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| Home again, naturally |
As we slowly progressed with our return back to the UK yesterday, there was an all-pervading gloom of mist and murk hanging in the air. There seemed to be no definition between sky and sea, just a grey vastness. Ahhhh, welcome back home. Throughout our trip, I’ve found it sometimes hard to concentrate on reading as I’ve also wanted to just watch the sea and be mesmerised by the enormity of it and also because I’ve wanted to watch out for marine life.
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| A rather bumpy sea |
After all the fun and excitement of the fashion show, I wasn’t half hungry. Not boring food hungry you understand. Nice, treat sort of hungry. I hadn’t had one of their pretend clotted cream teas for weeks and yesterday seemed the perfect time to sample one of their scones again. They’re only little and were just the sustenance I needed. Then on to the monthly Hadley Zoom call. We started this during COVID as a means to try and keep tabs on dad and we’ve continued with this tradition since then, now keeping tabs on each other. It was lovely to see my sibs and this time away has really brought home to me that importance.
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| Gabrielle's outfit for the Fashion Show - not her choice but she made it work |
We decided that we needed a night in with room service because we were tired and wanted a night off the sauce too. This even though there is half a bottle of pop in the fridge and the remnants of the previous night’s red wine too. Tomorrow’s another day, was our reasoning. Once Gabrielle returned from her rehearsal for the fashion show we ordered two mushroom and cheese omelettes with a side order of fries. And it was delicious. The room service food is top rate and worth having. And a good part of the menu can be ordered at any time, day or night.
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| Valentine's menu - click to open and read it |
After Gabrielle had posted her blog yesterday evening and we had consumed the chocolate strawberries (oh, yum, by the way) we steadily prepped for our Valentine’s night out. Given that neither of us had felt that good, really since we came back from Atacama, this was the first real effort we had put in. The powers that be had ordained that, for this auspicious occasion, we would be able to buy Taittinger Rosé at a £10 discount per bottle. Guess what? We grabbed two! So once scrubbed and primped, we decided to pop a cork. We’d not had a drink for two or three days - horrors - and so it was something of a shock to the system to have alcohol again.
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| Our wake as we travelled past Peru's coastline |
I think word has got through to the tour guides that they have to get us back to the ship when instructed. We made it back with 15 minutes to spare yesterday. I get that they want to give us our money’s worth and they believe the ship won’t go without us. Not the case, as we already know. Being in the desert had been tiring and draining and something of a sensory overload. It was warm with a gentle breeze in places, but we were constantly being warned about the UV. So naturally, we piled the sun protection on, only for the fine sand and dust to stick to us. So, after we set sail, a lovely hot bath was the order of the evening. As we left the northernmost part of Chile, we immediately travelled along the coast of Peru. Not surprisingly, it looked pretty identical. I felt the need to ponder our time in Chile. The positives were they were hugely friendly and welcoming, but the downside is they really need to sort out their road safety.
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| The big girl pants moment |
It was a Glass House type of evening last night. Well, we hadn’t had our fix of the lovely Janice for a few days and she’s always a delight to interact with. Then off to dinner in the restaurant where, yet again, there was a commotion on our arrival. Not due to what either of us was wearing, (on this occasion) but a fantastic display from 10 or so Commersons dolphins leaping around not far from the ship. No one cared that their dinner was going cold, we simply couldn’t miss this bit of nature. No evening entertainment interested us, so a “quiet” night in was planned. But before that, after a fairly bland meal (for me), we decided to give Raffles a go, as it has to be said, I rather fancied another glass whilst watching the night finally close in. Book reading and series-watching features when we’re not doing the late-night entertainment. If you haven’t seen it, we’ve now finished watching Bad Sisters. It’s dark humour and gleefully murderous. So our quiet nights in now are watching the series This is Going to Hurt.
This post is jointly written by Gabrielle and Nick. There will be another post tomorrow with all the pics!
The plan for last night was to go to The Glass House for a small pop and then go for dinner and have a glass of wine and an early night. You know when you have a plan and it goes out of the window? That was us last night.
Since our departure from Cape Verde Islands to noon today, we’ve travelled a distance of 357 nautical miles. When we set off yesterday, we noticed we were “clogging” along. The previous couple of days’ sedate speed seemed to change quite noticeably. Our average speed now is 19.8 knots. We’ve got 1248 nautical miles before we reach our next port of call. Today is a rather humid 25 degrees.
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