I had a good night’s sleep last night.  The slow rocking motion didn’t bother me and probably helped. All I could wish for is a fan for more air movement.  But that’s me.

After waking late I did two laps of the Promenade Deck.  They signpost it as three laps being 1 mile, so each lap must be about 500m.  I did another lap in the afternoon, so that’s more than I’m doing at home. Wow, exercise is the big thing with all our passengers.  We are all of the same age group, 60 and upwards. All those geriatrics are striding out along the deck, almost as a race. Everyone passes me. My stride is quite short and I simply can’t walk any faster.  I was stopping frequently and one Perth guy seemed to take a shine to me, touching me repeatedly on the shoulder.  He was an old guy, nothing sinister in it, but gee, he was a tactile kind of bloke.  I met his wife after a while and she said she brought five four litre casks of wine on board! He doesn’t drink, so it’s all for her. Wow, she’s a drinker.

I had a big breakfast at 0930, took the air for a while, then crashed from 1045am until 1pm. It was a good sleep.

Then I found the library, hoping to do some internet.  Hah!  Double hah!  They charge 50p per minute.  That’s GBP30 per hour or A$55.55.  They must be joking, but they’re not.  Granted, it’s a satellite connection, but there’s no way I’d pay that, so no internet for me.  Perhaps it’s for the best.  I wrote this diary each day in the cabin, so this is why it’s slamming in in a massive post now – 4,900 words and about 30 pictures.  Why do I do it? Well, someone might be interested, I think the pictures are pretty good and it’s my web diary too.  I make a book out of this blog, updated every few months. Someone in the 30^th century might read it!

I had lunch at 3pm – you can eat at any time, it’s only a buffet.  All I wanted was some fruit salad, but they provided mini seafood rolls and prawn sandwiches which I found too hard to resist.

Lazing on the Lido deck afterwards I was falling asleep and jerking awake as the ship rolled, but I realised this deck has a bar beside the pool, so from 6pm I had a few beers.  And a double G&T.  A pint of Stella is GPB3.70 which is AUD6.85.  That’s a little cheaper than I pay at home, so it’s not too bad.  The double G&T was GPB6.50, A$12.00!

The stern wake.  I found this very relaxing. 
I shot a couple of minutes of hi-def video which I'll make into a loop.

Earlier in the day I read the daily ship’s activities sheet and it said the ship was to berth at Padang Bai, not Benoa.  Oh no!  Padang Bai is out on the SE coast about 30Km from Sanur.  I don’t want to be out there and have to catch long distance transport to where I want to be.  However, I got talking to a Sydney couple at the bar who told me the info sheet is old and we do berth at Benoa after all.  I’ll check tomorrow.

I had dinner in the Belvedere Buffet and it was not good.  I chose the Indian food side.  When the tandoori chicken looks and cuts like a Staedtler white pencil rubber, and the taste of the tandoori fish is indistinguishable from the chicken, both being tough and rubbery,things are not good.   To disguise the taste, I had a 250ml galss of NZ Sauvignon Blanc costing GBP6.50 = AUD12.03. That is a bit much.

The reason I’m choosing these expensive drinks is that the travel agency told me they’d given me $200 on-board credit to make up for the booking shambles.  I checked again at Reception and this time they did recognise my credit, so I could afford to spend up, as it was free money.

The cabin steward finally got me some ice to keep my insulin cold.  Brian and Maureen  (these Aussie names!) said their fridge works fine –it’s very cold and almost freezes. They’re on the same deck, so I must have a faulty fridge.  There’s my luck again.

Boy, this is a geriatric cruise. I knew it would be, but I’ve been keeping an eye out for single widows or divorcees looking for a bit of company.  I haven’t seen anyone!  Ugly old women attached to equally ugly old men.  And all boring as batshit.

Not many pictures today – there’s nothing to shoot.

The Queen Mary II departs Fremantle 6 March 2014

I’m back on air, after a week with no internet.  It felt a bit frustrating at times to be so out of touch.  Boy, we’ve certainly come to rely on it.  It’s part of daily life now, for me anyway.

So here goes with eight days of posts in the form of my diary of the trip.

_________________________________________

Thursday 6 March 2014  Departure from Fremantle on the P&O Arcadia

What a day! At this moment, 9.15pm, I am upset and angry on board Arcadia.  Uh oh, Pete’s upset again, what a surprise. It’s my normal state, isn’t it?  Maybe I shouldn’t have been upset when I found that P&O had cancelled my ticket without telling me.  Or finding that the fridge in my cabin doesn’t work (I need it to keep my insulin cold) and getting a dismissive attitude from Reception. “It’s not a fridge sir, it’s just a chiller.” (They never followed up – no-one ever came to look at it. Other passengers told me theirs is really cold.)  Things on the ship aren’t available or can’t be done or don’t agree with what I’ve been told.  So far.

Start with the good things.

The cabin is very nice.  Even though it’s an inside cabin with no porthole, I don’t feel claustrophobic.  It’s like a 4 or 5 star hotel room and quite large. There’s a queen sized bed with nice linen, the decor is very tastefully done, I’ve got an L shaped couch, an armchair and another chair, a small table and a fresh chrysanthemum on it.  And a 24” LCD TV.

The bathroom is en-suite and plenty big enough.  Good shower.  Lots of cupboard and wardrobe space. A safe in the wardrobe.  Mood lighting. A desk to write at.  All in all, very nice.

On the aft pool deck the entertainment guys were going in overdrive, playing loud music and getting everyone to move with it. He was trying to get the Queen Mary passengers to respond, but to no avail.  What a reserved lot they were.  They must have heard his calls to wave, but very few did.

The Queen Mary II passengers.  What a stuffy lot!

The feeling on our ship was great.  Even though I didn’t join in all the dances, I thought it was fun.  I was feeling quite “pumped”. 🙂

The departure of both ships, the Arcadia and the Queen Mary from Fremantle, was delayed an hour because, I was told, someone hadn’t turned up. The Queen Mary II was in front of us and I’m not sure who was lacking a passenger, them or us, but I got to see the QM II ease away from the wharf and motor out into the sunset. It was quite spectacular.

The Queen Mary II

They don’t need tug assistance because they’ve got side thrusters, so they just very slowly start moving away after they’ve cast off.  Notice how I know all these nautical terms?  Aft, cabin, cast off, deck.  I’m an old salt from Rockingham days.

The sun sets on the British Empire.  Bloody Poms everywhere.

Shortly after 7pm we too pushed away, turned 180deg. and then headed out through the sea walls to the ocean.  A nice cool breeze and calm sea meant it was super smooth.

At 7.15pm all the lights of Perth, Fremantle and Rockingham stretched for tens of kilometres in both directions.  Perth is no small city!  By any world standards, we’re big and this is the way to see it. Lights as far as the eye can see.

That’s the good bit.  Now for the P&O hassles.

When I arrived at the terminal at 1030am, P&O did not have my name on the passenger list!  When I checked my suitcase in downstairs they didn’t have a cabin number to assign it too.  “Just go over there please sir, and wait.”

So after a five minute wait I was ushered upstairs for more waiting, an hour and a half before check in started at 1220pm.  I got through the chaotic queues (the aisles are too narrow!) only to find that they really didn’t have a booking for me.  “Hmmm, please wait over there, sir, while I look into this”, and he took my ticket and passport away.  As of now, I still don’t have my passport – they keep it! Not happy about that.

I had paid by BPay last week, directly to the travel agency. It seems that Holiday Planet didn’t pay P&O, so P&O cancelled my ticket two days ago, without telling me.  Yet I had a confirmed e-ticket and a booking number and a cruise passenger number.

All this took about 90 mins to sort out, so I twiddled my thumbs some more.  “A diabetic never willingly goes without food.”  I was hungry, but at the small bar in the passenger terminal the only thing I could get was chips or a blueberry muffin.  So I settled for the $4 muffin and $3.50 (!) for a bottle of water.

Finally at about 2.30pm they came and got me and I went through check in.  The travel agent lady said she’d given me $200 credit on the ship as compensation.  That’s something I suppose, but when I asked about it at Reception, they didn’t know anything about it.  We’ll see.

Next job, take my insulin pens and put them in the fridge.  But the fridge is barely cool, let alone cold.

I ask at reception for the fridge to be turned on or adjusted. “Oh no, sir, they are only meant for chilling.”  So there’s no fridge in the cabin after all.

“Well, I need to keep my insulin refrigerated. What can I do?”  Um, phone call in Urdu or something (they’re all Indians) and I’m told to go to the Medical Centre between 3-6pm and they’ll store it for me.

So I arrive at 3.30pm and it’s closed. Dial 999 in emergency.  Oh well, I’ll leave it until later.

My suitcase had arrived at my cabin by now so that was good.  I settled down for a nap but was woken by a faint announcement over the PA of a lifeboat drill at 4.30pm, so that was that.

After we reach the open sea, I tried the desk again about keeping my insulin cool.  They don’t seem to understand what I want or why.  But, I say, there must be hundreds of diabetics on this ship.  Given that nearly all the passengers look 60 or over, with several in wheelchairs and walking frames and some who look as if they could drop dead at any moment,  and people much bigger and fatter than me, I cannot be the only diabetic with this problem!

We don’t get many requests like this, he says.  What?!  But even if they only get a few requests, they should be aware of the need and make provision for it!

The Reception guy phoned the medical centre. It’s closed (of course) but the nurse answered and said she would store it for me, but I must bring it down in a plastic bag. She’d open the door for me.

Can I have a plastic bag please?  Umm, ummm, they don’t have any.  A steward finds one in his rubbish pile. So much for hygiene.  I take my insulin down to deck A and find the Medical Centre closed and locked.  I knock loudly, two or three times.  No response.  So my insulin is still in my room in my esky, and cool, but not cold.  I’ll try again tomorrow.  “Can I just ask one of the barmen to put it in their fridge?”  No sir, hygiene rules prohibit food items being in the bar fridges!

By this time it’s nearly 8pm and I’m famished. But all three of the restaurants I try won’t admit me because I’m not wearing long trousers and shoes and socks!

This is a tropical cruise!  I didn’t bring any trousers (and besides, I don’t own any and I can’t get socks and shoes on anyway, due to my swollen feet.)

So it appears that there’s only one restaurant open to me, the buffet. Oh well, that seems OK.

Aaarrrgh, this was some of the worst food I’ve ever been served.  By any standards, this was gluggy, sticky stodge.  It’s yer standard chicken or beef curries, overcooked spring rolls and samosas, awful hard, doughy pork buns, stale bread rolls …  It filled me up, but I did not enjoy it.  Some others I talked to loved it, but I don’t think their standard was very high.

It’s 9pm by now and I’m not satisfied, but it’s too late for a drink even if I could find a bar that will serve me.  And they charge for drinks!  Beer is GBP3.50 ($6.48) for a 330ml bottle of Carlsberg.  That’s higher than I pay for draught beer at the pub near me at home.  A 250ml glass of wine is GBP6.50 ($12.03!)

As you can tell, things started out badly, seemed to come good for a short time, then rapidly went bad again.  I was very crapped off.

Oh, yes – there’s only one power socket available to me and it’s not near the bed. That means my CPAP machine has to sit on a chair with its power cord pulled as far as I can pull it, and relying on the air hose reaching me.  It seems to work, but when I ask the steward for a power extension lead, he can’t provide one. He’ll  get back to me. I’ll bet he doesn’t. (7pm next day – one has appeared in my room.  It takes time … I give him credit, he did what I requested.)

Again, this is a cruise for oldies.  With around 2,500 passengers, there must be hundreds of CPAP users.  Why aren’t we thought of and catered for?

End of day 1

There's me, on the main mast.  ©  PJ Croft 2014

Ahoy landlubbers. Today I set sail for Singapore. Yes, at 6pm the P&O Arcadia casts off and heads out through Gage Roads, up the West Australian coast to our next port, Bali. We get there at 8am next Monday and have the day there, setting sail again at 6pm.  I hope to catch up with friends there.

Then we berth at Singapore next Thursday morning at 8am and that’s the end of the cruise part.  Five nights in Singas, then flight back on Tiger the following Tuesday.

Baz is picking me up at 9am and I’ll have to fill in time at the ship terminal until noon check in time (Baz has appointments this morning – good bloke).

One thing I have to carry this time is my esky with a couple of insulin pens being kept cold by ice bricks. There’s a fridge in the cabin, I’m told.  Then transporting them cold from the ship to the hotel in Singapore and I’ll dump the esky.

My BSL control is much better now – averaging 8-12. The aim is to reach 4-6, but that’s a bit low for me from experience.  I’m carrying jelly beans in my bag now, for the first signs of hypoglycaemia.  It’s very noticeable.

OK, time to sign off. Next installment from Singapore, I would say.  Lots of photography and video, I hope.

Holy baggage, Batman!  My suitcase ended up at 17.4Kg, but so much of that is made up of “stuff” other than clothing and toiletries.

• CPAP blower (not bothering with humidifier – it should be humid enough where I’m going);
• Power cables – for that, plus for laptop (I have to take it);
• Battery chargers for phone and camera batteries;
• Power adapters, AUS to UK;
• All my many pills, enough for 14 days, plus all my or4iginal prescriptions, just in case;
• A good book and set of magazines;
• Headphones, small cheapies that I can discard when I get to Singapore and buy a better pair;
• Two cameras and two fairly bulky lenses, although nowhere near as bulky as they were a decade ago;
• Walking stick, in two pieces.

Notice I haven’t mentioned shoes! I never wear shoes any more and to take them and my sandals would be a huge extra bulk. Sandals only, I’m afraid, and if they don’t meet the dress code in the dining room, I’ll eat in the snack bars.

Cheers

As you can see, I’ve just changed themes.  It’s just a trial.  If you find the font size too small, press and hold the Ctrl key and use the + key to increase the font size (or the – key to bring it down again).  This affects your browser and will be remembered between sessions.

I used my new Neato robotic vacuum cleaner for the first time yesterday. It runs on batteries, of course, so it had to snuggle up to the charging base for a couple of hours first.  I use the word “snuggle” purposely – see below.  I left it to charge and went into another room.  After a while I heard this roaring sound and wondered, “What the …?”  Then I realised it had started up and had set off doing its job.  There had been enough charge when I first tried to power it on to let me try to start the clean, but it had to charge further. It remembered my instruction, so after it had enough charge, started itself.

It was fascinating to watch. It seems to be pretty random in the way it turns, but it keeps trying to go around chair legs and between things until it finds a way.  Move forward a bit, come near a chair leg (it doesn’t actually touch it), back away, swivel a bit, move forward, repeat as required.  Just leave it to do its thing.

However, I came to realise pretty quickly that it will take a long time to do a floor because it doesn’t do what we would do – long, straight strokes. No, it does little movements and lots of them. It covers the same area, but it’s slow – and thorough, I suppose.

But that means the motor roar is there the whole time, I mean two hours or more, until it decides the battery is low enough and it needs to return to the charger.  I actually hit the pause button as the TV news had started and I couldn’t hear it.  When I hit pause, it gave me a menu of choices such as “Wait 1hr”, “Resume” and “Return to charger”.  I chose the latter and off it went, turning, swivelling, wiggling, moving left, right, forward until after nearly 5 mins it found itself back at the base. Even then it backed away, moved a bit right, then left, backed away etc, then funnily, did a little wiggle as it moved its curved front with the battery contacts against the broad charging contacts on the base. It rubs itself against them!  I think I’ll shoot some video of this and post it because it’s quite funny.

The navigation back to the base is amazing. This thing has turned hundreds of times since it started operating, but somehow it remembers where the base is, or detects it, but how? Radio signal?

As for the noise, you can set it to do its job while you’re out.  But that and the movement might trigger the house alarm.  I’d have to leave the alarm off.  Let’s hope a burglar would hear the noise and think I’m home.

To be continued – this thing is interesting.  That’s the last time I buy an appliance from Amazon, though.  I must have had a brain fart when I bought a Harmon Kardan stereo amp last year.  I completely forgot about its mains voltage and it’s 110V.  If it had been a Japanese amp it would have been a switchable or universal voltage device, but I had to buy a small step down transformer for it. That was only $21 but … being a US design, it also only suits US standards for AM radio station spacing and FM de-emphasis.  Luckily I get my only desired AM stations OK, and the de-emphasis just means the sound is a little brighter on FM.  Not that I can hear the highs any more anyway.

As I say, if this was a Japanese made amp, all this would have been switchable.  But not a US (Chinese made!) device.  Oh no, there is no world outside the USA, is there?

In this case the mains battery charger is just a Taiwanese generic 12V DC charger that runs off 100-240V AC.  Apart from having a US style plug, it works fine here.

I must make myself a sign – “NO USA APPLIANCES!”

_______________________________________________________________

Same device - I don't think JB HiFi are going to sell many.

I also bought one of these last week too – a Logitech Harmony Touch remote control.  At Office Works!

What an elegant design.  I got sick of having to juggle three remotes for the TV, DVD/HD recorder and amplifier for the volume and source.  This remote combines all three into Activities, labelled Watch TV, or Play a DVD, or Listen to Music, or Listen to Radio, and puts them on a small touch screen like an iPod.  Everything now happens on the Harmony – channel change, volume, DVD controls, track selection, program guide and recording and so on.  Just one thing to operate.  So nicely designed.

I bought the first version of this back in about 2006 and I’ve still got it, but I had endless trouble with the gold battery charging contacts (I had to rewire an additional connector), then a failed battery (hard to find then, easy now, but $50 per).  Then because I was opening the case several times to fix the charging contacts, the micro-USB connector broke away from the thin PCB. It’s surface mount with tracks at about 0,5mm spacing too.  I’ve had one try at resoldering it but without success. The tracks and positioning are just too fine for my eyesight.  I won’t give up – I’ll have another try later … one day! It still works, I just can’t reprogram it for the new equipment I’ve got now.  That makes it effectively a glorified volume control for my 20 year old Sony amplifier and not much else.

_________________________________________________________

I’ve been devoting a bit of time thinking about cars and it would be quite feasible to buy one of the above.  It’s a 1994 Mercedes 500SL convertible.  There are quite a few for sale and they go for between $20,000 to $30,000.  They originally cost about $210,000 when new in the 1990-95 period, so they’ve dropped most of their value already.  They aren’t collectibles yet, but their value has probably hit bottom and might start to increase in the next ten years as people like me show interest.  In the meantime, you could probably resell it for what you paid for it.

Why do I want one?  1.  Timeless styling.  It still looks the business even after 20 years;  2.  Sheer driving pleasure – a big 5 litre V8 with 5 speed auto and all the features we take for granted now but were revolutionary back then – ALB, automatic roll bar, power everything.  A motorised soft top folds down behind the seats and it comes with a hard top as well (but you have to fit it manually – not easy);  3.  Smooth quiet power, gliding around, but oodles of oomph when you want it.

Mainly though, I just can’t think of a modern car that’s interesting to me, but that I can afford.  I’d like an MX-5 for example, but they’re still up around $30,000 for less car.  Or a good BMW 5 or 7 series, but they have an awful reputation for needing expensive repairs.  A Boxter?  Too expensive.

I can’t think of much else I want. Honda S2000 I mentioned a couple of weeks ago?  Manual only. As it should be, but not for me any more. Auto only.

These Mercs are in Adelaide, Melbourne or Sydney.  FF points fly over, and after an RACV inspection, drive it for several weeks around the eastern states then bring it back here. Could be done.  I probably won’t, but I can dream.

It’s not 100ml, or 260ml.  That would be a huge quantity.  The figures are the insulin concentration in International Units (IU).  I don’t inject 46ml, I inject 46 IU.  Big difference.  Sorry, I’m new to this 🙂

Yesterday I said the insulin pens only hold 100ml.  I must admit it seemed a bit small.  This morning I had a closer look and the big 100ml figure on the side is the concentration. They actually hold 260ml, therefore good for five days at 50ml per day.

My fasting BSL (or BGL, blood glucose level to be correct) was 8.7 this morning. Getting there.

Peacocks have more than 19 tail feathers.
© PJ Croft 2014
Why do I say this? A caller to Eoin Cameron's
ABC breakfast program a few weeks ago
said peacocks only have 19 tailfeathers.
Well, as you can see, I disagree.
I tried very hard to send this image to
Mr Cameron via the ABC website, but they make it
nearly impossible! The ABC does NOT want your comments.
They put barriers in your path. Not happy.

Heh heh.  I’ve been thinking about what to take on my trip and some music would be nice.  CDs?  No, too heavy and bulky with the portable CD player (yes, I still have one from about 1995. It’s been a good one.)  MiniDiscs?  Could do — both the discs and the player/recorder are lighter and smaller than CDs.

Aah, mp3s.  No weight or bulk for the media at all.  Very small and light mp3 player.  But, I thought, I don’t have one, so I looked for one at Joondalup today.  And a pair of lightweight headphones.

Then it hit me —  I’ve already got both!  I have my iPod Touch 16GB.  That holds mp3s and plays them.  And I have a pair of folding noise-cancelling headphones that I bought for my 2008 trip.  Problem solved.  Keep up, Pete.

___________________________________________________

Another thing I have to take is a small chilly bin, with a freezer block.  No, not for the beer, for my insulin.  The fresh pens have to be kept cold until opened for use.  I’ll need an Esky to take them from home to the ship and from the ship to the hotel in Singapore.  When I come back to Perth, leaving Singapore for the flight home, I’ll have injected at my daily time of 7am and the flight’s at 3.30pm, so I won’t need that Esky any more.  That’s why I bought a $15 cheapie — I’ll just dump it in Singapore to save bulk and weight on the plane.

________________________________________________

This is my second week injecting insulin.  When I first filled the prescription, I was surprised to be given 5 boxes of 5 pens each box, 25 100ml pens!  Wow, so many.

But I went from 10ml per day to 44ml per day now, and I’m still not under control yet.  The goal is a BSL between 4-6 mmol/L – I’m still around 9-12, although an hour ago it was 6.3.  It’s clear that I’ll need about 50ml per day, i.e. half a pen per day.  No wonder you get 25 pens.

I’ll need to be careful to calculate and take what I need for the trip.  There’ll be no trouble getting more pens here within this month’s prescription period.  That’s allowed for travel reasons.

____________________________________________

Do I take the laptop?  At first I thought I’ll need it to download photos from my camera cards, but nah, you can fit an awful lot of images on a 16GB card.  Leave them there.

Playing BluRays?  It has a BluRay player/recorder built in, but it’s only a 13.3″ screen.  Nah, read a book, listen to music, stay on deck and smell the sea.

Email/blog?  Take a break!  It would be nice to blog about the trip and write about cabbages and kings, but carrying that extra 2Kg item?

Viewing and editing the video I’ll shoot?  The camera I’m taking with me (the Olympus OM-D E-M1) can shoot HD video and this is a chance to make a story out of the trip.  That’s a pretty powerful reason and might swing the balance.  I’ll pack the bag and weigh it up, so to speak.

__________________________________________________

A few snippets from today:

• I need some curtains.  I finally found two patterns that I like in BigW  (yeah, cheap, cheap).  But for both of them, there was only one curtain on the shelves.

• Always on the lookout for watches (even though I’ve just bought one), I browsed jewellers’ windows.  No price tags are allowed to be seen! OK, that makes me take note of any design I’m interested in, then go home and find it on the web.  The jeweller loses any possible sale.

• Same for sunglasses today.  I passed a stall with some that I might have liked. But none of them was priced.  I walked on …

• The new multi story car park is open at Joondalup so I parked there and walked toward the lift.  A workman was coming out and he said, “No mate, you can’t get into the centre from here. The lift only opens onto the building works. You have to walk outside and walk about 100m down there.”  So I got in my car and drove to the Seniors bay near where I wanted to go.
• I bought a big lot of boxy storage type things from the Reject Shop using one of their plastic shopping carts, piled high.  The checkout chick said, “Do you want a big bag for this?”  I said,  “No, I’ll use the trolley.”
  “Sorry sir, trolleys are not allowed to be taken out of the shop.”
  “Just watch me”, I said.  “My car is right there.”
  So she left her checkout post and carried half my load out to my car.  Nice of her, but …

And on and on …  I have no sympathy for retailers.  Dumbness rules.

1977 Arcadia menu, with names and addresses
of the lovely girls I shared my table with.
Pity they were in Sydney and Brisbane.

Things change overnight.  Yesterday’s West carried an ad for a ship cruise from Fremantle to Singapore departing Thursday 6 March.  That’s next Thursday!  It’s for 6 nights/7days on the ship, plus two nights in Singapore and the flight back to Perth.  This suits me perfectly.  I have an appointment on 24 March so I’ll be back in time.

Therefore at 7am today I was on the dog and bone getting all the details and by 10am I’d booked and paid.  In fact I’ve ditched their choice of Singapore hotel as too expensive and added three nights in Singapore to the itinerary, so I return on Tuesday 18 March in the evening.  I’ll book a hotel myself of my choice.

The ship is the P&O Arcadia.  I actually travelled on this ship in 1976 on a Pacific cruise from Sydney.  Here I am boarding in Sydney at The Rocks terminal:

Boarding Arcadia 16 May 1977.
Oh so young and slim. (Aged 30)

I’m sure the ship has been refurbished at least once since then. It better have been, because it was a bit crude even then – shared cabin, separate men’s bathrooms with complimentary cockroaches, steel framed double bunks.

This time these berths are late sales due to cancellations (I presume) and I got the last inner cabin – but I’ve got it all to myself and it has its own bathroom. And a fridge for my insulin.  And 220V power for my CPAP machine.  No porthole, I’m afraid, but the travel company has told me that if there’s a balcony (outside) cabin unsold when we depart, they might upgrade me. Nice.  The cost to upgrade when I booked was going to be + $793. No thanks, I can go on deck if I need a view.

Nearly forgot to mention – the itinerary includes a one day stop in Bali.  I wanted to talk to some friends there and was considering a trip, so it’s perfect timing.  And  I’ve got SE Asia maps on my TomTom now, including Bali.  Not sure I need to carry that extra item, though. I’ll know where I am:-)

Now I start the process I love – planning, even if only in my head at the moment, what I’m going to pack and what I’ll buy in Singapore.  As little as possible in the former case and not much in the latter.  I’m afraid Singapore bargains are long gone.  Web prices are the only way to go now.  The last time I was in Singapore was actually in 2004, but I doubt anything’s changed.

But what I do look forward to is second hand photo gear!  Singapore is a camera gearhead’s Mecca.  And by buying second hand, I don’t have to worry about Customs coming back.  They’ve told me they aren’t interested in used equipment for duty or GST purposes.

The other thing is the incredible range of stock.  I see all the exotic items that I can’t find here.  The web has mostly changed that but I still love browsing these actual shops.  I’ll be taking a camera bag that I can afford to ditch if I find something better, for example.

Oh yes, after I’d paid the full price for the trip by BPay this morning, I drove to Whitfords to go to Medicare to reclaim some bills.  I had a lot – I haven’t made any claims for about 12 months. So I was delighted to find that I got refunds totalling about $100 more than the cruise cost.  Very nice.

So all in all, I’m very chuffed.  Although I loved my dogs deeply, they were a ball and chain around my ankle. This is the first time in 10 years I’ve been able to do this – make a spur of the moment decision and just go – and I was only able to do it in 2004 because a neighbour fed them each day in my yard.

____________________________________________________

That 1977 cruise took in Noumea, Vanuatu, Port Vila and Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides and Suva and Lautoka in Fiji. It was good, helped along by the food on board! Wow, I’d never eaten so well and I didn’t gain weight easily then. All the drink was duty free of course, a can of beer was 70c, a bottle of wine with dinner was about $2 and a liqueur on ice was about $1.50.  (Actually, a bottle of wine now is only $10-$15 with full excise – it hasn’t increased in price that much. Wine is still cheap.)

Memories?  The French feel of Noumea and the New Hebrides and the roughness of Fiji.  Dusty, not all that attractive, and now not a very good place to go either. I won’t go while it’s still a military dictatorship.

I filmed all this trip on Super 8 Kodachrome.  The four edited and spliced reels are in the wardrobe now.  I can’t project them any more (I can barely remember ever seeing them projected), but I could get them transferred in high quality to DVD by a Sydney company if I was willing to pay the $400 cost.  It was too high a few years ago, but I might reconsider now.  I’ll be disappointed, of course.

Now, this is an icon.  © Peter Croft 1992, 2014

I’ve decided it’s time to establish an organisation called Iconics Anonymous.  It’s for journalists, mainly, but anyone who can’t help themself using iconic more than once a year is welcome to join.  Some unfortunate scribes have been known to use this word twice in the same piece.

We will hold meetings once a week where you can say out loud,  “I’m a victim of this awful cliche word, gasp!, iconic and I admit it.”  We will use aversion therapy where the word is endlessly repeated, a bit like reading a newspaper, until the journalist begs for mercy.  The true meaning of the word will also be explored and its proper use explained with the use of diagrams, etymologies, Power Point presentations, text book quotations and dictionaries, with many, nay, prolific examples to be studied from the Australian press.

Anyone who has used the word up to twice in the past week is eligible to join at no cost, but each trespass above twice incurs a $10 per misuse joining fee.  Any journalist who falls back on this word during the week will be made to write out lines.  Repeat offenders will be made to read all the offending pieces from all sources for the past month.  This will take some time.  All fines and fees will accrue to me. 😉

________________________________________________

This crazy, annoying blogging software.  The text above is a cut and paste from an email I wrote, but look how some has pasted as a smaller font, but some is this bigger font, even in the same sentence!  Look how it changes after the $10.  There’s no logic too it. I haven’t edited the item.  Grrr.  This is Word Press and I think you have to pay to get the full quid.  I have no control over font size in the unpaid version.  Annoying.

__________________________________________________

A bloke bent my bumper today.  I was waiting for him to back out of his parking space next to mine, and nudge!  Nudgy wudgy.  My car moved.  His front bumper had a much too close encounter with my rear bumper.

I waited a few seconds for him to get out but he made no move to, so I got out and approached him.  Only then did he wind his window down.  I reckon he would have driven away if he thought he could get away with it.

The damage to my bumper was only his grey paint added to a green scrape of my own, but his bumper was pushed in and had a fair helping of my white paint on it.  He was an old bloke so I just said, “Oh, don’t worry about it – the damage to your car is what you should be concerned about.”  He still didn’t get out and just drove away.

___________________________________________________

My car, a Magna Advance station wagon, is 13 years old now and although it’s still ultra reliable and drives beautifully, it’s looking a bit down at heel.  I use the wagon functionality a fair bit to transport flat pack furniture, for example, or long bits of timber or curtain rods and so on.

It also used to transport my beautiful dogs. That’s why I needed a wagon.  Both Boopsie the Border Collie and Minnie the Golden Labrador used to be able to jump up into the back — in fact they loved doing so because it meant a trip in the car! Going somewhere!  Pant pant, dribble dribble.

Just memories now.  Very, very fond memories.

Anyway, I was talking to a bank man in Clarkson about a future reverse mortgage and there’s no problem.  Don’t do it now, of course, but when I turn 70 it’ll be time to think about it.

So I’m thinking of a replacement car.  I remember thinking that this Magna would be the last car I’d be able to afford, but it’s not worked out that way — it looks as if I can buy another car.  Not new, it will be second hand, but it might be an addition, not a replacement.  So I’m thinking — what do I want?  Honda S2000 comes to mind, but soft top only and manual only.  Mercedes 500SL convertible?  They date from the 1990s so it would be a 20 year old car and possibly a money pit.  But a friend from Channel 7 days is an encyclopedia on Mercs and would be a good advisor.

Or a Lexus Soarer. Again a 1990s car, but with super reliable Lexus quality, it would be low risk.  Boring looks, though.  BMW 7 series?  Again, 1990s and money pits, I’m told.

Nice to think about things like this, though.

_____________________________________________________

Lucky I keep boxes.  My Pioneer Blu Ray player has given up the ghost.  It wouldn’t play Blu Ray discs, then seemed to refuse ordinary DVDs too, so I set it up on the bench in a simple configuration to try to work out what was what.  But now it won’t even power up.  I’ve tried other cables – I’m a tech, remember.  So I get the box out of the garage and pack it up to return it.  I’m sure JB will just swap it for a new one.  Hope I can still find the docket though.

____________________________________________________

Up to 32 units of insulin this morning (increasing by 2U per day). Fasting BSL 8.5 — that’s the lowest for quite a few years, so it’s gradually working.  Food really spikes me up still, and it’s not coming down fast enough.  I see the doc again on Thursday for review.  I feel reasonably OK but any exertion (even pushing a trolley around the shops) tires me out.

Still off the grog, by the way!  It’s about a month or more now.  You’d think the benefit of the reduction in calories from the beer and all the crunchies i Used to eat as well would show up?  Not in the slightest.  I eat way less than the 8700KJ a day, but my weight is static.  It’s very discouraging.