Temporary outage.

T n S is going on the road for three weeks. To visit fambly in SA, and to tour some of the area north of Perth and walk some wildflower trails.

On my return I will begin the history of a textile wrangler and how I trod the rocky road to quilting in straight lines.

Meantime these divine spring days are brought to you by coral-coloured Californian poppies, swathes of forget-me-nots, and a triumphant return to purrfume. Gucci is my destiny!

So.. a decision is made.

Hi, thanks to all of you who put a vote in. I can see my way a bit more clearly now. What I'm planning is a retrospective of my textile adventures (and those of you who have been recipients, I'm gonna demand photo ops very soon!). I'll put in some blurb about how and why I made things the way I did, and give you some insight into what I'm working on. It won't change the blog to an entirely textile-devoted site however.

I also think that I'll try to return to the original purpose of this blog, which was to post random thoughts and snorts on random happenings, events, ideas and reflections, as they occur to me. I expect it won't be at all political, probably a bit on the silly side, and perhaps more entertaining for the reader.

Meantime I am convalescing my way through lurgy #5 of the season, and the worst of the lot. Honest to goodness flu, with gasric, migraine and the classic 'run over by a bus' elements. Arg. It's ruining my social life and making me feel completely paranoid about ever going out again. Well, unless I don't breathe while I'm out.

I recall advising my daughter that when she went to Thailand, she'd be fine as long as she didn't breathe, touch anything, eat or drink anything, go anywhere or do anything. It seemed quite sensible to me.

She went anyway.

Tallinn to Riga; Saturday 30th August

sWe’re sorry to leave our very comfy hotel in Tallinn.. sorry to leave Tallinn, and Estonia, where far too little has been seen and done. Whenever I say to someone “I must come back” they respond skeptically, travellers don’t come back, they always go somewhere new, apparently. Not this little birthday girl, I’ve been dreaming of a visit to Estonia for at least fifteen years, and twice I’ve not done it justice - two years ago we didn’t make it to Helsinki OR Tallinn, because of time, health and money problems; this time our time has been squished up by circumstance..

I did enjoy the little bits of the city I saw - yesterday we toddled downtown to post nearly 10kg of stuff home - more books than usual; and an accumulation of purrchases from St Petersburg (dear ones, just wait for Christmas!). I have been buying shawls, they satisfy my need for textiles which is otherwise very hard to satisfy - I can’t see dress fabric shops, or wool shops, or even general haberdashery, in the shopping centres I’ve found. Purrhaps these are more suburban-centred, and I’m not going far enough afield. There’s never enough time... I’ve been skirted around textiles, finding prints (they have patterns too), handicraft items (like socks and hats), shawls, sometimes there are books about handicrafts, that sort of thing. But for those of you who may be hoping for parcels of fabric, patience, patience.. I WILL find some, I am a very determined purrson. But it may take until Berlin and/or Freiburg, where we will be helped firstly because M speaks German, and secondly because we are visiting family in Freiburg and they will be able to help me find stuff. I hope!

M and I had seen ads for a City Tour bus, one of those jump on/jump off circling buses which have earphones with a spiel on various languages. We found the bus stop, just down the road (and across a rather scary triangular road/traffic island/tram track arrangement, death hurtling towards us from every direction).. but the Red Line bus didn’t leave for an hour. We were cold, there was a chilly wind and even I, in a jumper (TWO layers of clothes, it will never catch on) was not too keen on just walking around. We headed for a shopping centre where we could see we could walk through in the warm... and what a find! You know by now that M is no shopper, unless it’s newspapers, books or cds. Well!!! We stumbled into goodies all around - first of all, excellent heating; then a huge stationery sale to replenish our rubber bands, staplers and notepads. I (ever the sook) bought some little notepads with cats and l lions on the cover.. M went looking for newspapers and dunnies. The dunnies were (it’s alright, you can keep reading without taking your pill) extremely posh and fabbo for a big shopping centre. Excellent, big tick of approval. AND!!! we found a newsagent which had several shelves of magazines in English. SIGGGGGGHHHHHH.... I have replenished my trashy magazine supply, lavishly. I LOVE the English “HELLO” magazine, with its photos of ‘the young royals”; snaps of snooty-looking society grrls (there is a very particular look of the rich, young English lass; very groomed and well-dressed but just slightly edging into bizarre [eg high fashion dress, iron-straight hair, but tarty tarty fake fingernails in fluoro pink; or that weird look of a French manicure on one’s toes, those little white lines on the toenail tips look really strange to me], topped off with a flinty down-the-horsey-nostrils glare into the camera. If you look like a very-well dressed horse, couldn’t you smile a bit?? Horses don’t seem grumpy to me...

.. where was I? Oh yes, trash reading. My second choice was a British “My Home is Better Than Yours TM* “ which is full of fantastically over-decorated homes converted from dairies, tar factories, coal miners cottages and fallen-down 60s council homes. The best bits are the careful not-mentioning-of how obscene the amount of money was spent to remove the cowshit and uproot the local rat population; and the casual mention of designer items - nearly always a strangled chair or a pony-skin toaster (I kid you not; I have it in print, a snap of a toaster with a pony-skin .. well, skin. Not a cover, but actually attached to the outsides of the thing. WHO thought of that? Had they forgotten their little white pill that day???). My third choice was In Style, which I am saving up for as long as I can stand to wait. M asked me at dinner tonight if I was enjoying my fix of Hollywood gossip and I had to disappoint him - no news of Brangelina or Paris; no ‘beeped’ photos of Britney doing something else without her underwear; no faked gossip about Our Nicole or Their Scarlett.. cripes, just writing this is making me fret. What if something really juicy has happened and I am the only person in the world who doesn’t know about it?

After our purrchases (M found a German magazine he likes but no English papers) we started looking for a Money Exchange and a coffee shop. Getting closer to the time for the Red Line bus - and of course I saw an Estonian handicraft shop and was lost. Mucho goodies found there, including some small but very characterful knitted cats. I’ve given one to M as a good will and anxiety-lowering token. He took to the little cat (black and white stripes with glinty green eyes) at once, and presently it is sitting on Andy the Norwegian bear’s shoulders, getting ready for some nocturnal mischief as soon as it’s lights out.

There was just enough time for me to stop at Robert’s Coffee (an English chain, but quite a superior operation) for a giant takeaway fix, before we nipped our shivery way back to the bus.

First we took the 'Red Line tour' - an hour around the 'best bits' of Tallinn. There's a strong focus on architectural history - information about pre-war )I and II) styles; Stalinist features (exclusively grey, forbidding and dingy); modernist and a return to the Estonian 'style' - very much influenced by Peter the Great, of St Petersburg, so we see a lot of the gracious pale yellow and cream palace-styled buildings. The commentary is in English, via headphones, with two speakers - a very Amurrican bloke and an English woman with a lovely Zoomerzet accent, lots of gggs. M is tired after this so he goes off to rest. I stay, encouraged by the driver who points out that our tickets cover all the tours, all day. I hop back on and take the 'Green Line' tour, which goes further afield and shows off some of the coast and harbour. Once again there is a strong focus on architecture and the history of building/rebuilding/fires/renovations etc. I took lots of photos, but reviewing them I see I was mostly capturing details of colours and quirks of buildings and the scenery, rather than 'standard tourist spots'. And, writing this paragraph nearly a week later, my impressions have faded.. mostly I recall that it was fun being on the top of a two-decker bus, seeing at least something so I know what I'm going back FOR, and being able to rest while seeing something.

The trip to Riga was MUCH easier - a comfier bus, and the only thing that happened at the border was a brief stop while a nice black doggie had a snuffle around in our luggage (under the bus0. We'd seen everyone getting out their passports, so we did too, but there was no need for them. The driver hopped back onto the bus smiling broadly, and took off with a bit of a wheelie. I gather he was pleased there had been no mucking about. He was a nice bloke, and not as addicted to the smokes as our previous driver. Still no food/loo stops, but we were better prepared with water and some snacks. We arrived in Riga in the late afternoon, so no problem getting into the hotel or finding dinner etc.

Riga (the Old Town, where we stayed in a hotel converted from a monastery, with a few little bits of the old walls and niches left in the re-build) is far too beautiful - romantic and pretty and dignified and full of people who smile.. not so much of the rich totty element as there was in St P, and the streets were full of music, from buskers and cafes and shops.. so welcoming.

We had been told of a concert tonight, at a nearby church, featuring choir and bagpipes. I've collapsed into a sleep, but M goes along to have a peek. He watched a bit of it, enjoying the spectacle of seeing the piper march in down the aisle to the choir - he was watching through the glass doors in the foyer, thus avoiding the expense of a ticket. After a bit he charged back to the hotel to wake me so I could see just a little bit of the spectacle. When we got back to the church, the doors were closed with signs saying 'CD recording'. But a woman right behind us ignored all the signs (in four languages) and grabbed the door handle and went in. Orright.. so we went in too. A woman (perhaps a concert manager, or perhaps a church warden) came over to berate us, but M put his finger to his lips and went 'Shhhhhh!' and we turned our backs. It worked - she went away.. the choir was purrforming a new work (sorry will have to post details later), a very wonderful piece, with some very clever lighting effects, and a lovely, spare orchestral accompaniment. We watched, spellbound, until the very last whisp of sound floated up into the church rafters.. and the applause burst out. We'll be looking out for the CD, the choir was I believe the Latvian State or National Choir, and they were indeed very good.

We retired to eat - and found a cafe/bar called 'Velvet'. The music - dance music - became progressively louder throughout our meal, and we could see another table of large German men peering at the bar. All was soon revealed (as 'twere) - M went over to get something and blimey, there was a dolly-bird dancing on the bar! All set up with a pole to swing on. She was almost wearing some scanty black gym gear, with hot pink bands around her curvy bits. And super-high heels. She was very wiggly, and there were a number of men seated on barstools at her feet...and one guy, somewhat relaxed, who was sort of wearing around and dancing back at her in a very loose-limbed fashion. Of course I had to have a look! - the Germans were a bit surprised, kept staring at me while I watched the dancer.. maybe nice girls don't watch pole dancers? I dunno. I thought she was a good dancer, but SO uninvolved with her worshippers.

That day was brought to you by a bucket of Prada; somewhat raised eyebrows, and the excellent vegetarian meal I had - stuffed zucchini, cream potatoes and a very fresh salad.

~~~~~~~~
Two days later we attended another concert, at another church, this time as paying customers. This was also a premiere, of .. hmm, brain won't co-operate, sorry, I'll add it, I will! ..., with organ, soprano, and a saxophone quartet, followed by a saxophone octed. Very very wonderful, amazing acoustic - a lovely high sound drifting up to the very high arched ceiling, quite warm, and with some interesting cross-echoes. We managed to shake hands with the composer (so laden with flowers he could hardly get a hand free!), and M went crazy with the CDs on sale - four of them are currently on their way home.

Last night on M/S Polarlys, sailing to Kirkenes

We’ve had a pretty good last day - quite a few highlights in one day, altho I didn’t think it would work out that way - I didn’t sleep well, and after getting up for breakfast (firmly taken behind dark glasses) I went back to sleep until lunch time. M was meantime sailing happily into Honnigsvard, where he went exploring for the usual - post office, newspapers, etc. We lunched on board and then set out together, first to the post office, to send 4kg of stuff home - another accumulation of newspaper cuttings, brochures, acquired goodies, unneeded clothes and sundry bits and pieces which, three weeks into this trip, I know now for sure I won’t need.

Our next stop was at the local gift and wool/fabric emporium! The women there (we forgot to ask her name, I’m sorry, she was so helpful and friendly) performed a vital task and finished the translation of my little Norwegian knitting project. It was something to see - she and M bent over the bench while I went fossicking for more products! He took excellent notes, and with my knowledge of knitting terminology in English (‘knit one; purl two’), her ability to turn Norsk into Southsk, and M’s quick research-writer note-taking, we soon had the task done.

I found many wonderful things in this shop - gifts, knitting wools, glass beads, bobbles, fabric, etc etc. I bought quite a bit of stuff, and we realised as we carried the bag back to the boat that I had pretty much replaced the entire 4 kg of stuff we’d posted home. Oh well .. tomorrow in Kirkenes there will be another entirely efficient Norsk post office and I can spend as many hours as I like (and as it will take) sending lots of little parcels to my dear ones. [Tomorrow goes like this: we have already taken our 4 main cases to the drop-off place on the ship, from whence they will be de-boated onto the bus into town. We will then dump them (and as much hand luggage as we can) at the hotel, and take off to the post office. The remainder of the day as it comes. Then on Saturday morning, late-ish, we get on a bus to Inari, and repeat but without the boat. And, perhaps, without 4 more kg of stuff. But no promises!]

We sailed from Honnigsvard at about 4pm - we both immediately had a good Net fix, altho I ran out of time for poor old T and S because of needing to send purrsonal emails. That done (eeeeeek my family are emailing me about Christmas! I am in DENIAL about that) M returned panting from an info session about leaving the boat, to tell me we had two deadlines to meet if we wanted maximum help with suitcases. At this point we were sailing through open sea on a windy afternoon, so we spent quite a funny couple of hours falling over while we tried to encourage our possessions to telescope back into our bags. Not helped by me doing another presto vwala with the outgoing vs incoming - I went up to the gift shop to get stamps and post a last lot of cards (for franking on board) and while I was there I ahem oops seemed to leave with a number of things in pockets equalling or possibly overtaking the weight and dimensions of what I’d posted. Sighh .. I am a consumer, not always happily, but if I explain that one of these things was a cat, would you furgive me???? I hope so. She is a very nice little green glass cat with rather wonderful reflective green glass triangular eyes. You DO see how I couldn’t resist?

And, once again, the time slipped away with no mark, because there is no night as such this far north in the summer (the barely 9 degrees with a howling wind off the sea summer!). M had to drag me away from finishing our laundry, so we could go to dinner. It was a seafood feast, to mark the end of the voyage north for all the passengers; to farewell those sturdy souls taking to the land; and (I presume) to stun the return passengers into a calorific daze so they don’t feel like the trip home is the same again backwards. Even the captain made an appearance, so we were informed. But I am very peeved to report that he didn’t come to OUR table to say hello. Maybe we weren’t consuming enough Aquavit for only another umpty kroners per teaspoon ... the seafood feast was just that, a huge buffet of wonderfully fresh designer goodies - salmon done three different ways, crab, prawns, lobster, filled crab shells, ‘Light’ fish (which Steve warned us is always described as ‘an acquired taste’, which to all of us translates as ‘don’t feed to a dead dog’).. as well as reindeer stew (tasted like beef strog to me), umpteen veggies with cream, and the usual array of rich sauces and salad creams. As the boat was still in open sea, the sight of dozens of passengers simultaneously trying to cram their plates and stay standing was most amusing. I ended up with three bits of damage - a little American lady attacked my wrist with the lettuce servers, I fell off my left foot and nearly dropped my plate, and a hefty Norsk elbow rearranged my right boob for me, en passant. I thought it had been quite well-behaved lately, so I guess it’s a good thing it was taken care of...

Everyone at our table ate very well, everyone also had a big bowl of dessert, well for heaven’s sake there was creme caramel again, as well as chocolate mousse, fresh icecream, apple cake, redcurrant and blueberry compote and other bad, bad things. Served with 3-pint jugs of fruit jus, pouring cream and maple srrp. I had a bit of nearly everything, with a bit of nearly everything on top. It was fabulous. And yes I did also have blackcurrant jelly with cream at lunchtime, so ner. Be jealous!

At about 11pm the M/S ? passed us on the return voyage. There was much hooting and camera flashes and flapping of banners over the side of the other boat. I don’t know how many on this boat went out to wave back. It was a fine sight to see ourselves sailing away in the other direction - the M/S ? is exactly the same shape etc as this ship. We could see them for some time in the fading grey rainy light, a liner in full flight does kind of stick out on a grey sea and sky background. I thought it was magnificent. Very quick though... I tried to take some photos but I think they’ll be poor quality because of me being on the inside of a double-glazed window. But anyway, THAT’S what WE look like!

Now it is 11.30pm, purrfectly light outside (the type of grey light you get on a fairly rainy day, which it is - I can’t speculate on the amount of sunshine you might see because it’s been grey and squally since Tuesday afternoon); M has taken our cases away, and our cabin looks anonymous again without all our interesting stuff everywhere. I will have to leave behind the beautiful red roses, even I can’t think of a way to manage them as hand luggage for three days. We’ve had a most fascinating time doing this cruise, learned a lot of things, and seen some sights I could never have dreamed of. Successful all round, and most instructive as to what we might change if we did something like it again.

What would I do differently? Mostly I’d go somewhere warm, so I could spend a lot more time outside on the boat. It’s been far too cold to do more than nip out, try to suck in a breath of cold air untainted by cigarette smoke, and nip back inside again. The vacuum-sealed nature of the common areas has bothered me; I have literally popped my ears a couple of times when the pressure has felt odd. So, yes, I think I can’t claim to have fulfilled a long-held fantasy of lying around on a deck chair while a nice purser with tanned legs brings me a margarita on the half-hou, until I roll off... I’d perhaps try to find a cruise where water wasn’t treated as such a luxury item. Even for water-wise Aussies, having to pay for ordinary drinking water when you are surrounded by bloody vats of the stuff just lying around waiting to be filtered, is a bit of an insult. And the price-hiking of booze annoys me a bit... it costs several crucial limbs to pay for the cruise anyway!

The coffee-deal would have impressed me if the standard of coffee had been better. The coffee WAS filter coffee, always pretty fresh, but why why WHY was fresh milk only available at breakfast for the cereal? The ship certainly took on and off many tonnes of goods at every port, including French people, so why don’t they supply fresh milk? They can’t claim to be too far from civilisation when they can produce fresh tropical fruit every day. Tsk tsk Hurtigruten. I tried the non coffee-deal coffee twice - I saw ppl drinking espresso so I thought I’d cough up for a latte. But that came out of an instant latte machine - once again, fresh coffee, but with an auto-milk-frother, so you got the latte made as a milk-coffee mix. NOT the same. Fresh milk I think, but auto-frothed. This all affects the flavour, which is what I’m really going on about.

The final minor key for me was the row of silent, unmoving grey nomads in the Observation Lounge - all the way up at the top and front of the ship, their chairs set in a row as close to the windows as they could get. And so they sat, hour after hour, day after day, watching water moving towards them. A lot of the time they were asleep. This afternoon when I went up there briefly to knit, I swear about 10 ppl in a row were a neat line of motionless, sleeping heads. Missing it all... people didn’t seem to be very keen on interaction; unless they were sticking to fellow countrymen. I vote the Norwegians as the happiest travellers, even the somewhat irritating fellow up there this arvo, who kept whistling the same bit of Don Giovanni thru his teeth while I was trying to count my rows. The Germans seemed to be having the least fun; looking dour and never cracking a smile. The Americans, in my extremely jaundiced view, were feeling ripped off because it wasn’t exclusive enough. The other poxy passengers weren’t dressing for dinner, or being suitable impressed by being in their august company, and as for the food! No poptarts! No plain green salad! And ‘soss’ on everything. Not good enough. The British? I put them in two groups - the ppl we got to know at our fixed seating lunch and dinner table - we made a hearty group and much jollity was experienced. Other (generally more elderly) English people seemed to be a bit lost - they were wearing their special ‘touring trousers’, ‘holiday boots’, and matching marital backpacks, but they didn’t seem to quite know what to do and where to go. As for the French, they were harmless enough .... Madame la maman could have washed her hair last week, and Papa le comic didn’t share the child-minding enough for my liberal views, but the little boy was charmant.

Enough. T and S was always intended as an opinion-venting outlet, but enough! I must sleep so I can get up too early for my liking and hump bloody plastic bags full of STUFF around at unnatural hours of the day. And possibly suffer for a while before I can get a cup of coffee the way I really like it. But that won’t kill me. Meantime, today brought to you by eau de very fresh sea wind, that wet-fresh smell of just-washed cotton clothes, and a blast of Gucci across the prawns. And I must quote Nigel, who described Troll Fiord as ‘a wet cul-de-sac at midnight’. That’s how to kill poetry!