Appreciated Sir W. I'll be with you shortly. I may well have to arrive without a tincture of the more favoured Tawny as when I last sounded the cellar it was empty and the one opened bottle is about to lose suction.

I am not sure that the freezer will improve the cheese either (not goat I trust). The Christmas Baby Stilton (she wot wasn't but occasionally ate due covid cancellation of Christmas feast) is looking a little off colour but happenstancialy M'Lady is expected to call soon with a fresher half cheese left over from her TT visitors and Red Arrows party of Saturday passed. Shows she hasn't visited her home turf recently as she usually only serves Cashel blue (also V much to my taste but without rind which I need to make 'Stilton curls' - a moreish tab nab made by sprinkling the powdered rind onto puff pastry in a sort of Swiss-roll fashion).

As to where bound, I understand that Nocontrol have upgraded the ECDIS to AI. The printout has several destination ports all named Mulberry, when queried it responds that that the only other Artificial Island it can locate is an almost match, Tracy Island which it understands is not only artificial but also fictional. So its passage plan is for Normandy.

Presently, though, there is a problem with the communications between the ECDIS and the Anschutz Steering stand and we aren't going anywhere at present.

The latter thinks that Normandy is a diversion and insists we should be making for Calais.

Calais! thats where i drank many bottles of onion water they called beer. the hypermarket is worth a look though.

Anyone seen the Skipper around? still waiting for him to give the orders.
Cut outs and plastic stewards are all Horizontal for several days now. Feels like I am aboard alone.
Think I will book a nice long vacation somewhere nice... perhaps even lay her up somewhere....I need a drink Stewards

I'm working on a Passage Plan to Monaco for the Grand Prix, and talking about pricks where is the sextant and Norrie Tables?
Our Noble Lord is frigging about with the Anschutz (sounds like something from a Tiger Tank) and getting nowhere. The chandler is bringing down a Tom Tom from Halfords, it has a busty blond with a husky voice built in, or so I'm told.
Why does our bulk Fonseca Tank taste of Palm Oil?
TK max is organising our Postal Votes, just tell him which Constituency and how many votes you want. (an old NI tradition).
Tally Ho.

After watching the pricks go round and round we could find some wet paint and watch it dry. Ihave just been watching postman pat goes dogging on youtube.

As long as we use the GPS for the heading reference the ECDIS will manage without the gyro - we just have to be careful that the GPS isn't jammed or spoofed as that would make a marmalade of any planned passage - especially one put in by a plumber.

As for the port tank - with the tree-huggers railing against palm oil perhaps some cad has tried smuggling in it - like cocaine dissolved in petrol.

Perhaps our postprandials are not completely ruined. Does anyone know if Alfa Laval do a gravity disk suitable for separating out the tawny with one of those spin drier things in which Tmac and ES are always losing seals (a wonder WWF isn't after us for that)?

As a last resort I expect cook can fins a way of preparing Nasi goreng with palm oil - the tang of tawny may go well with the peanut sauce.

I suppose it could have been the international moratorium on Fun using palm oil to spike the elixir of after dinner life so we don't take so much.

The Nasi Goreng smells like a Bank Line cadets boilersuit, god alone knows what it tastes like, the "Chef" refuses to sample it.
Its a long time since I ventured into the black hole but I have a vague recollection that gravity discs met a similar fate to vinyl discs. But accepting water has an sg of 1 and gas oil has an sg of 0.85 and extrapolating for palm oil we have about 0.7825. QED

Where was I, yes the Norrie Tables are bloody boring as readable as Magna Carta so I have engaged Capt Alexander Smollett for the voyage, he is a cousin of JW Norrie so we are in safe hands. As for marmalade forget Seville and make do with Little Chip.

Mine tasted alright. Are you sure that your fried egg was fresh? (-ish).

Very thoughtful of Bank Line to provide their cadets with palm oil, lolly sticks as well?

Talking of Eggs ...
https://eggs.org.nz/
... some recipes, if your eggs are fresh that is.

Well bugger me, I thought it was only sheep NZ was full off, I must add hens to that list.

To give the NZ Egg Marketing Board some good news Lord Varley has Egg-Nog for brekky after a night on the toot.

Eh? little chips? ... French Fries.

Eggs is for scrambling,with butter, Milk, salt and pepper. served up on freshly made Buttered toast. Almost as good as A cheese beanie

Send a photograph and I'll consider putting you on the list.

Morninks and evenincks I drinks Warninks? Not I. Eggs essential for the Christmas Cake, Yorkshire puddings and a proper breakfast.

The last can be any of Poached (at which I am rather more misser than hitter - ending too hard), fried - with proper accoutrements of crispy streaky bacon, Andreas Cumberland sausage, fried bread etc. or a slightly less rare treat scrambled on toast.

The microwave being fine for that last and also infuriates the better cooks (as it did Ma when I used the de-humidifier to show her how to ensure her icing set. Once only, and it explains why I then had to take over the Christmas cake-making. She was a great cook but hated it, a job for staff).

We had an old family joke - "If we had eggs, we could have eggs on toast, if we had bread."
Or, there was that old morning request of my Dad's, "How would you like your boiled eggs fried, poached?"
Anything to egg you people on ...
When is the Golden Dreamer coming to New Zealand? Mind you, it'll have come a long way up the Manawatu River to get to where I am. No hens here, just a great big dairy factory. Take a trip down when the weather is finer, in Jan-Feb. A nice 12500 mile jaunt for New Year 2025.
We can arrange some Maori's to do the Haka (without a rugby field) to welcome you. Anything for a laugh!

A capital idea, I'll get the Noble Lord to do a Passage Plan, he's refitted ECDIS with triode valves.
As regards the Haka, it's a busted flush, we Irish regularly whupp the All Blacks. With and without McCaw.

And no leg of lamb for Christmas lunch.

The Manawatu River holds no fear for us, we've run aground in better rivers, the old Suez River can be a wee bit tricky and the locals a bit uppity if you touch bottom on their, or rather our, waterway.
So KTF my Harrissey friend and start your preps.

Well, McCaw is well gone, and the AB's are pretty much owned by some company, Silverlake, in the US nowadays. I'm not sure how this new coach, Robertson, will do with them. Keep beating them Ireland! They're far too high up the scale with a 76% win rate over all other teams.
Many legs of lamb can be provided for such esteemed company in our Southern Seas and I'm sure we could do chickens and cheese and ice cream to please all.
You'll never get up the Manawatu River - at no point is it as wide as the Ever Given was long. If we had a plug that size in it, the Central Districts would be under water, and it would be fresh water too, not your sort of thing at all unless you want to weaken your Whisky.
BTW, what's KTF and Harrissey? I'm from Berwick-upon-Tweed, but live in NZ, hence tweediekiwi, but it's normally too hot for Harris Tweed here.
I look forward to hearing more of your plans and trips. A great diversion from normal life.

Keep The Faith and buy yourself a Harris Tweed sports coat, it doesn't have to be the jaggy tweed the Laird of IOM wears. And no leather elbows.
Chicken, cheese and ice cream is a bit of stramash, just stick to turkey.

This sainted Isle has its own lamb, thanks. As for tweed. The family fortune was founded on worsted (or more precisely on the ill-treated backs of Old John V's mill workers) rather than the rougher stuff that the sainted Isle to our West favours.

As it happens I have just had Pa's corduroy jacket 'done' with cuff patches (not leather, no one's got the stitching gear I gather). V smart I'll look now!

WRT saints and ensainting. Are there more than two societies responsible for their classification or can anyone go around appointing ensandled brown people they find wrangling devils and turning water into wine? (That last. Presumably not many methodist or ICS appointees - mainly LR, Canterbury office and RINA, Rome I guess).

(RINA probably better than LR for wine. Anyone tasted Rougemont Castle?)

My trusty Christian partner for life here says not just anyone can ensaint the ensandaled, but she thinks there are more than two beatifier(?) organisations, when you consider all the orthodox foreign ministries of the non English speaking variety. Interesting thought though. Until I find out out properly, I'll KTF (thank you ES), unharrissed, and ponder what ICS, LR and RINA are? You really are a very learned chap Varley.
For a while, down here in NZ, we had a RENA hanging off our Astrolabe Reef off the east coast up by Tauranga, but that's been cleaned up now. Different RINA of course, but, the mind wanders.
And ES, you use the word Stramash! Amazing! My old Scottish Dad used to break out words like that, normally under the influence of fine amber products made in Kirkintilloch and such places.
I remember the words but I never really knew what they meant and presumed he was swearing at me again, but in Gaelic.
Where's the GD now then? Who's in the engine room and who's on the helm?

Its well you may ask.

The RINA Chaps always had undrinkable wine because they believed 3 years of second order differential equations gave them the ability to turn water into wine.

One tends to not getting involved with questions of an Ecumenical Nature, as Fr Ted advised, but if the opportunity arises its a must to give Celtic a good kicking.

With the Twelfth a week away I must away and steal a lorry load of pallets for a wee BBQ.

no good asking me. I only own it and ride around on it. Tmac and his pet mates have the Engine room. I assume ES is still in charge of the bridge. plus we have an army of cut outs and plastic Stewards milling around doing stuff. Might even sell the Golden Dreamer as I am knocking on a bit now. qwonder if ES wants to buy her for a few cases of Jamiesons?

Ah, RINA - Royal Institute of Naval Architects? Correct?
LR - Lloyds Register?
ICS - International Chamber of Shipping?
Correct?
I'm getting used to your acronyms. A bit hard for a colonial who lives inland to grasp all this.
And I agree about ecumenical stuff. I leave to the other half and continue my heathen ways.

Sorry TweedleKiwi, my fault. Not the belly button draughtsmen in this case, fellow heathen, I meant - the Italian Classification Society Registro Italiano Navale (Italian Naval Register).
LR - Yes.
ICS - Iranian Classification Society.

(I guess you have a lot more inland than we do. I imagine a lot of our inland you would call beach).

Thankyou for educating me on your TLA's. Hard to keep up with them these days. The only beaches near here are on the river bends. Nearest seaside is and hour and half one way and two the other. We live in Pahiatua. The place name is Maori for 'resting place of the god'. Not me, some other god ...
And you're on the Isle of Man are you? My Dad used to be at sea with an engineer from there, Lofty Ablett, who was a mad keen motorbike rider and rode in the TT every year. He even took his bike to sea, overhauled it, and gave it a test ride up the 650ft main companionway on the SS Southern Garden. Or, so the story went ... Dad was full of it.

I never got to NZ. The nearest I got was the adjacent Island to your West and as that was Dampier it might be said to have been too close anyway.

IoM has been home since 1967 born and half-bred in Surrey 'across', as one says here, as were all the attempts to educate me. Ablett is not a name I knew but in Googling Ablett and TT I get mentions for I J Ablett in the 1966 TT Sidecar and the '61'62 &/63 MGP Junior races. An L Ablett gets a mention in the '67 Senior TT. A little strange to me he doesn't also figure in the MGP which is really the qualifying event for TT so maybe same chap.

Tommy Corteen, one of Denholm's Chiefs from here, was also into biking and I used to see him occasionally on leave as both 'GTV Men' although we didn't sail together so I don't know if he contemplated taking a bike to sea with him although that sort of habit does get one talked about so I suspect not.

You did get to NZ David but it was the West Island of NZ that you reached.

That I J Ablett was the man in question. Ian was his name, Lofty was because he was 6'5" tall. Dad had a picture of him on his bike flying off a humpback bridge during the TT. Lofty had signed it '100mph With a Song In My Heart'. Brave man ... or, certifiable.

I can well believe that an Aussie would try and palm Dampier off as somewhere not Aussie and not even near Aussie but you can't escape geography. When the demon with the van spied it he muttered "that hole really is a hole".

It's Australian whilst there's a few Yen or Yuan to be earned.

Here's a photo of that Ian Ablett, on board the tanker SS Southern Garden, somewhere in the Weddell Sea, 1957. The one marked Me is my Dad.

Wot? No motorbike?

(And they must be in the fivers's house, no one would sit on another's bunk in such a boiler suit).

Bit of bad news chaps. The chubby boss and his henchmen won't let us berth or anchor off because of an unfortunate little spill a couple of years ago. What a bummer.
This Marpol lark is becoming quite tedious, don't you agree?

What? The Golden Dreamer had a leak? Surely they have better things to police than the fine fluids that emanate from within her sleek hull. So, what's the new destination to be?

Yeah, where we going Skipper. Or are we on a mystery tour (did loads of them as coach driver, always won the guess the destination too)

When you need an engineer to start the engine TkMax and the menagerie are walking with Williams Chosen Few and humming along to Dollies Brae, good luck to them but it won't get us to Port Said.
Nothing for it but pull on the boilersuit and ask the ever reliable Mr Mundrabilla to give us a hand flashing up the donkey boiler for steam on deck and we will be underway. Viscount Varley (bit of alliteration) lay to the Chartroom.
My personal hairdresser is waiting for me in Port Said with his 3 bottles of everlasting youth. By the time we transit the Bitter Lakes I'll be smelling like a Pharaoh.

Port Said eh! I'll get me a new watch there then. the beetles died in this one. no more tick.

wonder if the bum boats are still around? maybe still flogging Cardboard shoes and suit cases.

Are you suggesting the wheelhouse is the place for hailing bum-boats to lay youths on the chart table for a bit of titillation? I don't think I would get any takers myself, even if (possibly especially if) I smelled like a dead Egyptian potentate.

Sailing orders are sailing orders however and if the ECDIS doesn't come up with a plan I'll ask you to send up a pretty one.

If we are just going to check out the bazaar for bargains 'on tick' I think you'll be disappointed. Ticks and the Sweetwater canal together spell Penicillin.

Mike Tyson famously said that everyone has a Plan until they get a punch in the mouth, so my friend you had better come up with a bloody good plan!
The Suez is not designed to accommodate persons of a weakly constitution and I know our crew will not flinch. Lets give it a go.

Ooooh! Are you going through Suez sideways like the Ever Given did? Beware pirates while doing pilates.

News travels fast in the Empire, youse'll know the price of a rack of lamb in London within a couple of months of it hitting the frying pan.
His Lordship is a savage for medium rare lamb chops so we'll have you scouring the hills and valleys of WAIRARAPA-BUSH for hefty, fatty ewes for our deep freezer.