07-07-2023 Newcastle, England, a Sea Day, and Finally We Are Home

How about a moment from the present before I continue writing about the remainder of our cruise.  The last couple of weeks since we returned home have been warm, no more than usual, but a few days in the triple digits, and most days above the mid 90's.  We are used to this after living in this part of Oregon for almost 6 years.

I have thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the office, with great air conditioning, writing about the cruise, reviewing the photos, and enjoying the memories.  Liz Wicks, a follower who has been around for a time, sent an email asking for a photo of the lovely scarf that I purchased in the Orkney Islands.  I opened the slim little box, lifted the lighter-than-air scarf into the sunlight, and attempted to take a one-handed photo.  I finally managed to get a decent photo in the mirror.

The delightful part about photographing the scarf is that the colors, art, and lightness of the fabric took me back to the beauty of the Orkneys.  I had a feeling it would do that and was sad to learn I couldn't order any more presents for my daughters.  The artist only ships to the UK.  To my delight, after a bit more searching, I discovered that the jewelry artists would ship her jewelry to the US, and the scarves that were coordinated with the jewelry.  So tickled.

I guess I now wish to slip back into thoughts about the last two days of our cruise.  We were lucky that Scotland, Ireland, and England were so temperate for our visit since I have read that summer heat is increasing everywhere in Europe, and even on the British Isles.  But for us, the last couple of days of cool, cloudy weather was delightful, partly because we knew of the heat we would return to at home.

Fire season has begun, with a big burn happening west of us in the Coast Range.  We saw the cloud on the evening it ignited as we sat on the porch with our evening supper.  At first, I thought it was a thundercloud, but no such luck.  It started on July 15 and as of today, July 24, it has grown to more than 22,000 acres.  The InciWeb report says that the fire was human-caused near the Oak Flat Campground near the Illinois River which flows into the Rogue River near Agness.  Some of you may remember our Rogue River trip to Agness a few years ago.  It is a remote outpost in a gorgeous, steep canyon wilderness.

A few days later, this was the sun that we saw in the late afternoon.  Somehow the phone camera isn't good at capturing the glowing blood red of the smoke-shrouded sun, but you get the idea.  Most of the time we have been fairly lucky regarding smoky skies, with the winds taking the smoke toward the ocean.  It only comes in sometimes in the later afternoon and evenings and is usually no longer visible in the morning when we wake.

In the meantime, during the cool early morning hours, I walk the property, check on the water system, add a little more water here and there, and appreciate all the shade from our huge, old oaks.  I do have to chase away the two big bucks that think our bird feeders are easy pickings, in addition to the apples ripening on our heirloom apple tree.

But, let's get back to our port near Newcastle.  As I read about this city in my pre-cruise research, I learned that it was a large, industrial city, with much to see, but not much that I really cared about at this stage of the cruise.  The many bridges that cross the Tyne River are interesting, but not enough so that I wanted to take a train to the center of the city, or an excursion that would view the bridges.  A description of one of the tours touts the fantastic Georgian structures occupied by department stores and high-street retailers along Northumberland Street and the beautiful Grey Street.  

There's lots to see in Newcastle, if you are on a leisurely vacation to the British Isles and wish to spend some walking time in a city that is quickly catching up to London as a center for culture, art, and trendy restaurants.  The tour to Hadrian's Wall sounded interesting, but not enough so for us to sign up and spend another day on a bus.

With a leisurely day ahead, we decided to take advantage of the shuttles that ran to the metro train station every 30 minutes from the port where Riviera had so conveniently docked. After our leisurely breakfast on the terrace, we ambled off the ship and to the waiting shuttle,

The ride was short to a charming village Mouth of the Tyne, and we exited the bus at the gorgeous train station.  Once again, it was a weekend and some shops were closed, but not so in the town where the streets were closed for a festival to begin that day but many of the shops were open.

We walked through the town, down to the water and the entrance to the Tynemouth Priory and Castle, which might have been a fun tour if we had a bit more time and the lines weren't so long.  The view from that area was beautiful, though, and the surrounding gardens were lush and colorful as I would expect in this part of Great Britain.

Back up the street toward the town we found a couple of interesting shops to visit.  Mattie would have loved it.

The last shop we explored was full of colorful and artsy stuff from all over the world.  It reminded me of the Pier One shops when they were at their most popular, but this one was even better.  

Mo and I both loved all the colorful flowers in the entrance gardens, and I could have spent a fortune in there if I had just a little more time.  I am not very good at meandering and shopping anymore, not like I used to.

Even though we didn't have a formal tour, didn't learn a lot of history, or maybe because of it, our day was delightful.  The weather was perfect, people-watching was entertaining, and simply seeing the wonderful architecture of the town was worth the bus ride.  We very much enjoyed our walk and didn't spend a penny doing it.

There were a great number of dog-friendly establishments in the town which made Mo and I really miss our little dog.  Why go to a dog-friendly bar when we don't have our dog with us?!

I know parts of the photo are out of focus, thanks to the phone, but I wanted to include it because it captures the feeling of the charming English town at the Mouth of the Tyne River near Newcastle.

When we returned to the ship, we found another charming area for relaxing and having a cocktail that we had somehow missed previously.  We didn't actually sit here, but I had to take a photo of the gorgeous amethyst crystal lamp bases for my daughter Melody, a rock and mineral collector.

We enjoyed another simple dinner in the Terrace Cafe and went to the last production show of the cruise, "Lights, Camera, Music", including the entire Riviera Production Company, the orchestra, and the Brilliant String Quartet.  Something that seemed a bit different is that the goodbye salute from the entire crew was a video, not the usual lineup of everyone on the stage where we could applaud and thank them for all we received on the cruise.  We felt a little bit sad about that since it seems that more and more of the small details that make for a memorable cruise were missing.

Newcastle was the last port of our cruise, with one more day before we would disembark in Southampton, England.  We had another day at sea, the only sea day of the cruise, and we had nothing scheduled except dinner at another specialty restaurant, Red Ginger.

Of course, right after breakfast, we returned to the game room, hoping that our puzzle was still in place.  It was, and we spent the first half of our sea day enjoying the view from the game room and finishing the puzzle.

After lunch, we wandered around the ship one last time, finding art to photograph that I had missed earlier on the cruise.  We ran into a couple of ladies doing the same thing and laughed together about some of the art.  The artist in residence had gorgeous paintings, and I was sad that I wasn't able to sign up for the art classes, but they weren't available to me by the time I could choose them.  The same was true for the cooking classes.  Both of those extra treats available on Oceania ships seem to be sold to the suites and penthouses before ordinary folk have a chance to sign up.

But the art that made us laugh were some interesting images, to say the least.  One of the ladies said, "I find this art disturbing," and the other lady said, "I find it a LOT disturbing."  It is all subjective for certain and was fun to explore.

Our last dinner aboard the ship was at Red Ginger, my least favorite restaurant.  The ambiance was very modern and rather spare.  My least favorite aspect was the lack of windows.  Even though the restaurant was on the fifth deck and did have windows, the shades were drawn and heavy and it was obvious they were not intended to be opened.

Our dinner was so-so but may have had to do with the menu choices that we made.  Mo had chicken teriyaki and I enjoyed a salad that was interesting and rather good.  I can barely remember anything else that we ordered, as my note-taking ability by this point in the cruise was sadly lacking.

I can see items on the menu that we might have chosen with a better outcome but in retrospect, I still wasn't that enamored with the food or the service that we received that evening.  We were happy to fall into bed, ready to be lulled to sleep on our last night at sea.

The ship docked at Southampton at 7 and our group wasn't called until a bit before 9.  Once we disembarked I was delighted at the efficiency of the process.  The long ramps leading from the ship to the port were easily navigable with my walker, with no steps or steep ramps involved.  Our luggage, marked with our disembarkation tags, wasn't difficult to find in the appropriate group.  We were then funneled through the various security screenings and before we knew it were loading onto the bus taking us to Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport.  All were very quick and very efficient, which is somewhat different than other cruises we have experienced.  I would say that the embarkation and disembarkation process with Oceania was among the best and quickest we have seen, a plus for the cruise line.

Once at Heathrow, we had several hours before our flight with some time to explore the airport.  I have flown through Heathrow a couple of times and my memories of that airport are of a crowded, dingy place with a LOT of people.  We were surprised at the updated facility, the extensive and fabulous shopping, and the many restaurant choices that were available to us.  We decided to lunch at Gordon Ramsay Plane Food and had what was probably the best fish and chips I have had in a very long time.  Even those silly smashed peas were green and tasted fresh.  Our wait wasn't more than ten minutes for a table and the service was excellent.

We were exceptionally lucky that we experienced no delays, no long waits on the tarmac for anything, and we had our chosen seats for the flight.  I attempted to beat the system by choosing an aisle and a window seat, offering my aisle seat to a young woman so that I could take her seat in the middle to be next to Mo.  That didn't work out well, and I spent the next 9 hours sitting next to an entitled rather snarky person who rolled her eyes and made huge huffing noises when I asked to go to the lady's room.  Twice only, in nine hours.  Give me a break.  Next time SHE can sit in the middle.

Mo got some beautiful photos of the glaciers and ice over the Arctic as we flew over.  Neither of us slept, however, and the flight was too long to be enjoyable.  Once we landed at the Portland airport, only an hour late, Dan and Chere picked us up at the baggage claim area.

I do have to speak a bit about the Portland airport.  Sadly, it was a mess, with the right hand not having a clue what the left hand was doing.  We have never flown in or out of the International terminal at Portland and will do whatever we can to avoid it in the future.  The baggage claim was a mess, with folks from Iceland not finding their luggage and ours mixed up and delayed for a very long time.  Passport Control and Customs were also a mess, with long lines snaking everywhere and no separate lines for disabled people.  There was no direction as to where we should go to get to the main terminal of our airport where our ride awaited.  Finally, we were put on a shuttle bus with a bunch of people who had missed flights or were running late.  I was very happy to get out of that shuttle and find our way to the exit doors of that airport.  It felt like a third-world airport, especially after such a stellar experience at Heathrow.

We wanted to thank Dan and Chere for the ride to and from the airport with dinner out on the way home.  I barely remember anything about that dinner except I did have a Perfect Marguerita and a decent meal at Applebees.  It was a good choice for a couple of very tired people who might have had a hard time making any kind of choices at any place else.  For us, Applebees has always been a fine place to eat a simple meal with good service.

After sleeping at Dan and Chere's, we were up early for the drive south.  Both of us were so excited to see Mattie, and when we arrived at Melody's Mattie was beside herself with joy.  But on the trip home, she seemed a bit confused, and a little bit sad, obviously wondering where her buddy Melody was.  

Once we arrived home, it was wonderful to see that everything was in great shape.  Daughter Deborah had taken good care of the place for us, with water handled and lawns mowed.  The house felt fabulous.

It took Mattie a couple of days to lose that worried look, and she would look up at us as if to ask whether or not things were going to change again.

In no time at all, she was feeling as chipper as ever, settling back into her everyday routine.  We felt pretty good too, once we got unpacked and got a couple of good nights' sleep.  It was wonderful to experience such a great cruise to a new place, and especially wonderful to be back home again.