Cruising the Three Seas, part 4 (finale)

Our cruise ended where it began, in Dubrovnik.

Because we had a late flight home, this turned into a bonus day of exploration. Sarah and I went for a little wander into the port, where we found giant pencils and a Pope.

But the real highlight was discovering the uanassuming-from-the-outside, very-cool-on-the-inside Red Museum, chronicling the history of communist Yugoslavia.

Not much to look at from the outside 

The museum is a mix of history detailing how Yugoslavia came into being and artefacts from the communist era, which began in armed struggle against the Nazi occupiers in World War 2.

I kind of knew that Marshall Tito broke with Stalin and kept Yugoslavia independently communist. It allowed for a more consumer-focused state with promoting tourism as official policy.

Remember Yugo cars? I do!

The Sarajevo Olympics were the first winter Olympics held in a communist country. I liked their wolf mascot!

It was a fantastic, interactive museum with the opportunity to listen to top Yugoslavian tunes of the era.

It turns out this was the only museum I made it to on the cruise holiday, but I would rate it 10/10. And it had a fun little gift shop too. (Even the communist museums make you exit through the gift shop!)

So that was the final bonus morning of the cruise. We were able to have lunch on board the ship before getting in the coach for a very scenic ride back to the airport. 

Cruise whimsy

The crew of the Marella Explorer 2 were all lovely and some had a real gift for whimsy. The cabin stewards on the turn-down service amused themselves with crafting animals out of towels. It was always fun heading back from the evening entertainment and wondering what towelimals would be waiting for us.

There were some other quirky touches on board as well. Nobody ever explained the fibreglass cows.

I think I saw a blue cow too, but I didn't take a picture. 

Here's a top tip - magnetic hooks to hang stuff on the walls. Dave had done his pre-cruise research and bought a really useful set. I ended up with a cap rack at my end of our cabin.

Speaking of cabins, this signage amused me. Signs don't just get put up for no reason. I suspect some buffoon has hung his suit from a fire sprinkler in the past!

I was impressed by how well oiled the various processes were. On our last night we left our hold luggage outside our room and it was whisked away and sorted out. We didn't see it again until it appeared on the carousel in Birmingham Airport. Things like that made the trip very easy. 

We had one minor issue when my sister got glutened by one of the restaurants. I've learned that customer service is judged best when something has gone wrong and people try to set it right. At our next mealtime the head waiter hovered over us to make sure everything was OK and extra care was taken to make sure my sister's plates were absolutely gluten-free.

A side effect of studying business psychology is looking at workplaces and trying to ascertain the culture. The crew vibe seemed very positive, professional and yet informal. The captain introduced himself as Captain Richard in his announcements and stood on the quayside saying hi to passengers as they disembarked. All the staff were happy to chat and answer questions about ship life. They were friendly without being false and I can't commend them highly enough.

On our last evening on board, after the entertainment show concluded, members of the crew were all invited up onto the stage to receive a round of applause too. It was a lovely way to recognise the whole team, and the whole team deserved to be thanked for making our trip so brilliant. 

New additions to my collection of philatelic passports

Philatelic passports are issued at stamp exhibitions. Collectors stick stamps in them and get them 'cancelled' or postmarked. Sometimes the postmarks are as interesting as the stamps (see this example I posted about in 2023). I did a presentation about them to my stamp collecting association a few years back too.

In the past couple of weeks I've received a couple of new philatelic passports, including my first one from India. That was issued in 2011. I also got an American one released in 1996 when the big international stamp exhibition was in Atlants, where the Olympics were being held that year.

The Olymphilex passport is interesting because it includes a lot of detail in the write up of the countries inside - both their philatelic heritage and their Olympic performances. 

There's a nice commemorative cancel on the USA page.

Meanwhile whoever owned this passport chose a Romanian miniature sheet that was too big for the space where it was meant to be stuck in.

The gymnast on the stamp in the middle of the sheet is Nadia Comăneci, who was the first ever gymnast to score a perfect 10 at the Olympics (in Montreal in 1976). 

There was also a British Olympics stamp in the passport, but the postmark is upside down. Come on, Royal Mail employee, you had one job!

There was a supplement issued for the passport, which also has a few stamps in.

The Monaco stamp in the supplement also ticks another interest of mine - baseball on stamps!

The Indian passport is much smaller. The heyday for these style passports was definitely the 90s when stamp collecting was much more popular and every big show had a big passport. This has died off now, as fewer national postal administrations go to the big shows (like Europhilex that I visited last year) and many of them don't bother with passports any more.

Philatelic passports have been a lot thinner in the 21st century. But there are some interesting countries in the Indiapex passport, and some interesting stamps. I particularly liked this Danish stamp with a cartoon of a kid who's foot has turned into a sock puppet.

A cool rabbit on the Malaysian postmark.

A mischievous looking truck on the Swedish postmark (over a rather dull looking owl).

My favourite stamp in the passport is this round one from the Pitcairn Islands. I'm a sucker for round stamps. There's a lovely flower on the cancellation too. Unfortunately there is a huge mistake on the page with two spelling errors in the heading rendering them as the "Pitcrain Inlands."

And the British page is very weird. An old, pre-decimalisation stamp, that was issued to celebrate the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) in 1967! 

I'm guessing Royal Mail didn't officially go to Indiapex, as the cancellation is by Stanley Gibbons, one of the world's best known stamp dealers. They must have decided it was a useful way for them to use up some old stock!

International Ice Hockey

A couple of weeks back, my friend Steve mentioned that Olympic qualifying ice hockey matches were taking place in Cardiff this month. Great Britain had three games lined up as part of their qualifying campaign and we decided to go and watch. Bryan and Tony joined us for a fun night out.

We went to the first evening game of the tournament - Great Britain v China. I was expecting a reasonably close game - GB are 20th in the World Rankings, while China are 26th. However, it turned into a bit of a blow out, with GB racking up a 10-1 victory.

GB came onto the ice in attack mode and peppered the China goal with shots. We were sat behind the goal, and the netminder was kept very busy. He did well to only concede two in the first period, making a number of fine reflex saves. 

The second period was quite dull for us because we were sat behind the GB goal and saw barely any action. Meanwhile at the other end of the rink, GB scored five goals. GB scored again at our end in the third period before China finally got a goal. I was feeling a bit sorry for them by that point so cheered when it went in. It's a long way to travel from China to Wales to then get tonked. 

It's rare I'm in a crowd that's chanting "We want ten! We want ten!" Even rarer that the crowd gets its wish. But the tenth goal went in to a loud cheer. We then had the amusement of a broken scoreboard reading GB 0-1 China, because it wouldn't display a two digit score. 

It was a very clean game, with a handful of players serving two minute penalties in the sin bin, for fairly innocuous fouls. There were no silly fights or roughing, which meant both teams just got on with the hockey. GB used the boards well, sending the puck round to players on the other side of the ice to switch the play with devastating effect. China had some good players but they played more as individuals rather than as a team and could rarely get on the offensive.

Great Britain are playing Serbia and Romania in their next two qualifiers over the weekend with the aim of making it through to the next round of qualifying. 

Every time I go to watch ice hockey I remember how much I enjoy it. Even watching the techs wielding power tools and driving big vehicles as part of the playing surface maintenance is fun!

June 2022 - a summer month of wet weekends

Well, June is gone and we are now over halfway through 2022. I had a busy month settling into my new job with plenty keeping me occupied at the weekends too. Unfortunately it felt like the weekends were wet when I wanted to be outside and sunny when I wanted to be inside!

At the start of the month I cashed in the Lego Store gift card that my former work colleagues gave me as a parting gift. Among the heap of Lego goodies I purchased was this epic set.

Yes, that's right. Optimus Prime, heroic leader of the noble Autobots, in all his original 1980s style glory! I remember this being an apex toy when I was a kid - I envied my friends who had one. This model actually converts from robot to truck and back without having to take the Lego apart. It's fab!

The Dog's Trail display of Snoopy statues located around Cardiff, Caerphilly and Porthcawl came to an end with a special weekend extravaganza outside City Hall. Cathy and I braved the rain to visit the statues, including Tally, which was one of the statues that we saw had been vandalised in the first few days of the trail. We were glad to see Tally had made a full recovery.

After seeing all the Snoopys we walked back through the city centre. There was a pop up shop selling American sports merchandise. Long story short, I got myself a new lid (as the kids say).

I spent the one sunny Saturday visiting a stamp fair for the first time since before the pandemic, mainly to attend the Annual General Meeting of the British Thematic Association. I wasn't intending to buy anything, but I picked up a few items for my 'Cymru a Gymraeg' collection that I'm working on. 

I got a couple of fun stamps for Cathy too. They feature the mascots for the Rio Olympics and Paralympics. 

Another wet Saturday was spent at the Grangetown Festival where the Friends of Grange Gardens had a stall. The weather was a mix of thundery downpours and bright sunshine. At least we were able to prove that our tea towels with a screenprint design of the park were both very absorbent and colour fast!

Our gazebo was also conveniently located next to the war memorial statue so I felt pretty safe when the lightning started because that is a massive lightning rod right there.

And I even had time to experement with some paint schemes for one of my Blood Bowl teams. I wanted to paint them chocolate and cream, and mixed my own pinky cream. But I wasn't too happy with that and bought a more yellowy shade on one of my trips to Firestorm Games. Here is a half and half shot with both shades of cream on show.

I had already played a game of Blood Bowl in June and I'm delighted to say that it wasn't too long before these guys were getting an outing. A game review will follow!

A second "decade in review" blog post

Back in 2010 I did a summary of the preceding decade and concluded by saying “Roll on 2020!” (Oh, how that feels hilarious right now with 2020 being a terrible year in so many ways.)

Sometimes I find that when I go back to old blog posts, reading that review feels like reading the life of a different person. I've always been struck by that (possibly untrue) statistic that says all the cells in our body are replaced over an 8 year cycle, so in a way that blogpost was written by an entirely different person.  But, anyway, ten years later, I'm still here and still blogging, albeit not as frequently as I did back then. So, a decade on, I thought I may as well review what I have been up to from my early-mid-30s to my early-mid-40s. 

I’ll do this on a year by year basis and just pick a couple of things per year. Most of the links will be to my original blog posts about things.

2010

The big things happened here on 1 day in particular, the 1st April. This was the day I had a job interview to go and work in the NHS, returned back to my current employer where I was called aside and given my official redundancy notice, and then in the evening I went to the theatre and saw Dirk Benedict in a Columbo play. Dirk Benedict was Face Man in the A Team. We used to pretend we were the A-Team in the playground at school and we all wanted to be Face. I was star-struck, as you can tell in this photo.

On the 4th May (Star Wars Day) I started my NHS job and I have been proud to work in the NHS ever since. 

2011

The big thing about 2011 was becoming an uncle for the first time. Baby Joy arrived in our lives. She yawned while I was talking to her on the first day she met me and has been tired of my antics ever since.

I've subsequently accrued four more niblings (that's a real word!) during the decade. They're all cool.

The footballing highlight of the year was a trip to the Emirates to see Shrewsbury play Arsenal in the league cup. I bought my first half-and-half scarf. #NoRegrets. Shrewsbury were even winning for a bit and the fans sang that Arsene Wenger was getting sacked in the morning. He stayed on another 7 years.

2012

The big event this year was the Olympics. I remember getting up really early to see the Olympic Torch being carried through Grangetown. 

During the actual games, I went to see the Olympic football in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, including a double header of group games and the third place play-off match.Is still think it was a swizz that they promised us a medal ceremony then decided at the last minute that the third place winners would receive their bronze medals the next night in London. It gave me an opportunity to see a rare sight, a Great Britain international team.

I also almost got eaten by a hippo in Paris, when we visited the city for my sister-in-law Abby's 40th birthday.

2013 (there's a sort of review of the year here)

The stand out thing for me was going to London with Connor to see the Tragically Hip play a gig in Trafalgar Square to celebrate Canada Day. We then went the following night to see them play a gig in Camden. 

Later in the year Cathy and I spent our fifteenth wedding anniversary building a Lego camper van.

2014

I can't really blog anything about my experience doing Jury service, but I found it hugely interesting and there was an incident during the judge's summing up which made the national newspapers. 

I also did a work placement in a health board comms team that coincided with the Daily Mail spending an entire week running stories smearing the reputation of NHS Wales. They literally dug up story after story from the preceding ten years, many of which had been resolved, and ran them as if they were all happening that week. I learned a lot about what utter scumbags some sections of the press can be in that week. The photo is from the flu vaccination campaign I was involved in.

My work placement was based in Caerleon, where I also started my MSc course in Business Psychology. That had an unexpected outcome. In the first module we did a session on motivation and burnout and my scores were a lot higher than any of my fellow students. It was a good indication that I needed to move jobs.

2015

Three big things happened to me in 2015. Firstly, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in January. That came as a shock and I was put on some hardcore medication because I was extremely ill.

I lost weight (over 10kgs; 4 inches off my waist; 2 t-shirt sizes) and got my blood glucose back into the healthy range. For the last year and a half I have been off diabetes medication. I haven't blogged much about having Type 2 Diabetes. There is a lot of stigma attached to it, and it's the punchline in a lot of jokes. It takes a certain amount of confidence to tell people you have it

In June I started a new job, still in the NHS, taking on a national role as a clinical network manager. I'd spent 5 years in my previous job and had reached a point where I needed to move. I took a lot of good memories with me.

Two months after I started my new job my Grandma died. She had been hospitalised after a fall, but that was just toward the end of a long decline. I gave a tribute at her funeral. This photo taken in 2014 is one of the last photos I took of her. I like it because you can see the mischief in her eyes.

2016

I turned 40 in 2016 and had a big party. The next month we went on a massive road trip in the USA and Canada. We watched the Red Sox at Fenway on Star Wars night. We went to Cooperstown, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. We went on pilgrimage to Kingston, Ontario. We fell in love with Toronto and visited Niagara Falls.

(Those pancakes were the "healthy" breakfast option. They came with fruit!)

2017

Our holiday the following year was a bit more low key. We had a day exploring Lundy, which felt like visiting the end of the world even though we didn't even really leave the Bristol Channel.

I also graduated with my MSc. It was a lovely graduation ceremony and I felt very pleased to have completed the course, given some of the difficult things that had happened in the duration. One of my favourite pieces of work was analysing the psychology of Lego's marketing. My final piece of work seemed to uncover a link between personal self-worth and a diminished opinion of your manager.

My gigs this year were a bit eclectic. Midnight Oil in London (after many year thinking I would I never get the chance to see them in concert again) and Sir Tom Jones, recording a TV show in Cardiff Bay.

2018

Shrewsbury Town went to Wembley twice, and lost both times. They are five for five in losing there now. I can't even express how incredibly frustrating the 2017-2018 season ultimately was.

Cathy and I had a better time in London a couple of months later when we went and saw The Muppets live at the O2 Arena. It was brilliant. The Electric Mayhem rock!

The second half of the year was spent in a state of flux because we had our kitchen gutted and rebuilt. It was a very stressful experience. I really love our new kitchen but I've yet to take any photos that do it justice. Or show the finished floor.

Cathy had a lot of health news in 2018, beginning with a visit to Addenbrookes in Cambridge where she was given a diagnosis of lipodystrophy. It's an ultra-rare condition, affecting fewer than 4 people per million. I always knew she was special. Then towards the end of the year she was diagnosed with cancer and had to have surgery. We literally had the kitchen and other construction work finish on the Friday and she had her surgery on the Monday. Thankfully they got it all in one go. It was a stressful way to end the year and I was glad to see the back of 2018!

2019
The last year up for review. I went out to Pizza Hut with Cathy one night and didn't take my phone. Cathy had a message on her phone from my brother asking if she knew where I was. So I rang him. We were due to go on a fishing weekend together and I thought he was calling to get me to pay my half of the costs.

He wasn't.

When I called him back, he told me my Dad had died.

I'm still getting used to not having Dad phoning me every week. In my tribute to him at the funeral I told a story about a time he was described as being "stuck on transmit". I miss those transmissions.

I miss my Dad.

Trawling through photos for this blogpost I found a few of him that I'd forgotten. I really like this one of him with my nephew in 2014.

The rest of 2019 was a bit of a blur in comparison. There was the trip to Belfast to see Barry Town play in the Europa League, and we had a lovely week in Caernarfon in the autumn. But most of the year was spent helping my Mum sort out stuff in her house and slowly coming to terms with not having Dad around.

So that's where I will close out this inordinately long post. After the optimism of the post back in 2010, I have no desire to tempt fate by saying roll on 2030! Hopefully I will still be blogging then. If not, well, this was 2010-2019.