Bloody Mary for breakfast

 Despite being held hostage on the ship, the brilliant MacDonald brothers performed again, including an excellent version of 'Sunshine on Leith'.

The original plan was that TSH and Diva would have pizza in the outdoor restaurant in the protected mooring at Newhaven, before the scheduled late night departure. They went ahead with the plan, even though by dinner time they were in the middle of the North Sea. Fortunately the sea was calm and the heaters were effective. Best pizza in the world.

They must have missed a memo. Approaching La Terrazza for their usual buffet breakfast, they were accosted by waiters trying to thrust Bloody Mary cocktails into their hands. There was a special brunch, including an extensive sea food buffet, decorated with carved fruit and a huge ice sculpture. Rumour amongst the guests was that Silversea were trying to improve the mood after the disappointment of missing Edinburgh yesterday. Many of the crew had been up most of the night preparing the feast.

When they returned to the brunch at 12:00, some of the dishes had changed but TSH was able to construct an amazing meal including hash browns with Marie Rose sauce.

The clocks have changed to Netherlands time but the clocks around the ship are still wrong.

TSH and Diva do not drink Bloody Marys at breakfast.

Photoblog

 

Portland lighthouse

Bridges over Forth from Silver Spirit

Panorama Lounge on Silver Spirit

Lerwick - Shetland

Butt of Lewis

Liverpool

Hillsborough Castle

Inverness Castle

Another altered itinerary

It is never good news when the captain makes early morning announcements directly into all the suites. The Silver Spirit was anchored at Newhaven for a tender ride to Leith followed by a bus ride to Edinburgh. But the water was too choppy for safe tender operation, so the visit was cancelled and the ship headed directly to Amsterdam. TSH and Diva always intended to stay aboard so they were not personally inconvenienced except for all the people who stayed on what should have been an almost empty ship. But think of the chefs. 400 extra people for lunch!!

Bean bag tossing is now being arranged to keep people amused. The good news is that the MacDonald brothers are still on board and will perform again. Basically, they were unable to disembark as planned and are being taking against their will to the Netherlands. With all their instruments and stage props!!

In the SALT (local dishes) restaurant, TSH ate his most unusual salad ever - Taybank salad. It contained roasted brussels sprouts, beetroot and raspberries. His main course was lamb and skirlie. At breakfast time he had a dish of porridge and picked up what he thought was a jar of honey. It turned out to be strawberry jam, but he poured it on and decided that the combination worked very well. 

Burgers for breakfast

 In the Shetland Isles, TSH and Diva had intended to go ashore for a walk around Lerwick. But the morning mist was so thick that they decided to stay onboard for a relaxing day instead. They walked round and round the open deck for exercise.

In Invergordon, they were booked on the Inverness Highlights tour, which included 1.5 hours at leisure in Inverness. The tour started early and the plan was to skip breakfast on the Silver Spirit and eat at the M&S cafe in Inverness. The place where they were dropped off was so far from the centre of the city that it took 30 minutes, at Diva's slow pace, to reach the shopping centre So they made their way back to the bus without having time for food. TSH was distraught about his missing sausage sandwich. Breakfast was at 13:00 and consisted of excellent burgers and fries!

The Silver Spirit clocks are still all wrong. 

international Matters

 Leaving Liverpool, during the Beatles tribute concert, Diva chatted to a woman from the USA and asked her where she was from. 'Washington DC. I am so sorry.' TSH and Diva had agreed before embarkation that they would not be drawn into any discussion of world affairs, especially not with US citizens. There have been two such discussions, both initiated by the US people and both expressing horror at the current situation. 

Another US woman consulted Diva about shopping - 'Will the shapping in Edinboro be good?' Diva had no idea what to say. Designer? Discount? British brands? Is there not a wide range of shops in Seattle?

The after dinner concert featured the MacDonald Brothers - a versatile pair of young Scotsmen who once came 4th on X factor. It was probably the best show TSH and Diva have seen on Silversea ships - Celtic reels, Simon and Garfunkel, Elton John and an excellent rendering of the Proclaimers' '500 miles'.

In the suite, TSH played 'Ferry cross the Mersey'.

TSH and Diva and the bins

 On a cruise ship, infection control is very important.  Public washrooms on Silversea ships have notices telling guests to open doors using tissues and bins are provided by the doors for tissue disposal. Except on the Silver Spirit, where the bins have vanished. 

TSH and Diva mentioned this deficiency on their mid-cruise questionnaire. They received a letter from Guest Services and a visit from the Housekeeper, thanking them for being part of the hygiene team. The bins are now back!

TSH's theory is that the bins were removed during the recent refit of the Silver Spirit and nobody remembered to put them back. But did nobody notice the room full of 'surplus' bins?

Very close to home

 In Belfast, TSH and Diva went on a tour to Hillsborough, the royal residence. After the tour of the house, Diva took the bus to the Visitor Centre,  whilst partially sighted TSH bravely walked alone through the gardens. He made it to the exit in good time for the ride back to the Silver Spirit.

At lunch in La Terrazza, TSH and Diva were shown to a table that looked as if someone was already sitting there and had just gone to the buffet. The waiter insisted that the table was free and they sat down. When the occupant did return, they apologised but she smiled and went to sit somewhere else. When the occupants of that table returned, there was a danger that the whole section of La Terrazza would descend into chaos.

TSH had his first filet mignon of the cruise - totally up to standard.

In Liverpool - about 20 miles from their home, TSH and Diva took a walk along the riverside, retuning to the Silver Spirit just before the rain started in earnest.

Diva's sparkly shoes had their first outing of this holiday and received their first compliment within the first half hour. 

A Bigger Diva

 TSH and Diva were invited to dine with the Future Cruise Consultant and 4 other guests. This blog does not normally include details about other guests but for these an exception will be made.

They were from Montreal but did not appear to have heard of Leonard Cohen!!!!!   They included the Bigger Diva (BD) of the title of this post. BD dominated the conversation throughout, touching on the size of their houses, the superiority of their suites, the successes of their businesses and the extent of their wealth. Diva tried hard to join the conversation but was either contradicted or talked over by BD.  The charming Cruise Consultant was not experienced enough to retrieve the situation, although he did his best.

The situation really deteriorated when a picture of one of their pets was thrust into Diva's view. She explained her phobia and asked for it to be taken away. But the conversation about pets continued, including BD wanting to know about the phobia, until Diva had a meltdown and insisted they talk about something else. It was a horrible evening - apart from the slow-cooked goose - and the surprise is that TSH and Diva stayed until the end of the evening.

Fishguard sea day

 TSH and Diva always look forward to Fishguard. There is little or nothing there and it looks very pretty from the ship. So they have a sea day on a relatively empty ship, as other people need to tender ashore to find out for themselves.

Silversea have extended the onboard facilities to include a tiny putting green.

TSH had his first Danish pastry and first ice cream of the voyage.

There is now a bottle of Shiraz in their suite. They have not yet consumed the Welcome champagne.

Change all the clocks

In Portland, Diva decided she wanted an easy day, so TSH went alone on an excursion - the first such solo outing since his stroke and partial sightedness. Just a short sight-seeing trip, but he managed the photostops and always got back to the correct bus on time.

The naval Pontus was in port - its job is to check on underwater cables.

On formal night, TSH was one of a very few men in a dinner suit. Several people remarked on how smart he looked.

Silversea is an efficient operation and on previous voyages clocks around the ships have accurately reflected the correct time for the current locality. Not this time. The clocks are showing random times - the irony being that they are now supposedly all connected to, and controlled by, the Bridge. It cannot get much worse when the time zones change later in the cruise.

TSH and Diva have asked for Merlot or Malbec to be supplied in their suite. Their butler has assured them that there is no supply of either wine on the Silver Spirit!! They have now requested Shiraz but are still waiting for it to arrive. Bulgari body lotion has been supplied by the suite attendant and face soap purchased in Falmouth. TSH also bought some pencils to use for Silversea sudoku. 

Launching the holiday

 After an easy journey to Southampton, TSH and Diva achieved the usual objective of being in La Terrazza with lunch and champagne well before 13:00. Check-in had taken a little longer than usual because Silversea have changed the official start of embarkation to 11:00, instead of 14:00, as before. So there were unfamiliar queues of guests who realised it was possible to embark early! A pleasant aspect of the queue was meeting guests they had sailed with before.  And once onboard they were greeted by crew members, including the Hotel Director, they had met before.

A disappointment in the suite was the change away from Bulgari toiletries. A selection was supplied on request but there is no Bulgari body cream on board and they have no hypoallergenic soap for Diva's face. Fortunately there are several British ports to come and shopping will be possible.

And there is now a kettle in the suite. For guests to make their own hot drinks. TSH and Diva are on holiday and will continue to use the bars when they want tea or coffee.

The food so far is excellent. A seafood buffet for lunch and SALT (the restaurant that serves food inspired by the locality) for dinner. TSH was impressed by his venison wellington but could not resist pointing out to the waiter that sticky toffee pudding has nothing to do with Southampton but was invented in Cumbria. 

Embarkation - 2 days

 TSH was busy preparing all the electronic devices and chargers needed for the holiday. During the check of his laptop, he discovered that the Adobe suite of programs, including Photoshop, was not working. And these are crucial for the processing of his holiday pics and the operation of his website.  Disaster was looming!

Diva has never been called upon to be involved with these facilities but, as the IT (ex-) professional of the team, she felt obliged to offer help. She worked out that several different programs were involved and, with a little help from Google, that the best option was to reinstall them. But they would not uninstall through Settings. And their own control program, which can theoretically do an uninstall, would not load or run. TSH's Adobe account page would not load properly, even though his subscription is current. So she turned to the AI online assistant, which offered a variety of solutions, all involving the methods she had already tried. She regards it as a personal triumph that her follow-up prompts were so clueless that the AI summoned a human before she ordered it to do so. 

The human was great, taking control of the laptop and correcting everything. The Adobe suite now works, the day is (eventually) saved and TSH can go on holiday!!

Technical note: TSH relies on Adobe to convert the RAW files from his camera to jpeg, for use on his PC.

Getting ready

 There are only a few days to go now until TSH and Diva board the Silver Spirit. The clothes rails are up and optioneering has begun. Selecting clothes suitable for the unpredictable weather in Northern Europe is not easy and this process might take some time. 

There is a hole in a seam of one of TSH's favourite tops. Diva does not do sewing - she pays someone to do any essential repairs - so he is on his own on this one. After all, his mother was an accomplished needlewoman who thought everyone should be taught to sew. (Diva was a great disappointment to her in this respect). Half an hour later, TSH had still not managed to thread a needle. In his defence, he is partially sighted as a result of a stroke. Diva took pity on him, and to the great surprise of both of them, she inserted the thread into the hole of the needle!! 

The seam has been repaired by TSH and the top is wearable once more.

Door drama

 TSH and Diva did not plan to blog about their short break in genteel North Wales. What could possibly happen?

Their room is very comfortable with a large modern bathroom. With a sliding door which requires to be locked into position if it is to remain closed. After dinner, when TSH was in the bathroom, the lock refused to engage. Diva also tried it and could not make it work. In an uncharacteristic moment of frustration, they both stood outside the bathroom and Diva slid the door hard. It closed and the lock engaged perfectly. With no way of unlocking it from the outside. 

They tried turning what appeared to be the release mechanism, using whatever they had with them. Scissors, nail clippers and the edge of a comb. Nothing worked and the duty manager was called.  Normally Dive is very conscious of her image. So this is the first time she has had dealings with hotel manager wearing no makeup and a sleep tee. Fortunately he had dealt with this situation before and soon restored access to the bathroom. 

Maintenance staff were in attendance the next morning to make a more (hopefully!) lasting adjustment.