Weekend wrap-up

Hooray, I made it through another work week!  Seriously, I'm finding it more and more difficult to go to work in the morning.  IF I could just win the lottery....  Well, since that doesn't seem to be happening, I've taken to arranging meetings/appointments every day, so I tell myself I have a reason to go to work each morning. Otherwise I think I might use up some of that sick leave* I've accumulated over the past 19 years.  Sigh, if I weren't so damned responsible.  On a happier note I took another marble out of the jar last week.  I've finally reached the jail sentence....two years less a day!

Things are going much better at home. Last weekend was Grey Cup weekend - the final game of the Canadian football league championship.  Our Roughriders had a pitiful season this year; they didn't even make it to the playoffs.  The two teams that played for the Cup were the Ottawa Red Blacks (guess what color their uniforms are...) and the Calgary Stampeders (whose uniforms are also the same colors).  It really didn't matter to me who won, though I cheered a little louder for Ottawa because they were predicted not to win. In fact, many sportscasters and fans suggested Calgary would run over them.  Ha!  Shows what they know...instead Ottawa came out strong and by mid-game the Stampeders QB appeared shell-shocked.  Calgary came back but in the end, Ottawa won the game in overtime.

While the game was on, I brought up the Christmas decorations and started on the tree.  I say start because it takes me a few days to be satisfied with the ornament placement.  It all depends on where I sit in the living room.  I think, a week later, I'm pretty happy with it.  Though Saku just knocked one off the lower branches so that has to be moved....this was one of the approximately 90% of the ornaments that are shatterproof.

Since I wanted the tree in front of the window, I moved the cat tree to the side.  Saku still uses it though he can't see out the window.

There are some new ornaments on the tree this year, including the little stuffed animals that I found at Costco in October (!).  There are also a few large green balls and snowflakes that were on sale at Canadian Tire for $1.43 an $0.73 each....I couldn't resits.

The china cabinet has been dressed as well.  It is as close as I come to having a mantel.  I haven't hung stockings for years and when I did, they were tacked up on the wall.


The living room gets most of the attention, though I do have a vase of artificial flowers on the windowsill by the sink along with a ceramic snowman.  The table will eventually be decorated, however since Saku tends to like to hang out there I don't put out anything that he might be able to knock on the floor.  The light about the table is fair game.

The past few years I've hung the crystal icicles (plastic) from the light fixture.  After Christmas I found these plastic snowflakes and added them this year. I love how they catch the light and I leave them up all winter.

These week I also finished a sweater I started shortly before I left on my cruise.  Obviously it is for my grandson, and I expect it won't fit him until he's 6-9 months old.

It is knit from the neck down in one piece to the underarm, then the sleeve stitches are set on holders while the rest of the body is knitted.  With a pick of a few stitches the sleeves are finished.  I really prefer to knit this way as it means I don't have to sew any seams!

I found the pattern on the internet though, and the instructions were a little lacking  There were no lengths provided so I made an educated guess (using other patterns).  The boy's version is rather plain so I decided to add a couple of appliques.  Pinterest is great!  I  found these little cars to crochet.  The pattern had little black crocheted wheels but I din't have any black wool so I added buttons instead.  When I appliqued the cars to the sweater I left the windows open so they are little pockets too!

There is one big mistake that is visible - I miscounted on the rows for the buttonholes.  So I have one more button than I ought to have and the top two buttons are further apart than the rest.  Regardless, as I said when I posted the photo on Facebook, it may not be factory quality but it was certainly made with love.

This weekend has been busy with the usual household chores, some grocery shopping, and...clearing the driveway of snow.  We had some flurries on Saturday morning and while it wasn't much, it needed to be cleared or it simply packs on the driveway.  Besides we're going to get cold weather next week; the forecast is for minus 16-18C (0-3F) daytime highs and colder still at night.  I plan on staying indoors where it is warm as much as possible. (Except when I have to force myself out the door to go to work.)

On that note, I'll close this post, wishing you all a good week ahead!

*I'm fortunate to work where we are able to accrue sick leave.  I have used some over the years, but have built up a bank of nearly 6 months.  It's nice to know it is there, just in case.  When I do retire, it will simply expire - it does not get paid out as some people think.

Friday Funny

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Regina Short Term Forecast

F

 

hourly-weather-forecast

Wed Morning

Scattered flurries

-5°C

Feels like: -11

POP: 40%

Snow: <1 cm

Wind: 15 km/h NW

Wind gust: 29 km/h

Humidity: 86%

hourly-weather-forecast

Wed Afternoon

Cloudy with sunny breaks

-3°C

Feels like: -7

POP: 30%

Snow: -

Wind: 10 km/h NW

Wind gust: 20 km/h

Humidity: 86%

Translated to Fahrenheit - that's 23F in the morning, 26F in the afternoon.  With the windchill it feels about 10 degrees cooler.  We've been lucky though...not a lot of snow, some places near us got close to 6 inches or more.  

Friday Funny

Balcony views (Nov 4-6)

I bet when you saw the title of the post, you thought this would be a sea view.  I certainly have several of those shots as well to share.

This is the Seawalk.  It extends over the ocean on the 17th deck.  It is entirely enclosed but offers the opportunity to look down to the ocean through the glass floor.

According to Princess, it is 60 feet long and 128 feet above the ocean.  I've walked it despite being absolutely terrified of the height!

It was directly overhead our balcony and I get thinking I might get a photo of someone walking it but never did. :)

On our final sea day I spent some time out on the balcony, simply enjoying the sunshine and the peace and quiet.  I spotted this ship in the distance, so J and I spent some time trying to zoom in enough to read the name.

We needed have bothered as our ship quickly overtook the smaller ship.  (When I say quickly I mean within an hour or so).

At this point, we could see the name of the company Fathom.  K did some research on J's IPad, and discovered this ship, the MV Adonia is part of the Carnival fleet, sailing out of Miami to the Dominican Republic or Cuba.

The company offers seven day cruises; the impact travel to Dominican Republic where passengers volunteer their time, or cultural exchanges to Cuba.

Taking the cruise to DR is quite inexpensive, around $600 for a interior or outside cabin $1200 for a balcony or $2100 for suite.  On the other hand, travelling to Cuba is very expensive, the inside cabin for one week is close to $4400.*

I'm not certain I'd be ready to take a cruise to volunteer, but perhaps I should add it to the list.

This was the early morning sky on our last sea day.  To be honest I initially thought it was a sunset since I was so rarely up early enough but I checked the properties...it was taken about 7 a.m. on November 5.

The waters were calm and the weather quite warm as we made our way to our final port in Fort Lauderdale.  I spent the day with my camera capturing some of the activities around the ship.  Those were part of my first post.

I woke up the next morning to find we had docked in Fort Lauderdale next to a Carnival ship.

The port was busy! I can't recall how many ships were in port that day, 6 or 9 seems to ring a bell.  In any event, the place was hopping by 7 a.m.

We were docked at Pier 2 which meant we weren't far from the airport.  With so many passengers disembarking, that was a bit of a blessing.

These little trucks and carts were scurrying back and forth between the ship and warehouse taking the luggage to the claims area.

Since we had a late flight, we had a late disembarkation time at about 9:40 a.m.  We were supposed to be out of our cabin by 8 but our steward Henry, told us to leave our carry-on items until we had our breakfast.  He was such a great guy!



We waited in the Explorers Lounge until our group was called, walked down the gang plank, claimed our luggage, and got in the line for Customs.  For the most part it is pretty cursory, at least for non-Americans, we were through and out to the taxi stand in less a half hour.  From there it was short ride to the airport.  We all were selected for TSA pre-check so getting through security was a breeze.  We had plenty of time to browse the shops, grab a magazine and settle down to wait for our flight to be called.

We flew from Fort Lauderdale to Toronto, where we went through Canadian customs, security and into the terminal to have lunch and wait for our next flight.  This is the part I call "hurry up and wait"as we had a seven hour layover in TO...yuck!  I did lots of reading, J played on his IPad and K walked, so we passed the time fairly easily.

The flight home was uneventful; we arrived shortly after 1 a.m., picked up our luggage and took the cab to K&J's.  I'd left my car there so it was a quick turn around and I was home and getting ready for bed before 2 a.m. The best part about getting home is sleeping in my own bed...with the cats of course!

Just one last sea view from the balcony.  I know of people who cannot abide the thought of being out of sight of land.  It never bothers me at all, I just feel the calm and relaxed.  (Now if I think about what might be under the sea, that's another story altogether...so I just don't think about it.)

And so ends my travels for a little while since the next great adventure will be the birth of my grandson due in February.  That will be a trip of a different kind!

Have a great week everyone!

*Prices are in US$ and based on one person occupancy.  Double occupancy was slightly higher, but of course would be divided by the two passengers.

Bonaire (November 3)

We sailed into Bonaire between 6;30 and 7:00 a.m. and for the first and only time, I was actually awake!

We were at dock when I went out to the balcony and spotted the Norwegian Dawn sailing into the bay.  We had company!

Bonaire is one of the ABC* islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao). It, along with Curacao is part of the Netherlands.  The Dutch influence is very evident.

It was a beautiful start to an absolutely gorgeous day weather wise.  It was the first day we had no rain at all, and it was the warmest temperature at 28C (82F).

I loved it!  We were told that Bonaire is the driest of the ABC islands, and as a result is quite arid so it isn't quite as lush and green as some of the islands we've visited.

We docked in the terminal in the capital city of Kralendijk and had no excursion booked so spent a good of the part of the day off ship walking around the town.

There were a lot of one-way streets. with parking on either side  We walked through the craft sale booths to the central shopping area and visited a few of the shops.

From there, after a few wrong turns we made our way to the Post Office where K bought stamps and mailed a few postcards.

Bonaire is known for it's pink flamingos.  Had we taken one of the ship's excursion we might have seen them in person, but instead I snapped this photo of the flamingos in a shop window.

From the post office we made our way down to the harbour.  OMG the water is soooo beautiful.

We considered finding a restaurant to have a bite to eat before making our way back to the ship, but we didn't find anything along the harbour.  I was surprised as this would have made a stunning view.

We stopped in at the fort; I looked into the interior but it didn't appear there were any steps to climb.  I suspect there were at some time and it seemed obvious this would have been the place where the inhabitants kept on eye on the bay watching for both welcome and unwelcome company.

Speaking of company, the tourists and crew from the ship swelled the population of Bonaire that day.  It is a small country with approximately 19,000 inhabitants.  According to CruiseTimeTables.com, between the two ships, they carry about 5,800 and 6,000 passengers with about 2,300 crew.  While not everyone would have left the ships, I suspect we added another 30% to the total population that day!

On our way to the ship, J noticed that several of the rocks along the waterfront appeared to have the imprint of fossils.  While I took several photos, this is the only one that turned out well enough to clearly show the imprints.

Sail away was early that day; we left Bonaire between 5 and 5:30 p.m.  We ought to have left earlier, but one of the excursions appeared to return late.  I was out on the aft deck when it came down the hill to the ship.  Since dinner was at 5:30 I didn't get any photos of sail away, as I needed to head back to the cabin to clean up and change clothes.
I took advantage of the waiting time to get some photos of the community from the ship.  Obviously this is the fort on the harbour front, with walled in buildings (perhaps a jail?) and the soccer/football field in the background.

The construction of the building are reminiscent of the Dutch influence and the colors are those of the Caribbean.

I was particularly curious about this development.  I even tried to find whether the units are for sale, searching the internet, but wasn't able to locate these particular buildings.  In the background is the airport and beyond that you can see how dry the island appears.

This is another shot of the harbour front and downtown of Kralendijk.  This is where I would have expected to find restaurants and bars.  There was an gelato shop on the corner....thinking back I wish we'd stopped!

I did stay out on deck long enough to see some of the lines let off.  This little boat brought the worker over to the where the ships lines were tied.

Only one of the workers stayed behind while the boat took the other to another set of lines.

I'd taken some other photos and turned back to see what was happening once the lines were released.  I laughed when I saw what the worker was doing.

Now there's a guy who knows how to relax!

These young men were having fun too.  At one point all three had "popped a wheelie".

It was fun ending to a great day in Kralendijk. One of the reasons I love cruising is that I get to experience a little bit of the island and its culture.  I hope that someday I'll get back to Bonaire so I can see the pink flamingos and spend more time in the community.


I do have a few more photos to share from the last couple of sea days, so will share those in my next post.

Have a great weekend everyone!

*The very first cruise I took visited both Aruba and Curacao...so now I can say I've visited all of the ABC islands.

Antigua (Nov 1)

Darn this working for a living.  I've been so tired when I get home from work, the best I've managed is to read and comment on a few blogs, make dinner, do dishes, knit a few rows, and then head for bed.

Antigua (pronounced Antee-ga) is an absolutely beautiful island!  We arrived in port early Tuesday morning...though I couldn't tell you exactly when as I slept in.

When I did go out on the balcony I found my view was blocked by another ship (Seabourne Silversea) in port beside us.

It really didn't matter as we were going ashore anyway that morning.



Before we left on our trip I had done some research and learned of a restaurant in St. John's called the Roti King.  It is local restaurant serving East Indian food...my favorite being roti which is actually the bread served with an Indian stew.  To be honest I've only eaten it while in the Caribbean!  The restaurant has received 4.5 stars in TripAdvisor and from the outside I would say it isn't because of the decor.

After breakfast we left the ship and went for a walk about the shops in the port area and then into the town proper. We quickly learned November 1 is Independence Day in Antigua so the restaurant was closed.  Oh well, I guess I'll have to go back another time.

We wandered up the hill to this large church (St. John the Divine).  It is currently undergoing a complete interior restoration due to termite damage.  The exterior is lovely!

We continued our walk heading back down the hill toward the port.

The majority of buildings, like this one, are well kept, although the streets are a little rough, especially towards the curbside.  I would be a bit frightened to drive there.

Due to the holiday the town itself was very quiet.  We headed back to the port and back onto the ship for a quick bite before our afternoon excursion.


Before the trip we'd booked the excursion for the morning, but after a few days on-board we realized none of us wanted to get up that early.  The excursion desk was kind enough to let us switch our reservations to the afternoon.

We loaded on a bus (with 15 others) for a ride up to Dow's Hill Fort.  When we arrived the rain was pouring down so we sat waiting it out on the bus.  While we waited the bus stalled and the driver was unable to get it started again.
While there was a break in the rain we headed into the interpretation center to watch a video about Antigua.  When we came out half of us were placed on two other buses and sent on to the second stop of the trip.  J, K, and I stayed behind because I'd run back to the gift shop for a minute.  I was so glad we did!

While we waited we were able to climb the fort (above) and get a view of the country side.  Although it doesn't look like it the sun was shining and the rain was off in the distance.

One of the other buses returned to pick us up and drive us to our second stop, Shirley Heights.

What a vantage point!  I don't recall the name of the bay but it was so beautiful!!!

Below the area where the previous photo was taken was a rocky outcrop and some unique looking plants.  Sorry, this doesn't do either justice.  This spot is on the east side of the island on the Atlantic ocean.

Next up, was an unnamed view point (or at least I didn't catch the name).  

Again, it's not the best photo but if you look closely you can see different shade of blue in the distant waters.  This point is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean sea.  I would have loved to have had an opportunity to get closer but we had to head down the road to our next stop.

By the time we reached Nelson's Dockyard the clouds were clearing out and the sun was shining.

Since we were late arriving the shops were closing ...which was fine as we weren't in the mood to buy.  Instead we wandered through the dockyard and came across this lovely cove.  I pointed out the rowboat in the foreground to K and J and said, it was likely the only thing I could afford.

For certain, I could not have afforded this lovely yacht!.  We continued our walk through the dockyard, grabbed our free rum punch, and headed back to the gates where our replacement bus was waiting to take us back to the ship.  

We arrived back on the ship just in time.  The clouds opened up again and the rain poured down.

I headed down to the back of the ship to get some photos of our sail away.  This is one of my favorite photos, the dark sky and the calm waters just struck a chord!

Heading out to sea the clouds remained though the sun was valiantly attempting to make its presence known.   Our short visit in Antigua was enough to make me dream of returning someday!

Next up, Bonaire.