Simple living in the country - back to basics

Tescodealqueen

Sneaks in to confess that cruise holidays are my guilty pleasure. And slopes off again…….

Cheery_Daff

Evening all 😊😊

We'll have no guilt about holidays round here! 😊😊 I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about the idea of a cruise. I did a 24 hour sailing to Stockholm once when they were a thing, and while I usually love being on a boat, I wasn't sure... But then that was just set up as a ferry, and I had a cheap top bunk (top of 3!!) In a windowless room and mostly ate Toblerone 😂😂

It was amazing sailing into Kristiansand at dawn and seeing it emerge out of the mist though 😍

I always thought if I did go on a cruise it would likely be towards the fjords rather than somewhere warm. Who knows. Certainly won't be any time soon but I'm not ruling it out in the future! 

Made it home from supermarket trips eventually, made tasty pasta (2 portions in the fridge for the weekend) and some pancake mix for tomorrow's breakfast. It's using up the last egg from our chickens 😕😕 so I may shed a little tear of remembrance. Couldn't bring myself to buy eggs in the supermarket today. Maybe I'll get back to that - in the meantime i think I need to find a reliable honesty box somewhere, preferably somewhere I can see them pottering about.

Right, best go to sleep - I think I'm going to get up and do the local parkrun tomorrow. I've not done this one before - it only opened a few months back and I didn't realise! There used to be a monthly times run, but this ever week now with parkrun branding so I'll get to keep adding to my (long-neglected) streak. No idea how many I'm up to, I did get my 50 t shirt though! 

themadvix

Enjoy your park run Cheery!

Tbh, I never thought I’d go on a cruise until last year when we looked at what Virgin were offering. And even now I have reservations - all those people, we’ll be ‘those people’ in the ports, the hideous scale of the boat… But we’ll see - definitely looking forward to the food and seeing the various places we’re going! But I’m really not sure we’d ever pay the full amount for it either - it’s so expensive!

Elisheba

Cheery_Daff said:

Nowt much to report on the budget, although apparently we did spend around £1300 between our weekend in Wales and a week in Scarborough Accommodation for the two was £775, and we've incorporated diesel into the normal diesel budget, so that leaves about £525 that we spent on food, drinks, cafes, ice creams, chips, entry fees etc, covering about 9 days of holiday in total, about £58 on average per day. 

Not remotely thrifty, and probably would have been cheaper to go on some kind of cruise... But hey ho. We had a great time and it was VERY much needed, and we've not taken on any debt for it, so I flatly refuse to feel guilty. 

Glad to hear you are refusing to feel guilty over your holidays 😊. At the end of the day, unless you just don't have enough to live on, people on here are frugal in order to better the quality of their lives, and holidays can be a big part of that. And you got good value for your money which is the main thing. 

I've only been on one cruise, which my Mum won (she's always winning things - comping is her big hobby) which was along the Rhone in France. As it was on a river it was a slightly smaller boat than those huge cruise ships you see, and that meant no pool, and the cabin felt very small and cramped to me. It was very nice with good excursions and food, but I wouldn't have paid the thousands of pounds every one else had to be there. 

Tescodealqueen

Thanks Cheery I have had a glimpse, and it really is a glimpse, of places and people I never dreamt I would see like Japan, Vietnam and Singapore and consider myself so lucky. And Norway is stunning and they are so far ahead of us in terms of sustainability and renewables I was in awe which sounds odd since I was on a cruise ship but I do try to be conscious of these things and do my bit as much as possible

Karmacat

I'd never have dreamed of going on a cruise until I physically couldn't do the sort of travelling I used to do, and while its true that on some lines there can be boozy crowds, and there's *always* a group of people stuck to the pools, I've been to places I'd never have got to on my own: the fjords of Norway, Iceland and Greenland, for sure, walking and RIBing up to a glacier, and tiny villages of a few hundred people that only survive because there are cruise ship tourists.  One comparatively large town called Flam in Norway springs to mind.  There was a railway trip up to the main rail line that follows the spine of Norway, but it was too long a day for me, so I took a "walking tour" around the village.  Literally pootling around this village of 350 people, ending with a cup of coffee and a piece of cake in the village hall.  The lady who made the cake chatted with us for an hour, and its one of my most precious memories of all my travels.

Karmacat

Cheery, you were also posting about using the last of your own chickens' eggs - that's a sad thing, no wonder it stood out for you.  Sending hugs.

Cheery_Daff

That sounds like a lovely memory KC! Yes, I imagine that's the type of situation I'd consider a cruise in as well, I thought of you and your adventures! I've never been much of a traveller - but maybe cruise ships would suit me well! Who knows.

Had fun at the parkrun! Wasn't my slowest ever one, and I wasn't last either. A long way off my fastest though 😂😂

Karmacat

Good stuff!  If you ever *did* decide to do a cruise, ORCA the charity ORCA | ORCA - Looking out for Whales and Dolphins often have a couple of volunteers on board these days, and they help you look for them (its a big ocean!  They're hard to see 🤣) and they run a few lectures too.  They made our "seagoing days" (when you're literally at sea all day) part of the highlights of the trip last year.

And congratulations on the parkrun too, it's very early to have finished and got back!

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that does sound exciting! I loved reading Josie Dew's book about travelling to Australia (I think) on board a freight ship 😂 Not quite the same! 

Timed the parkrun well - it's currently raining quite a bit. Didnt time the washing well though 🙄 Will see if it stops later, otherwise I'm going to have to hang it in the house, ridiculous!