringing – Matt sounded panicked: the sanitaires had been locked, he’d found another set of loos but these were shut for another half an hour and I was nowhere in sight. Things were clearly getting desperate. I was time I took charge of the situation. I found Matt and offered words of encouragement about the quality of his bladder while we took the scenic route through the rose garden to another WC that I had located on the touristical map.

Nature report 2

• Cannes is pleasingly free of seagulls. There are quite a few pigeons but they are fairly inoffensive pigeons – one was taking a bath.
• I spotted 2 lizards today. I always find this quite exciting, something I think that I have inherited from my dad.
• With less than a week to go until the Cannes Film Festival preparations were in full swing. Notably this involves bolstering the already plentiful palm trees, with the installation of many more on the beach. We saw a demonstration of how this involves cranes and badly driven diggers. I wonder what they do with all the extra palm trees when the festivities are over.
• There were lots of bottle brush plants. Apparently they’re poisonous (I seem to remember my mum warning me of this when I was little, even though I don’t think I had a propensity to eat random plants).
• Based on a highly unscientific study, the Yorkshire terrier appears to be the most popular breed of dog in Cannes

We found the WC to be a hi-tech toilet booth. There were four people in front of us in the queue: 2 friends (they looked local) and a couple (they looked Northern Europeans). It was a slow throughput at the hi-tech toilet booth as between each use it was disinfected, washed and dried. You did however get up to 20 minutes in the hi-tech toilet booth when it was your turn – which would potentially mean a very long wait for Matt.

The hi-tech toilet booth finished its cleansing cycle from the previous visitor and one of the friends went in. For some reason (optimism probably) I thought that the other friend didn’t need to visit the hi-tech toilet booth; but I was wrong. Friend 2 went in after another cleansing cycle. I spent a while pondering who of my friends I would be prepared to share a hi-tech toilet booth with. Quite a few probably – it was a spacious hi-tech toilet booth.

After another cleansing cycle the girl of the Northern European couple went in – we would be next. But no; the boy of the Northern European couple was also going to use the hi-tech toilet booth.

After witnessing a total of 5 cleansing cycles, it was finally our turn to use the hi-tech toilet booth. And a great 50 cents’ worth of hi-tech toilet booth it was too. I must say that there are worse places to queue for a toilet: there were shade and sun options and we saw at least 3 trains go over a bridge just over the road.

Thursday's entertainment

Thursday, May 9^th 2013: continued

We’d effectively skipped lunch and were pretty hungry by the time we were back on the ship. But afternoon tea would deal with that. Waiter service and a window table for two so we could enjoy the view as we left Barcelona.

Unfortunately the table for two thing means that the usual social graces that hold Matt back from overeating did not come into play. He had two sandwiches (small and with the crusts cut off, by no means excessive), scone (with jam and cream), half a mini toasted tea cake, a crumpet and 4 cakes (3 of which featured cream). I had the same – but no cakes, replacing this with one shortbread biscuit.

Rather than burn some of that energy we repeated the previous day’s early evening – again having the whole of the sports deck area to ourselves (where was everyone?), enjoying the warm but not scorching sunshine. I have been amazed by the number of people around the ship looking like absolute lobsters from sunburn. Some of them have tried claiming that it is windburn. This is clearly not the case but Matt has been very restrained in not telling them all about the science of ultra violet radiation.

Tonight Matt and I may have met our match in the Talking the Hind Legs Off a Donkey stakes. Gillian and Mick were a lively couple from Scotland. My Scottish geography is not much better than my African but they didn’t mind too much educating me. We did quite a bit for our respective tourist boards – planning the cruise excursions that we would offer or that you could do under your own steam from our respective home ports. And I’ve certainly been persuaded to take a camping trip to Scotland in the summer.

Having thus far mostly managed to avoid talking about politics and trains we managed both (and quite extensively) in one night. The trains bit was probably my fault as I got rather enthusiastic when Gillian and Mick told us that they had taken the sleeper train from Glasgow to London (I do love an exciting train ride). They were really good company and we were practically being chivvied out of the restaurant as the conversation went on and on.

Friday, May 10^th 2013

We gave ourselves a break from dancing last night and went instead to the “Havana Club” to see a comedy magician. (That is he was a comedian who did a bit of magic, rather than a funny magician.) He purported to be from Cuba but we had it on good authority that he was actually from Sandwich in Kent (a lady next to us on deck the other day knew his mum). Anyway, it was really enjoyable (especially when you consider that the material that he was working with was the age of the passengers and the bountiful nature of the food on board) and the (slightly elderly) ladies who were hauled up on stage to assist with his tricks were hilarious:

                              Him: What do you do in West Wittering Jackie?

                              Jackie: I’m retired

                              Him: What did you do before you retired?

                              Jackie: I looked after old people, like what you do now.

(Maybe you had to be there but I found this hysterical, and I hadn’t even had any booze.)

Thursday's unsatisfaction

Thursday, May 9^th 2013: continued

Barcelona is probably not a city that slow tourists such as Matt and myself should ever contemplate visiting in just one day. It is just too big with too much to see and do. I think that because of this we both felt somewhat dissatisfied after our day ashore. That said however it was an enjoyable day. (Thus enjoyable but unsatisfactory.) I had visited Barcelona about 10 years ago with my mum, so left it up to Matt to choose what he wanted to see.

We spent a significant number of our touristical Euros on the touristical bus. This seemed like a reasonable way of getting around the main sights. Lo and behold while we were on the bus it started to drizzle a little and I was exceedingly disappointed not to be able to deploy my anorak. The rain didn’t last long and we were able to enjoy the spectacle of retractable bus roof being applied. AS the day wore on we had hot sunshine so my packing failed on all accounts.

Here are some facts that I learnt about Barcelona from the touristical commentary:

• The statue of Christopher Columbus in Barcelona is the biggest of the 64 in the world – his index finger is 50cm long
• There are more mopeds per capita in Barcelona than in any other European city (but I think that they make less noise than those in Rome)
• There are over 100km of cycle lanes in Barcelona
• Barcelona has 8 universities
• The first stretch of railway in Spain was located in Barcelona (that is a fact especially for my dad)
• On wedding days it is traditional to take 12 eggs to a convent

It worries me that 50% of the facts that I can remember are transport based.

Unfortunately we spent quite a lot of our limited time in Barcelona in queues. We had hoped (one of Matt’s choices to visit the Sagrada Familia and had got off the bus a stop early so that we could wander a few streets to get there. It was a longer wander than we had expected – again the touristical map was scaleless (can it even therefore technically be called a map?) – but pleasant enough. The area around the cathedral-in-construction was packed. Matt went off to use one of those toilet booths (I am informed that he got his 50 cent’s worth) while I investigated the queues. The queue to visit the cathedral was reaching round the back of it, and moving very slowly.

The queue to hop back on the bus was slightly shorter and also slow moving. I chose to join the second of these and chatted to the people in front and behind me while Matt had an explore around the outside of the cathedral. Then we swapped over – he kept our place in the bus queue (I think he had the same conversations with our queue neighbours) while I mooched around.

Once back on, we stayed on the bus and completed the loop of the ruta azul. Time was not on our side and we were conscious of avoiding being the Felicity and Terence of Barcelona: the traffic had already seemed pretty awful and the situation wasn’t improved by a demonstration that was going on (about the economy I think).

Matt had to make a choice: transfer to the ruta roja and tour around the olympic stadium area or head back to the ship via the famous La Rambla. He went for the latter.

There are several High Things To Go Up in Barcelona – unfortunately most of them were outside of our temporal grasp. But Matt had done his High Things To Go Up research and had read that there was a cafeteria with a good view at the top of a department store in Placa de Catalunya. There was indeed a good view, with the added bonus of refuelling ourselves with some good value drinks and snacks. We also made use of the complimentary facilities and I helped an American by demonstrating how to use a push tap. As time wasn’t on our side I resisted spending any in the haberdashery on the way back out of the store.

 

Suitably refreshed, we started our traverse down La Rambla. It was busy. Really busy. I particularly enjoyed our trip into the colourful Bodega. A notable experience of our walk here is that we successfully avoided pick-pockets (or if we didn’t we haven’t found out about it yet). Based on a browse of the bars we also made a good call in getting our refreshments earlier as it looked like our touristical Euros wouldn’t even stretch to a glass of water here.

Wednesday's and Thursday's preparations

Wednesday, May 8^th 2013: continued

We spent much of the late afternoon / early evening (there should be a word for that lovely time of day) on deck. Initially we were in a spot where I could get some sun and Matt could get some shade (a frequent holiday conundrum) where we spent a good while chatting to a couple from Kent. They had been married 48 years but didn’t look a day over 60 (but I am rubbish at estimating ages) and he had taken it upon himself to be an unofficial tour guide on our up-coming trip to Rome to a lady and her elderly mother – despite never having visited Rome before himself. Later we moved to the sports deck. I have no idea where everyone else had cleared off to (maybe we were missing something exciting) but we had the place to ourselves. The sun was strong so Matt hid himself away with his book under his sarong. It was an e-book so there was no page turning going on but it was the snoring that gave away that he had fallen asleep.

We needed an early night, in the knowledge that we would have a busy day ahead of us in Barcelona. So it was kind of convenient that we were sat with a nice but not exceptionally chatty couple at dinner. So dinner was over quite quickly (I do love that with whatever meal you have it comes with “your choice” of potatoes and vegetables – a different sort each evening I think) and I even managed to finish my book before sleep time – after we had taken a turn or two of the dance floor (a particularly successful foxtrot this evening).

As an aside, it baffles me that people insist on ruining perfectly nice drinks with artificial sweetener; especially when their physique and the meal you have just seen them consume would suggest that in general they have a disregard for the energy content of what they are putting in their mouth.

Thursday, May 9^th 2013

It was our earliest start yet, with a plan in mind to get into the city as quickly as possible. We had complete alarm success and headed out for breakfast (as it would possibly be a while before our next meal I stoked up with a veggie sausage in addition to my usual), packed and ready for the day, at 7.30am.

I had even pre-applied sunscreen. The weather however was having different ideas – the clouds looked ominous. So it was back to the cabin for a quick equipment swap – it didn’t look like I was going to need my sunglasses or a sunscreen top up. I didn’t mind too much though as a bit of rain would mean that I could wear my new anorak. We were just about ready to go ashore when the captain announced that we would need our passports. So it was back to the cabin to collect these from the safe. And Matt persuaded me that it wasn’t going to rain so I lightened my load a little by unpacking my anorak. I must admit that I was a little disappointed – it’s a really nice anorak.

Monday's gardens

My third day in south London, and as all my friends (or the ones in the vicinity) were working I had to entertain myself. But first I had to transport myself. It was a fairly short trip involving 2 trains and a bus. But I had brushed up my London transport skills over the previous few days and was feeling confident. I think that looking confident (whether or not you feel it) is an important factor in avoiding pick-pockets. One unfortunate lady immediately made herself vulnerable as she failed to "mind the gap" and lost a shoe down said gap whilst boarding the train. Her husband seemed to want to try to reclaim the shoe but she wanted to buy some new ones. I'm sure they ultimately went for the wise option in not delving around under the train (although it does seem a rather extreme way of getting a new pair of shoes), but they made themselves very conspicuous.

Anyway, I duly arrived at Kew Gardens. My first impression was that there were a lot of coach parties of:

1.    School children

2.    Foreign tourists

I was a bit concerned that I would get caught up with these. In actual fact I managed to mostly avoid them, with the exception of some probably year 7s drawing pineapples in the lily house.

A pineapple

A lily

After my quick trip to the lily house I think I mostly avoided the parties by avoiding the most popular attractions in the first part of the day. With the assistance of the excellent touristical map (including both a north marker and a scale) I headed off in the direction of the Mediterranean garden. It smelt wonderful and I spotted a few things that I thought might be possibles for our front garden: Genistra tinctoria, Santolina chamaecyparissus and Cistus laurifolius.

Santolina chamaecyparissus

Cistus laurifolius

It was one of those days that whatever you’re wearing it’s not quite right for the weather. I had opted for trousers and a thin jumper but when the sun came out this was too hot. But if I’d gone for something lighter I would have been too cold. Even now it was slightly cool when the sun wasn’t blaring down. So in what looked like it might be a prolonged period of cloudiness (it wasn’t the sun came back really quickly) I went into the temperate greenhouse. In the sun I would say that it was actually rather hotter than temperate. The greenhouse is due to close next month for significant preservation work and I found my walk around interesting from the point of view of preparations for this – various demarcations in bright paint and the removal of various plants to a secure part of the greenhouse. You can see why this building is grade 1 listed; architecturally I found it quite beautiful. The best plant was a caper.

Caper plant

Temperate greenhouse

Tree-top walkway
(from the ground)

Since I last visited Kew (which must have been at least 10 years ago on a really hot day) they have installed a treetop walkway. Here I did run into a small group of school children who were mainly interested in walking the “wrong” way around the walkway and seeing how much they could make it wobble. It being the summer the view from the walkway was not really that interesting – consisting mostly of green leaves. I imagine it would be beautiful in the autumn. I does realise just how high these trees are – 108 steps.

I stopped for lunch by a pond. This seemed to be a nice spot where I could watch some moorhens (or maybe coots – I can never remember which ones have the white beaks) make their nests and there were plenty of benches. I could hear a peacock so my picnic was slightly impeded by my concerns that it would want to coming after my food (this happened at the zoo once). I needn’t have worried. I should have put my energy into worrying about the ducks who were much more interested and actually required me to vacate my bench for fear of picnic nick-age.

My highlights of the afternoon were:

1. The stag beetle loggery – stag beetles are one of my favourite childhood insects. Sadly I didn’t see any today.

2. Ice-cream – I had a little mid-afternoon break to make up for my duck-shortened lunch. I love ice-cream and this did not disappoint: coffee + honey and walnut.

3. The gravel garden – this gave me yet more inspiration for our front garden. I am definitely going to try some Salvia X Silvestris ‘Mainacht’ – it was really popular with the bees.

4. Roses – I love smelling them. Today I particularly loved smelling the orangey-yellow ones which have got a lovely sort of sherbet-citrus aroma like ‘Lady of Shallot’ and ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’. It made me wonder about what the different chemical composition of the various rose smells is, and whether a friendly analytical chemist could help me out with this conundrum.

Lady of Shallot

Ice-cream break

Salvia X Silvestris ‘Mainacht’

By 5.30pm I had seen most of what I had wanted to see. There was still an hour before closing time and when I was due to meet my friends for tea so I redeployed my touristical map and headed off for the one major attraction that I had missed: the compost heap. Unfortunately what the touristical map doesn’t tell you is that the compost heap is out-of bounds to the general public so I had to make do with a distant view and a poor quality photo. Oh well.

The compost heap from a distance