Haloranch

It's a wintry day. Unahppily,I'm home sick with a cold. Happily, I'm basking by a blazing fire which wards off not only the chill, but also perfumes the air with a light touch of woodsmoke. I love it. I'm watching the snow continue to fall. Last night with the temperature just around zero huge flakes floated from the sky, clumping together at times to look like bits of Kleenex torn and drifing on the wind. Today they're tiny but relentless and little snowy peaks have capped each fence post. Across the ravine I can just make out the shape of a coyote gliding across the landscape, his mate trailing close behind. It's a good day to be inside.

Beautiful horses painted by Favourite Dotter for our spare bedroom. Beautiful Favourite Dotter

I asked Hans to take a head shot of me for Rotary and I prepared him for the fact that it wasn't going to be just snap one shot and that's it. But even I wasn't prepared for how many it took to make me look reasonable (four!) I'm not thrilled with it but evidently my mirror lies. I seem to look better there than on photos. Or are those just the rose coloured glasses I wear?

I love the colourful parrot fish that were so abundant in the waters of Bonaire and I was busy watching one of them when something shiny flashed at me from the bottom. There was one of my earrings winking back at me! I couldn't reach it, but Clark and Rocco were snorkeling close to me so I waved them over for some help. They both dived for it after examining my other earring so they'd know what they were looking for. When you looked at it just right, the sun caught its reflection and it glittered merrily. Otherwise, it was just another lump on the bottom. Clark reached it first and brought it to me, tighty clutched in his fist. I had meant to take them off before swimming but completely forgot. Not very good, since glittery earrings could attract other fish... They do make lures out of shiny metal, don't they?

In the wee hours of the morning Hans fell in our cabin and badly hurt his back. See my earlier post about the hospital . Luckily, we had a full day at sea during which he could rest and he never left the cabin. That evening I went alone to dinner and our 4 friends came back with me, Clark poised at my back with his camera ready as I opened the door. "If you read this posting Clark, email me the photo and I'll put it up". __________________ These are the hours of lead. Waiting in the cabin until 8:00 a.m. when we had to vacate. Then waiting to disembark. However, the line actually moved very, very quickly. The hardest part was for Hans to have to stand while we waited for our colour to be called. As soon as we were in the warehouse we saw all the luggage stacked according to colour . I flagged a porter to give us a hand, identified our bags and then we lined up for the bus. The only downside is that we had 4 hours to kill at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, and we couldn...

Walked around town after our earlier snorkel and on one street we counted 16 jewellery shops one beside the other. And that was just on one side of the street. The other side looked the same. Despite this, there were deals to be had. Rocco bought Pat, his wife of 30+ years, a new wedding ring set with a gorgeous oval stone nearly 1.4 carats. It sparkled brilliantly at dinner that evening under the halogen lights.

There were taxis everywhere listing the various beaches and fares to get you there. "Which one has snorkeling?" we asked, and she points to one on her sign. $5 each. "Fine, take us there." She has a minivan full of customers and we're the first to get off. "Here you are," she says as we exit and hand her the money. "Just swim out about 100 yards to the reef." Oops. It's a public beach and there is nothing here but sand and a few trees for shade. Specifically, there are no lounge chairs. We've become used to them but hey, it's no problem to spread one towel on the sand and use the other to dry off. We decide we should take turns swimming since there's no one else around that we know who can keep an eye on our things, so off I go. I can see the darker area in the water where I'll find the reef and well, it looks a little further out than 100 yards. Oh. And because in some of the other areas where we snorkeled we foun...

Couldn't resist this sign in Aruba "No parking on any street during snow emergency."

"Our last 2 passengers have just boarded. Lucky for them." The Captain's voice boomed over the loudspeaker. Everyone was supposed to be on board at 4:30 with the ship due to leave at 5:00. At 4:40 the Captain's first announcement came over the intercom: "Would Mr. and Mrs. Jones of cabin Caribe 406 please call the purser's office immediately." This was repeated twice at 5 minute intervals. We all knew Mr. and Mrs. Jones hadn't come back yet. Finally, about 1 minute to 5:00, a pickup truck pulls up in front of the gangplank and a middle aged couple gets out. Hundreds of passengers are lined up on deck 7 and applaud loudly as a ship's officer approaches them and obviously speaks a few sharp words. Mr. Jones doesn't even wait for his wife but stalks off in a huff onto the gangplank. What a gentleman.

On the first day of the cruise, Hans woke up early and got to the gym shortly after 8:00 a.m. when they opened. It was already full of people and all the treadmills were taken so he worked for a bit on an elliptical machine. Next day he got there earlier and got a treadmill. Thereafter, he slept in in the mornings and instead walked and jogged around the deck in the afternoon or early evening before dinner. The laps worked well for him - he started out doing 3 miles and by the end of the cruise, just before he got injured, he was doing 5 miles and mostly jogging. I went to the gym only once and did a bit on the exercise bike and the elliptical. I didn't want to do the treadmills as they faced the windows which meant you had your butt to all the other people in the gym. Not nice. Mainly, my exercise consisted of taking the stairs everywhere, as did Hans. The ship has elevators but, on the first cruise we ever took (13 years ago now) I decided if I wanted to indulge in the delic...

Sometimes I'm mean. Even Grinchlike. Hans and I are sunbathing by the pools in the adult section and I can hear two very young voices coming from the hot tub. They were getting noisy and annoying so I went down, told them you have to be 16 to be here, and pointed to the sign that said so to emphasize my point. They didn't say anything and left the hot tub. Since I was down there anyway, I decided to dip into the cool pool and joined 3 other ladies already there. "Thank you." they said, virtually in unison. I shrugged and said that I found them to be annoying, and the reason we come to this area of the ship is that we don't want to be around kids. Emphatic nods and agreement all around. Then I see the boys come back down and prepare to step into the cool pool. With us! "This pool is also for adults only," I said, pointing to a second sign. They smirked shrugged their shoulders and prepared to ignore me. Then I see dad coming down the stairs. ...

Bon Bini, as the locals say. Welcome to Bonaire! Lo and Pat on the beach at Bonaire. I had to wear a t-shirt to snorkel since I already had a sunburn on my back from the previous day's snorkeling. This stop was a surprise to us as the ship was schedled to go to La Guaira, Venezuela. However, the road between La Guaira and Caracas is in a very bad state and so the captain substituted Bonaire, one of the ABC islands: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao. To our great delight we learned that not only does Bonaire have world class snorkeling, it also has more flamingos than humans. We even saw a flock of flamingoes flying over our beach, their vivid pink colour a brilliant jewel against the sky. Quite by chance once of the crew was with us earlier when we swam with the turtles, and she told us that we could walk to the beach at Plaza Resort . They evidently have a reef just off the beach so the snorkelig's good there. Perfect! We met up with our 4 table-mates on the beach who kindly sh...