Boog's Blog

Saturday

Slept in- first late sleeping in quite a while. Did room service breakfast, had to 😍

Lunch included a DIY cortado.

At noon the captain carried on over the PA system for ~seven minutes: position, geography, distance, etc.

Afternoon talk: A Brush with the Law. A talk on art heists. We were not the only ones to attend.

Sunday

Quiet day. No activities.

Never had it before.

Notice above the Royal Ballet tee. Smart attire required.

France??? Yes. Le Havre, no idea why.

Bus to Southampton then easy boarding. Nice room.

Kathy, of Camel Travel left us chocolate dipped strawberries. Yum & thanks.

Friday

Docked in port of Le Havre, bus to Honfleur.

Tasse de l’eau. Nope. they reverted to English and would not understand our French. Sharon thinks they understand it, but they don’t want to speak with us.

It was lovely having a French breakfast in a small port town, outstanding baguette and croissant, and even the coffee was good, Italian coffee.

Very very very charming town

Eglise St. Catherine. Unique in design, wooden posts 17th century. Ceiling resembles ribs of a ship.

Today is May day, a national holiday. Town very busy with tourists.

Interesting building for a toilette.

After having tea and scones, we took a walk around deck seven. It started to rain. Yay didn’t last long.

Discussions with wait- staff:

In touch with your family on this long trip? The internet. Do they charge you? Yes but we get a discount.



Resting day. Laundry. Dinner with Bob

Wednesday, final full day

Breakfast at Dorset cafe

Whipped cream with bacon bits. Bob, not us

Walk to the British Museum for the Samurai exhibit

samurai exhibit

Where the exhibition souvenir tea shirt for Sharon was sold out.

Excellent exhibition.

Next to the Assyrians

Final dinner

On the morrow: bus to south hampton

Where: a fever arose and subsided; a ballet was attended and missed; a dinner was perfect except when it wasn’t; where rain has still not appeared as yet.

No rain this trip except one shower in the hills the first day. Rain gear unused.

Breakfast with Bob and dinner too

We skipped the tea because we ate a pretty big breakfast at hotel, usual good buffet. That plus the drugs may not have sat down well with Sharon so we have canceled dinner reservations at the Fishworks.

Monday

Mayerling ballet today

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerling_(ballet)

Ballet was written for the Royal ballet and is a regular. Woman next to Bob has seen it multiple times.

First breakfast;

Sharon has a fever and no energy- she had to miss this performance that she’s been looking forward to. Sorry all around. 

Dinner at the ballet

It was so salty that neither of Bob or I could eat it and had them take it off the bill. Everything else was excellent 

Fabulous ballet, great pas de deux(s), and incredibly lithe dancing

I had a nice walk over. I had to stop a bit too often at traffic lights. It seems people in London walk more slowly than new yorkers

Publishing this Wed morning before Sharon is up- no fever testing as yet. This has not been a good london trip for her -hospital just before and stomach, energy and fever afterwards. The boat crossing should be restful.

Where health and zoology are discussed and possibly exhibited.

The first day starts off with sad news about Bobbikins: he has awakened very sick. We presume it’s the cold we have shared with him; doesn’t seem right since he shared really good cooking with us. All we gave him in return was a crappy cold and maybe some See’s chocolates

So we go to Gail‘s for breakfast and it’s 10 in the morning and they’re out of oatmeal. No problem, we schlep to another Gail’s. They have oatmeal but they’re out of drinkable black tea. They’re waiting for delivery from their supplier.

In the elevator, a person noticed my hat from Valencia and said boo because it’s not Manchester United. Sharon said she has hat for Manchester. He said black or red, black we said; seems it should be red because only red is Manchester United. Apparently we got the wrong hat as we got Manchester City.

A great plate for a Doom Bar on draft.

———Next day——

Visit to the Grant Museum of zoology. A teaching museum still active.

We have passed this museum more than once. Sharon finally said we should go. Well advised



Guess the origin of the big egg 

Wellcome Center (drug company)has interesting exhibits. This time there was one on aging and no real surprises.

Need to blow it up a bit to see.

With JD, Pete and Peter

Slept in again

Qb taking a rest day while Bob and i head to a Hockey exhibit

Hokney exhibit

All acrylic. 150 plus feet

To large a piece to for a quick photo overview

Fellow travelers are posting many pics from the hike. I like this pic set caption

山巒起伏，草地柔軟如毯，白羊如雲般散落。
The mountains rise and fall, the grasslands are soft as a carpet, and white sheep are scattered like clouds.

Made with oatmeal, treacle ginger, and more of course 

Slept in for very obvious reasons

Mostly taking it easy today; Sharon needs recovery time and, of course, laundering.

At Bobbikins penthouse: Muru at Isle of Wight. Possibly no Tom Yom soup.

Muru would be a sought after artist, many genres, but for his mental illness

Above just a sampling of the 30-50 pieces scattered about.

London via Leeds.

Sharon released from the hospital wheezing but able to travel so a taxi to Leeds and then a direct train to London.

Peculiar Hotel I stayed in last night: code for front door, code to get key out of box. Return the key to the dispensing box and leave. It might be an emergency number, but I didn’t find or need one. I selected it because of it’s 9.4 rating on Booking. 

Link below for no reason except I liked it.

https://boingboing.net/2026/04/20/what-thousands-of-years-of-foot-traffic-does-to-marble-stairs.html

Real estate in Skipton

Bobbi met us at kings cross to help with the luggage and long taxi queue

On the train we tried to order tea cakes and tea: no problem with tea cakes; we said we would like the tea with it. No, it comes later in the trip.

Met Bobbikins at King Court Cross Station he helped us with the luggage.

Can you turn around? I got a picture of you in the room.

Walking part of the holiday is over. Now a bus ride to Manchester, a night there, and then a train ride to London on Tuesday.

Planned on picking up Sharon at 7:30 from the hospital then taxi to the bus with the group.

However, another day in the hospital. Breathing not recovered enough to leave.

I booked a hotel in Skipton for the night and the plan is to go to London via Leeds tomorrow. 

              

Above is the church, of course there is a church

It is attached to the castle. The oldest (1090) fully intact, medieval castle.

Steep stairs, cold rooms, nothing charming, and one royal after the other remodeling changing rooms -this reminds me of other castles and palaces. Never satisfied with the way it is architectured. Add a room add a wing, change the color, etc.. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipton_Castle?wprov=sfti1

Certainly not comfortable place as you will see further on as well.

Did not take pictures of the narrow winding steps that needed handrails to go up and down. Stone steps, of course. treacherous if you live there.

All in all, I like my room in the small boutique hotel far better.

Sharon planned to take another test/cold day. Unfortunately, she will miss the simple walk, but she doesn’t like caves anyway.

The walk includes an optional visit to the famous underground cave here.

this is the final day of walking of the Rhode Scholar trip

However, Sharon woke up and not breathing very well or barely at all. Took a taxi to the Airedale hospital.

Sharon was seen by the Senior doctor in the A&E department. She becomes attending in a few weeks and said that she cannot get a job. 20 years of this, three kids and she can’t get a job and her husband is a GP and also can’t get a job. fabulous bedside in her care of charge.

Oxygen, nebulizer, chest x-ray….

The senior A&E strongly recommended an overnight stay and found a ward bed for the night.

every department is paperwork, nothing digital. They’ve been planning digital for years same questions just increasing complexity as you go from one department to another people extremely nice.

very large Hospital complex multiple wings all one story and the building more wings and with evidence from the window by the construction

All creatures great and small is filmed in this area about a 30 minute taxi ride away -east of where we are. Some bagged the walk today and went to the town. Here are their pictures.

Plan is for me to pick up Sharon at 7:30 in the morning and bring her to the bus so we continue forward