Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
It is only 327 days until Christmas! The year is moving along!
I got a note from my cousin Claudia, who said her husband Doug has been having some medical issues. He is back home now and doing well, but it is hard to think that only 74 years ago, Claudia and I had our pictures taken that day my Dad departed for Hawaii on the Hawaiian Pilot, a freighter owned by Matson Lines!
Dang Claudia, we don’t look the same these days! Little did we know what the future would bring!
8:30 am, and I heard noises emanating from the master bedroom; yes, it was Mary, alive and walking! I jumped up instantly at her command and ran to the coffee machine, making her coffee with 1 1/4 teaspoons of honey, 6 1/8th oz of cold milk, and a straw, which had to be precisely 3/8th inch inside diameter!
When I delivered it, I hoped all the measurements were correct because I hate being beaten with her handy, dandy rubber hose (a diameter that does NOT leave marks)!
I spent the remainder of the day in the office or the kitchen, ensuring Mary stayed put and didn’t overdo it. It was like wrestling a bear!
Around 6:00 pm, it was decided dinnertime had arrived, so I threw on two nice filet mignon steaks, prepared two artichokes, and baked some dinner rolls. We had a feast! Soon, I was back in the kitchen doing cleanup duty. It looked like someone had been cooking for an army!
It was time for my new breathing treatment using the nebulizer.
Nebulizers use compressed air, ultrasonic vibrations, or a mesh to break down the liquid medication into tiny particles that can be easily inhaled. This allows the medication to reach the lower airways more effectively than traditional inhalers, which can sometimes deposit medication in the mouth or throat.
Robon Visits The Falkland Islands
We arrived in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas at 8AM. As I expected it was going to be cold, but not to a point where I knew I would be as cold as I was the morning we rounded Cape Horn! I brought winter clothing but I knew I wasn’t going to be warm enough, even with all my layers of clothing, I needed something thicker to stay out in the cold, so I bought a nautical sweatshirt from the ship store to add to my layers.
Once we arrived, Maggie and I were assigned to a mini-van that was going to us to Bluff Cove Lagoon/Rookery about 30 minutes out from the port. We could see from the van there were many different bird species and a lot of penguin’s! We had a very humbling encounter with King, Gentoo, and Magellanic penguins along with an assortment of other birds. Not sure what types, but one reminded me of the seagull in the Little Mermaid Movie, Scuttle. There was another flock of birds, that may have been ruddy-headed geese that moved together in a flock walking past a group of Gentoo penguins that suddenly started to communicate amongst themselves or were all belting out a yell at the geese walking by to stay away! The sound a penguin makes is a cross between a dolphin and a seagull (to my ears anyway). Being able to observe the penguins in their natural habitat, gathering in groups, swimming in and out of the lagoon, some poking each other, others burrowing into the sand or into their little homes they built into the sand, was amazing. There were small flag markers near the shoreline and at the bluff where we go up to/not cross which were very close to wear the penguins were gathered. They paid us no attention but from time to time one of them would look in our direction to acknowledge we were there and then would go on about the business at hand… grooming, swimming, and laying around on the sand. Maggie again, took incredible pictures and video… one of which she set to a piece of music from The Sound of Music, “Goodbye, Farewell” as they waddled their way to the lagoon and dove in for a swim. Really, did I just see that? kept playing in my head.
The Falkland Islands is a British ruled territory, therefore it came as a great surprise that tea service would be provided after our time observing the penguins. It was just what was needed after being outside in the cold. We walked in to a small and unquie tea room, that had art work on the walls, British flags along the edge of the ceiling and strangely enough a framed photo of Zelensky, which was the same day we found out later in the evening about the “encounter” with him at the White House. Back to the tea room, there was also a wood burning stove in the middle of room that provided heat to the little tea house. I call it a tea house but it really was more like a long storage unit, separated into individual 50×50 rooms, one being a tourist center, the next being the tea room, the last being a gift shop. Hattie, an elderly, British woman, owned the tea house and the gift shop and she had made all the delicious assorted tea cookies, breads, loafs, etc. I was sure to thank her after picking up a few items from the gift store.
Back on the ship, it was Orange Party night, celebrating the Netherlands. Our cabin stewards had left a dutch treat on our beds to kick off the evening – Stroopwafel!. Bob and I ate a lot of these when were in Holland/Amsterdam. After clipped in my orange feather/hair decor, we got a couple of seats at the bar, and enjoyed the festivities. We met a nice english couple that we joined in a game of trivia to kick off the Orange Party. We lost, but it was fun to test our memories and to see if knew a few brain teasers. To kick-off the dance portion of the party, our line dance teachers called up the dancers to start it off with the Electric Slide (to the original Electric Slide song). Maggie opted not to join but I DID! it was a lot of fun. We hung out for a couple of cocktails and people watching… after about an hour we headed to our cabin to crash after a long and cold day.
Love to All,
Robin
