Snow Hill

The best was held to last, the stunning light show from the Eiffel Tower, Rafa’s broad smile as he took the torch from Zinedine Zidane, the approach to the Louvre and the wow moment of lighting the flame in the form of a hot air balloon and the view across Paris. We have both said it’s time for a return visit to Paris as it’s been 40+ years since Inwas there and 30+ for my wife. To far away when we are in Brittany in few weeks, so perhaps a Eurostar trip later.

Meteo France has issued an Amber Alert with a risk of flooding, not the ideal background for any ceremony regardless of where held.

Hurtigruten have designed a ship with solar sails. https://www.afar.com/magazine/hurtigruten-to-launch-electric-cruise-ship-with-solar-sails

Am I reading this correctly from ABTA website which states cruises are package holidays. “A package holiday has both financial and legal protection. Legal protection means your travel company is responsible for making sure that you get the holiday you paid for. If something isn’t provided or isn’t as expected, and your travel company or its suppliers is at fault, they will need to sort this out for you – either resolving the issue, offering an alternative or providing a full or partial refund. In some instances you may be able to claim compensation.” I read that as it’s P&O responsibility for dealing with delays etc caused by Maleth and then would be up to P&O to recover costs from Maleth Aero. https://www.abta.com/help-and-complaints/frequently-asked-questions/what-package-holiday-and-what-linked-travel

Some editions of my local newspaper went online this week, so I searched for myself as I knew there might be a few mentions from my councillor days, I was quite surprised how many times I was quoted from various council meetings. Worryingly I can’t remember saying what was reported. 😂

The National Grid Live shows where electricity is being sourced from, renewables are frequently the prime source of electricity https://grid.iamkate.com

I understand the ban from 1 January 2026 only applies to the 2 World Heritage Site Fjords, Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord, cruise ships that are emission free can access, but there are currently no ships in that category although they are being developed. It is understood that other fjords will transition to zero emissions by 2035.

Deleted

I have “Do not Track” turned on in the browsers I use, no guarantee it will stop all tracking but every little helps. The VPN I use when I connect to public networks has a tracking blocking feature in it.

Seems the Paul Ludlow video from Malta on social media sites today hasn’t gone down that well with P&O having to limit who can comment on the post after a a number customers affected by the Maleth compensation issue posted comments.

Did you ever click on the pop up? If you did I wonder if it grabbed your email address from your cc Profile even though it’s hidden. If the email is genuinely from the agent then you can submit a Data Subject Access Request for all the data they hold on you, this may tell you where they obtained your email address from.

Mid April is often the best time to go, when we took a break in the Netherlands a few years ago, it was at that time and we saw many excellent displays during our time there. I can’t comment on the cruise excursions as we went to Amsterdam via Eurostar and booked trips locally.

That had not long opened when we visited Gretna, quite small then but I believe has been revamped somewhat since.

We didn’t get to visit Ventnor last year, we tried but seem a lot of road works making it difficult to access, since then they have had the landslides. The area appears to be quite unstable, I certainly wouldn’t want to live there.

Went to Gretna Green around 25 years ago, it was a wet afternoon and must admit not impressed with the place. We went to the Isle of Wight last summer, we enjoyed our week there, it is easy to get around, although car parks are expensive, especially at the Needles. We did Osborne House which we have seen many times on cruises out of Southampton, it is a must visit location on the island. Cost of getting there is very expensive, but hotels or self catering owners often have discounts available for guests, we went from Lymington to Yarmouth.

A cloudy day with some sunny spells, currently 20C. After yesterday’s IKEA flat pack desk assembly half day, my sore knees have recovered. Old desk taken in pieces to RCC. Scraped moss off our top of garden “patio” as well as remove weeds from between slabs putting my Gardena telescopic handle to good use with scraper attached, less back breaking than doing it kneeling down. Sown the last crop of spring onions and last crop of green beans, just final cop of beetroot to sow. Ordered next years seeds as they are in a half price sale. Will mow the lawn this afternoon, still wet in parts but should dry out in the next hour. Should have first crop of tomatoes next week if weather keeps warm.

Phew it’s warm here 29C this afternoon at the time I was leading a tour around the site, sun hay, sunglasses and plenty of Factor 30 applied. Only 4 on the tour which was last one of the day, so it if was tour, much better than the one I lead yesterday with 22 on it, started out as 20, but 2 others joined halfway round. Explaining Roman Britain and what the Romans gave us is an interesting topic, and once we got to the archaeology dig, they were well versed on how the city was constructed and operated. Felt sorry for the archaeology students who were digging and scraping away in the trenches in this heat, yet on Tuesday they got rained on such is the life of an archaeologist. The site had some card machine issues early on due to outage but all was back running by midday. Had a text from my GP surgery saying advising they couldn’t make any appointments but patients with appointments would still be seen.

We would take our own, no point in buying yet another reusable coffee cup.

Currently 15C, rising to 22C this afternoon, have seen the forecast here for Friday, where temperatures reach 28C 🥵 May mow lawn and cut the hedge today, as it’s looking hot for the next few days

Won’t be watching tennis, as I am volunteering this afternoon, leading a tour of around 20 visitors around the site.

A day out in Birmingham today for my birthday, lunch then a theatre trip to the Hippodrome to see Hamilton, which we thoroughly enjoyed, a very powerful musical which draws from various music genres. Back home now getting ready to watch England v Netherlands.

My desktop died a few years ago after the motherboard failed, fortunately I had a backup of the hard drive so I was able to transfer data across to new Windows 11 Laptop. The recommendation is not to keep the laptop plugged in and run off the battery until around 20% left. I switch mine off after use and regularly clear cache & cookies and clear temp files regularly to keep the laptop running smoothly.

Does this count as duck that can be hidden and tackle noro at the same time

We have been away in South Wales over the weekend at a family celebration, we took the scenic route home via the Brecon Beacons, Leominster, Ludlow. It was quicker and shorter than the motorway route and appears to have been economical as average mpg now up to 61mpg. We knew when we had crossed the border into Herefordshire and Shropshire as we had to dodge the potholes. We also passed this place on the way back, they were closed so couldn’t drop in for a crate of cider😉 https://www.visitherefordshire.co.uk/discover/orgasmic-cider-company

The was international cricket today England Women beat New Zealand women in the first of the T20 Internationals.