Sailing day Southhampton England

FYI:  The vacation posts will have a lot of photos so I am going to make them smaller in the posts.  You can make them larger by clicking on them and just scrolling though the photos themselves.  Or individually.  Some of them are very well worth making larger!

The plan was to take a flight from Baton Rouge to Houston, then we had first class tickets from Houston to London directly.  But the Baton Rouge flight took off almost an hour late and we missed the connection in Houston by 5 minutes.

We always build a day into our travel in case of disasters and we needed nearly every second of this one.


We were put on the 4:30 pm direct Houston/Heathrow flight (didn't make it on), then on the 8:30 pm direct Houston/Heathrow flight (got cancelled), then on an 11:30 pm flight to Washington DC Dulles  to sleep overnight in the terminal waiting for the 7 am London flight the next day.

We had no idea we would be on the Washington Dulles flight, we wondered if our luggage knew it would need to be on that flight as well.  We wondered if we would ever see it again because we knew we would be in no place to be able to receive the luggage.

 Finally we made it to London after a 12 hour flight, Frank in the back of the plane sitting next to a very young woman with a 6 month old baby, both of whom cried the  entire light.  And me in the middle section of the plane watching 3 movies trying not to wake the people on either side of me.  Obviously not first class.

We had planned on touring around London a bit but that didn't happen!  Alas, Big Ben.

On Friday, as we rode the bus to the pier we passed at least 3 Ikeas!  The Costco stores I saw Norway and Iceland had 3 stories! Wow!

We were sailing on the Norwegian Jade, a ship we had been on several times before in various locations in Alaska and the Caribbean. 

As we left the Southhampton pier, we were reminded of another famous ship that had also sailed from that great city so many years ago, heading on nearly the same path as we were taking toward Iceland.....the Titanic.  Luckily the passengers on the Jade had a happier cruise.



 It was a clear day when we left port. If I owned a sailboat like this, I would greet the passengers on cruise ships too!  What a lovely way to spend a weekend outing.

As we were sipping our tea and eating crumpets on Deck 12, I don't think I had found those amazing brownies yet, when I realized a thick fog was rolling in.



We watched the cloud come over the ship as the foghorn sounded.  We went from clear day to heavy cloud overhead.  I have never seen a fog like this. 

As the Jade went deeper into the the fog you could see the layers from the ocean looking up to the clearer atmosphere.

I have a number of sunset photos if anyone is into that, let me know, I can share with you.  I play with screwing up the camera settings and taking a bunch of them. 

As we walked down Deck 7 Promenade it was unbelievable to see the fog thick enough to obscure the ship a quarter of the way down the deck.

We sailed like this throughout the night. This was not the only time we would run into this incredible fog on this  trip.

Next stop, Bergen Norway.

Just getting there was tough

The first hurdle was getting to London.  We had a direct flight to Houston from Baton Rouge.  Which took off an hour late, causing us to miss the direct flight with first class tickets from Houston to London.  The woman chuckled as she said, I can put you on this next flight....but you won't make it.  (so why put us on it, duh?)

After we didn't make that flight, we were put on another flight.....which was cancelled.

I stood in the terminal, feeling kinda terminal, and shoved my ticket into on of those machines that  proclaimed "see what connections you can make!" Frank was yelling at me, I thought I might connect with a nice Greek millionaire.  It put me on a flight to Dulles Washington DC/London.

Frank yelled at me for doing that, but I couldn't undo it. After an hour when he got to the front of the line, the customer service rep said , yep, sure enough, he needed to be on that flight as well.

We rushed across the Houston Airport for the THIRD time in 5 hours to a different terminal and got there just as they were closing the doors.  Frank yelled at me the whole way about not wanting to be on that flight.

When we got there, he told the gate attendant he didn't want to be on the flight, she shut the gate down, looked at his stuff, told him he NEEDED to be on the flight.........stopped the plane and got us on.

That is how we ended up sleeping on benches in Dulles Airport Washington DC overnight, and thankfully in London the next day.  It had taken us only 36 hours to get there.  Frank sat next to a woman in the window seat with a 6 month old baby in her lap , both of whom cried the whole way.  Better man than I am, for sure. 

Remember those first class tickets?  We ended up jammed in middle seats for 11 1/2 hours in separate sections of the plane, not even close to each other.

But we were in London!  Now we just had to get to the ship somehow.

Being American and thinking his money ruled the world, we got kicked off three buses before Frank figured out we had to get us some of that English money.  I was just too tired to care at that point. 

We are so traveling with Marchita next time..........And taking less luggage.

Tea Towel Fabrics - Anew!

I feel better about the fabrics now and maybe I can take Sophie's joie de vivre and actually get some rounds on it. 

I also saw a post the other day on Quilted Fabric Art where Carol talked about Seminole Piecing.  It flashed through my mind as exactly what my LAST Tea Towel Quilt needs to get it back on track.

But that will happen later.......maybe........now I want to work on it!  Geez.

Anyway.  Here is what I added.  I figured that if I  am down 50 yards of usage,, I can afford to get a couple of that back for tea towel perfection.  The London Fog towel is really difficult to color match.  But here is what the color experts at the Red Stick came up with.

 I don't know if you can actually see the color of the Bobby's  blue,
but it, like the green grey of the towel, is an odd one.  I previously had selected this a the only thing in my stash that matched.  I felt the yellow dots would also fit in.  It did not.  The dots, which are actually apples, drew your eye directly to them, away from the focus of the  quilt, the tea towel.



So we found this to replace it.  I feel much better about the solid-ness.  This photo is way off the color, adding too much yellow to it.

I also needed another fabric to add into the mix.  I just needed more possibilities to make the rows easier to build.  We came up with this.  It has the same background grey green that the solid grey green has. 

I am happier.  Much happier.  Sophie, head's up!




 

Excitement - Just Wait Till You See THIS!!!

I went to Pilates class and then headed over to the Red Stick Quilt Shop.  (In between the two I stopped at Arby's for lunch.....)

The shop was filled with a ton of people!  And they all were getting fabric cut an buying stuff.  I was looking at yellows when someone said, this is pretty good for not even being open.

Then I remembered they are closed on Mondays!  LOL.  Rachel had a great day for not being open!  And so did I!!!!

Take a look at the most perfect piece of yellow for the London Fog piece.  The pattern mimics the face of Big Ben.  It will be a nice inner border.  i looked o  if there was a grey green but no luck.  So I think I will stay with my green and blue choices in the pile from yesterday.

I am kinda excited to start this one now!