Two good reasons to celebrate

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. 

Bridge privilege

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.

The end of the world

Gabrielle and Nick at the End of the World

Once in our finery, we minced off to The Glass House. We were ooooohhhhhhed and arrrrrrrrrhhhhhed over with lots of questions from Janice if all had been ok on our last visit as she had not seen us since our renewal of vows evening and had everything been ok? We had to assure her that all had been more than ok, it was simply that we were desperately trying to keep the alcohol intake to a reasonable level. And failing fairly spectacularly, it has to be said.

Another emotional trip

The whalebone arch outside Port Stanley Cathedral

The further south we trundled, the cooler it was getting. The sun was still very much with us though, with a lovely sunset and lights finally fading around 9.30 last night.

As mentioned, we’ve really struggled with The Falklands stop, as what we’d like to do, we can’t, and what we can do, felt, quite frankly, rather tame. Initially, we booked to do the Panoramic Stanley Highlights tour. A safe bet, on a coach. Then once we acknowledged that my hip issue was seriously improving, we made valiant efforts to change our tour for something a little more exciting. By then, most other tours were sold out and we finally decided to change to a farm tour. It seemed informative and intimate, with only a small number of guests allowed.

Whales, dolphins and errm a naturist.

See, that caught your attention now didn't it? But before I get on to today's events. More on last night. We were invited to the obligatory Captain's welcome party. Sounds grand? It's not. It's a bit of a bun fight...or Champagne fight to be more precise and very little happens. The world and her husband get frocked up, join a long queue, smile sweetly to the senior bridge team, get a glass of pop and mingle. The Captain has some words and everyone trots off again.