Colin_Cameron

On 12/13/2020 at 2:48 PM, alc13 said:

I'm debating making a traditional (or maybe non-traditional) fruitcake.  Any good recipes out there?

The recipe says this is for an 8inch cake but I find it is a bit thin so I’d either use a 7inch tin or add 25% to everything.

Cream 8oz butter and 8oz soft light-brown sugar until pale and creamy. Then beat in 4 eggs, a little at a time. Stir in 1 1/2 tablespoons black treacle then 9oz plain flour, pinch of salt and 1 level teaspoon mixed spice (premix flour salt and spice will help). 38oz dried mixed fruit and peel, 3oz glacé cherries (halved), and 2oz chopped, blanched almonds.

It says cook at 140C (275F) for 3 hours then turn down to 110C (225F) for another 1 to 1 1/2 hours but I find this far too long. 2 plus 1 is plenty in my oven, but yours will probably be different.

A one kilo bag of mixed fruit is only a couple of oz short so I just add some extra cherries to make up the volume. If your butter is salted just omit the salt in the recipe.

Good luck.

3 hours ago, Bell Boy said:

If you all look carefully enough ......You'll need a magnifying glass or telescope though  😉 You might just catch the back of my head . lol 🤫  

Was just about to ask if anyone had spotted themselves, so you’re the first.

Anyone else? (Or spotted someone you know or recognise)

I think the best explanation was given to me by a Cunard captain, a boat owner himself.

A ship earns it's keep. A boat is a hole in the water, surrounded by wood or plastic, into which you throw money.

Caronia. Part of Sicily which, from memory, included Messina.

OK, so it's not the first time I've been wrong (so I'm told), and no doubt it won't be the last.

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

• April 22: QM2 will arrive at Statue of Liberty at about 6:45 a.m. and sail up the Hudson River

Yup. I definitely remember that bit.

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

• April 23: QM2 will depart the cruise terminal at about 11:30 a.m.

And that bit. We were on Ellis Island.

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

• April 25: both QM2 and QE2 will depart from the cruise terminal, at 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. respectively, sail down the Hudson River and slowly pass the Statue of Liberty at 8:30 p.m. with a fireworks display by Grucci.

And that bit. We were on the Circle Line sightseeing trip to watch the sailaways and the fireworks.

This is the bit that makes me wonder:

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

• April 24: QM2 will arrive in the harbor close to 6 a.m. and at the cruise terminal by 7 a.m.

I have a memory (real or imagined?) of watching her sail past, from somewhere on the Manhattan shore, at some point. And I can guarantee it wasn't at that time of the morning😄. 

But no matter. If people were only out for day trips then they probably didn't stay aboard at night anyway.

5 minutes ago, bluemarble said:

 

I should count this if QM2 was back in port in New York each night. The itineraries I have from qm2.org.uk show her in New York on April 22nd and 23rd, at sea on the 24th, and then back in New York on the 25th. 

Hmm. Now I'm beginning to doubt my memory. 

How long did QM2 sit in Ft Lauderdale after scraping the side of the channel and damaging one of her pods? (Jan 2006?)

47 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Did something happen after 9/11? Did QM2 get stuck in, say, Halifax with passengers on board? I'm just trying to think of unusual circumstances.

Unlikely as 9/11 was two and a half years before QM2 sailed. (Twenty years next year!)

Queen Victoria 2013 

Passenger Choir Carol Concert

Following her Maiden Crossing QM2 was in New York from 22nd - 25th April 2004.

However on 23rd and 24th she went out for day-trips with press and travel agents aboard (they really were guests, not passengers😁) so I'm not sure if you're going to count this one.

Queen Elizabeth 2017

Now you’ve found my level.

81. Oslo

22 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

One occasionally sees a post which reinforces cliches - I would like to hear the “rest of the story”:  

Cliches come into existence for a reason.😄

I don't know the rest of the story. Yet.

It would appear that a few years later the middle and younger son have their own homes. It also looks like the eldest owns several houses in the village, although whether any of them is the 'sister's house', I don't know. I wonder if he had already started building a 'property empire' before the father's death. It would then make sense for him to look after the house.

More digging required.

On 10/10/2020 at 8:44 PM, Kynance said:

I hope you’ll share a photo of the 2020 one in due course. 🎅🏻🎄

No photos yet, but I've decided to do Christmas trees this year.

Following this weeks announcemnt (No more than three households over the holiday period) and a quick poll of family and friends it looks like everyone will be having much smaller gatherings this year. As a result I've got SEVEN cakes to make! 😲

On the plus side I've managed to repurpose a wedding cake I was left with following a twice postponed wedding so only four to actually bake.

Despite having worked in metric units all my adult life I still think in feet and inches, pounds and ounces. That's my excuse for buying twice as much sugar as I needed.😄

More rain today so today's family tree research project was the will of a distant relative who died in 1900. He had three sons and left each of them a pair of curling stones (with handles!!!). He also had an illegitemate daughter with the woman next door and he left her the house. To add insult to injury, as the daughter had already married and emigrated to the USA, the eldest son was charged with the maintenance of the property as long as the daughter owned it. If he objected he didn't get the curling stones😮.  Happy Families anyone?

That looks like the quadruple tap system on either QM or QE. Cold salt, cold fresh, hot salt, hot fresh. Given the clarity of the photo I’m guessing Queen Mary at Long Beach.

On 11/17/2020 at 6:29 PM, Lanky Lad said:

Parts of Scotland have gone into a form of lockdown until 11 December at the earliest.

Just been talking to my dad on the phone and it’s become clear that the ‘Big Picture’ and the ‘Small Picture’ don’t always align. His local supermarket, within walking distance (but not carrying shopping), which is quiet and has big wide aisles is now out of bounds because it is across the county boundary. In theory he has to drive several miles to the next nearest, which has no car park, tight narrow aisles, and is much more crowded. We’ll see how that goes.

He also pointed out that, as long as you follow the procedures, it’s perfectly OK to holiday abroad. But by Friday, for the vast majority, it will be illegal to drive to the airport.

We’ve had a miserable couple of days with snow forecast tonight. Time to get back into the indoor pursuits. I keep avoiding editing cruise videos and have several years to catch up on.

But today was Family Tree Day. I’m fascinated by what my ancestors got up to:

Two brothers that married two sisters, in a double wedding!

A brother and two sisters (surname Campbell), that married a sister and two brothers ( yep, also called Campbell)!

An uncle and his two nephews that all married women with the same surname. Coincidence? More research revealed that the women were born in Scotland, the Falkland Islands, and Texas. But, yes, they were sisters. Further digging showed that a niece married the women’s brother!

When you find a man with a wife called Lillias Walker Henderson, and a daughter called Lillias Walker Henderson, the automatic assumption is that the daughter was named after her mother. But my little antenna were twitching, their ages were too close. It turns out that after the death of his first wife he married someone with exactly the same name as his daughter. The two were both named after their grandmother. Wife and daughter were cousins!

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. (Names have been changed to protect the guilty because, yes, marrying your niece was illegal at the time - actually his late wife’s niece, but still illegal)

Still nobody rich or famous though.

30 minutes ago, Bigmike911 said:

Now we move into the holiday season, ...

We have snow forecast for later this week so I decided to take advantage of the (mostly) dry weekend and get the christmas lights up on a tree in the garden. Not ready to switch them on yet but at least I won't be climbing ladders in the snow/sleet/hail this year.

I tested them before I put them up and every one worked. Now that they're up (you're ahead of me, aren't you?) at least a dozen of them are faulty.

1 hour ago, sfred said:

There should be just enough here to ID the ship. 

 

That would be deck six of QM2 (from deck 7)

5 hours ago, sfred said:

I didn't know that. 

Neither did I. I was just studying photos of both Royal Arcades playing spot the difference.

16 minutes ago, Underwatr said:

Is there another way to interpret it?

Unfortunately I think there is.

Nothing I have seen says that any cruises longer than seven nights have to be in US waters, or to/from/visiting US ports, in order for the line to be barred from US ports.

Taken to extremes it could mean that if Cunard offer a 14 night cruise on QV in the mediterranean, then QM2 could not visit NY.

I don't think that is the intention, but It seems to be a valid interpretation.

It's QV.  The little diamond pattern at the lower edge of the wood is the giveaway.

QE has a zig-zag, or triangular pattern.

9 hours ago, sfred said:

 

One last thought on the recent game for Cunard ports that begin and end with the same letter.   While the below doesn't qualify...

 

Glenelg Scotland UK

 

...it would be great if it did.  The name is also a palindrome.  Unfortunately the pier looks a little small for Cunard.

I had a season ticket for that crossing for many years.

Not sure about this one. Usually called Porto, I have seen it listed in itineraries as ...

Oporto.

 Akaroa, NZ