DamianG

Hi all, I've not posted for a while after a difficult month but I still enjoy reading everyone's news and the debates on here. My father passed away mid-November after a rotten 2 years for him. He went from fit and active to disabled in no time back in 2020 due to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and the small chance he had of recovery disappeared during the 4 months he spent in 3 different hospitals whilst they tried to diagnose his symptoms. He moved into care in 2021 and remained mentally sharp with his usual friendliness and kindness towards others, despite being wheelchair bound. He was liked by everyone, especially the staff who appreciated his willingness to chat and listen to whatever they had to say. On the 16th November I got a message that he had been taken to A&E before 8am and I got there with mum around 9am. We thought he would bounce back as usual but the doctor told us that he had caught pneumonia overnight and his chances of survival were slim. It was a complete shock as he was fine the day before. My sister joined us and we spent all day with him. He perked up in the afternoon but went downhill again and eventually passed away around 9:40pm. He was still in A&E as they hadn't been able to find a ward bed to accommodate him. When he stopped breathing I went to find a nurse to tell them and they were completely shocked. It was the same with the doctor that they subsequently sent. They had just come onto the new shift and hadn't had a chance to catch up with the notes. You see horror stories in the press and on TV of A&E being crazy busy but it's hard to really take it in until you see it for yourself. There were patients everywhere, on trolleys and every spare seat. One lady in particular has stuck in my mind, as she was laying on a trolley near a corridor that I passed through when taking breaks. She was there mid-afternoon and still there when we left around 10:30pm. It took a week for the death certificate to be issued, and we are still sorting out the financial side of things. The funeral arrangements caused a lot of heartache, but ultimately we had the best day we could have had, with over 200 in church for a lovely service, and it was a bright, clear day. I'm not the most confident public speaker, but managed to keep my nerves in check to deliver the eulogy, and I got a round of applause afterwards. So many people I didn't know came to introduce themselves and say well done afterwards. We also saw childhood friends for the first time in years. The afternoon reception went very well, and I stayed until the last relatives left at 7:15pm. We are now back in Brithdir at my sister-in-laws for a few days getting away from it all, and it's just the ticket. Teddy made friends with a cow and we enjoyed some bracing fresh air at Barmouth yesterday. We've had a mini-Christmas dinner with a turkey and ham pie, then a "Boxing Day" style buffet with loads of snack food and home made mulled wine. It's been lovely getting away and having time to reflect. I'm looking forward to everyone's Christmas news over the next week or so. Happy Christmas all. Damian

What a great relief! Thank you for the update.

Coming back to the original subject when we claimed for a missing port it included our son (then aged 11) so we got 3 x payouts from our insurer.

The MDR staff will only sing Happy Birthday if someone in your party has requested it or perhaps ordered a birthday cake. When we ordered a cake for our son’s birthday the maitre’d had it ready & then organised the waiters to do the singing. We certainly didn’t tip them at that time (though we did tip our waiters and maitre’d at the end of the cruise as we always used to in those days).

It was 10 years ago so maybe outdated but we have happy memories of sailing away from Southampton out on deck with a mince pie in one hand and a glass of mulled wine in the other. We had very good weather on the whole with it being warm enough to sit out on deck whilst sailing in the Mediterranean and we had a particularly memorable Christmas Eve in Cartagena enjoying drinks in the sunshine at the port before embarkation followed by watching Santa climb down the funnel during the sail away. The build up to Christmas was fantastic though the day itself was a little quiet around the ship though we didn’t begrudge the crew some downtime on such a day. Christmas Day evening was lovely with a special dinner then ball in the evening. It was quieter onboard the next few days until New Year’s Eve which was another memorable experience. I hope that you have a great cruise.

You have my sympathy, after being unexpectedly made redundant in 2018 I applied for over 50 jobs without success, with some galling reasons stated such as "over-qualified" and in one instance "you know more about our processes than the staff that we have employed now." Fortunately, I caught a break via contacts at my old employer and a temporary contract eventually became full time. But for that I don't think I would have got anywhere. Apparently, unemployment levels in the UK are the lowest since 1974 but a large part of that is due to the sharp rise in the number of working-age adults (aged 50-64) considered to be "economically inactive", meaning they are neither unemployed nor looking for work. I think that I would have been classified as one of those at the time of my unemployment even though I was making every effort to find work.

Reminds me of when one of our sofas attacked my wife Michelle and broke her toe. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Indeed, similarly those who joined their company's final salary pension scheme (35 years ago in my case) only to have it changed to "career average" on a take it or leave it basis.

If the worst comes to worst I'll use the opportunity to do my bit for the planet and save a bit of water by standing on the balcony starkers waiting for the inevitable.

We took part in an online wine tasting recently via Zoom. It was great fun though as usual they spoke at length about the first two samples then we ended up rushing through the last four. P.S. I was going to type "Naked Wine tasting..." but then I thought of all the comments that might attract!

Panic over for us, as quickly pointed out by my wife we are booked on Arvia next August (not Iona). What a dozy sausage I am sometimes. Anyway, a quick check of the deck plan shows Arvia cabin 10742 further to the side next to the corner suite so we should be okay. Thanks again for all the comments.

I've just read the "Cruise Mummy" website list of cabins to avoid and ours is one of them for the reasons mentioned above. Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.

Oh heck! We have 10742 booked for our cruise next August and it's a school holiday cruise so there's bound to be someone splashing around in the infinity pool regularly. We had 10740 last April and didn't notice this at all but then again it wasn't generally warm enough for the pools to be that popular. We thought we'd "upgrade" to the slightly larger cabin! Did you speak to the passengers in the cabin next door? I'm just wondering if they commented or said if they'd tried reporting it to reception maybe? Thanks for posting this.

Expensive but looks lovely and from your description sounds like you get what you pay for in terms of quality. Enjoy!

Did someone mention Christmas? It has just arrived in our house courtesy of Laithwaites. Seems earlier than ever but roll on 1st December.

I bought mine from Jones of Oakwood, remember them from your time in Leeds? It was great having an electrical superstore locally. I also later bought my first "wide" screen TV from them. It was smaller than the monitor I now have at home for work purposes!

I've never seen a whale in 20+ cruises despite being the sort of person who likes to sit out and enjoy the sea view. Good for you! Did you try to take pictures or was it all too brief?

The only time we’ve pushed our luck inadvertently was when we were in Bilbao on my wife’s 40 birthday. I took her to a fancy restaurant which opened at 2pm & we tried a tasting menu which was brilliant. However, it as only after the 9th (and final) course that we realised it was after 4pm with the last shuttle to Getxo scheduled for not long after and the pick up point being a brisk 20 minute walk away. We made it (just) and were the only passengers on the bus. Typically though we were nowhere close to being the last onboard as at least two dozen strolled down the dockside just before the scheduled all aboard time.

We've had ours just over a month now. I was interested to see if it really did reduce our energy consumption by not having the oven on as much, so I compared the usage over 3 years: Electricity: September 2020 196 kw, September 2021 233kw (builders used a lot), September 2022 139kw. Gas over the same timeframe, 184kw, 192kw, 102kw. Quite a difference and everything is done so much quicker (and I'm no longer overcooking our Sunday roasts). I hope that you have similar success with yours. Damian