Our first port of call on the cruise was Messina, Sicily, but we wouldn’t be docking until 12pm. After a leisurely pancakes breakfast in the Orion, Nan and I went out separate ways for a while - back to the cabin for me briefly, and up to the sun deck for her.

Damien turned up whilst I was in the cabin. Although he was unfortunately too busy to join us on land as originally planned, he’d booked us on the Mount Etna Scenic Drive tour, which was leaving shortly after we docked.

Pulling into Messina itself is a sight. There was an excellent view from our veranda, as we passed by a gold statue of the Virgin Mary that stands on a column at the entrance to the port. We were told by our guide later in the day that the statue was called Our Lady of the Letters, and the story goes that the Virgin Mary wrote a letter to the Christians in Messina, an extract of which is embossed on the plinth. The extract reads something like, ‘We bless you and your city’, and Mary is said to be the Protector of Messina. There are a cynical number of people, however, that suggest that Mary never wrote the letter or gave her blessing to Messina, given its bloody history - it was invaded numerous times right through to the 19th century, was almost totally destroyed in 1908 by an earthquake and tsunami, and then bombed around 20,000 times during World War II.

We left the ship right on time at midday, walking out into amazingly hot weather before boarding the coach. Our guide, Doris, was extremely good - she gave us a running commentary on the 2 hour drive to Mt.Etna, with historical and factual information on Sicily.

Mt.Etna is visible from many miles away. It’s an active volcano, which has erupted numerous times in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but there are still many people who live on its hills. The road to it winds back and forth up the mountain, and steam plumes from the main crater. We stopped halfway up to take photos of the view and to look across the old lava flows, which run like scars down the hill. We stopped some way from the summit, at the site of the Silvestri Crater, which was created in an eruption several years ago. It’s safe to walk around, and even walk into, as it’s now sealed. It’s surrounded by more dried lava flows. Nan stayed at ground level, as the hill up the crater was very rocky and slippery. I had a good wander, and we had something to eat before reboarding the coach and heading back to the ship.

We had some more time to relax in the evening before heading down to the theatre to play bingo (one of Nan’s favourite pastimes). No luck, unfortunately - a lady behind us won $400. Dinner afterwards was just as good as the night before. Nan skipped the appetizer and salad course, and I skipped salad, but there was still plenty:

Antipasto platter
Louisiana gumbo
New York Steak
Tiramisu

Having had a glass of wine (a REAL rarity for me) as Dutch courage, Nan and I headed on to the Savoy at 10.30pm for the karaoke. I hopped up to the mic when Shane, the MC, asked for help singing YMCA at the start of the evening, and later also sang We Are the Champions. Nan disappeared off to bed only 30 mins or so before me - a full day at sea beckoned, with a full programme of on-board activities to enjoy.

As I write this entry, I’m sitting on the veranda of a Concierge Class stateroom aboard the Celebrity Galaxy, with Sicily in sight. My Nan and I are on the Eastern Mediterranean 10 day cruise. My cousin works here on the ship, and we were invited along - you don’t turn down an offer like that!

Yesterday morning, we had to get up at a hideously early hour (3.50am) in order to get a lift to East Midlands airport from my long suffering Dad, to catch a 6.30am flight to Rome Ciampino. Damien had told us that there would be Celebrity reps at the airport and we could catch a shuttle bus from there to the port of Civitavecchia. Unfortunately, my aunt had told him that we were flying into Rome Fiumicino - no reps at Ciampino! If I’d been on my own, I would have caught a train up to the port instead, but with Nan and heavy luggage, our only option was a truly expensive taxi that put a real crimp on our Euros. I suspect we’ll be getting more of them before the cruise is out.

Our first day on the ship consisted of being met by Damien (and Marianna, his fiance), given the grand tour, plied with drinks and food, exploring, sunning ourselves, waiting for a room - and we got lucky to get a veranda! - and generally being spoilt rotten.

The ship itself is amazing , absolutely huge. I’ve already spent time wandering around looking lost. There’s a cinema and theatre, numerous places to eat and drink seemingly 24 hours a day, bars, entertainment, a fitness centre, a computer centre… the list goes on.

In the evening, we went to the Orion restaurant for dinner, and the menu was amazing. I think if I keep a running tally of what I eat on board, I’ll not eat again until Christmas, but anyway - last night was:

Shrimp cocktail
Chilled tangerine and apple soup
Romaine lettuce salad
Chicken saltimbocca (ham and spinach)
Raspberry cheesecake and icecream

When we got back to the cabin, our beds had been turned down, we had a chocolate beside the bed, and a chilled bottle of champagne and basket of fruit were waiting for us. Oh yes, and there was a single stem rose in a vase in the bathroom! I’m going to like it here…

Today is a day trip around Messina with Damien, and hopefully Marianna if she can get the time.

The BBC News page posted an article today about the declining communication between neighbours. Back when I was a kid, we lived at the end a cul-de-sac, which had eight 1970s-built houses. The majority of them were families with children around the age of my siblings. We all knew each other names, talked and played in the street, heard the occasional bit of gossip, and so on. This was in the 1980s.

The area I live in now has around 40-50 houses, a mixture of privately owned and council houses. I know the first name of my next door neighbour, but not his surname. I know he has a daughter, but I’m not sure whether she lives with him full time or just occasionally. He argues with his partner (I hear her shouting through the walls), who’s not the mother of his daughter, but I don’t know her name. We’ve exchanged few words in the six years we’ve both lived there, and most of those consist only of quick, almost rhetorical greetings of, ‘Hello, how’s things?’. I have no idea who the owners of the other three houses in my row are, and I’ve never spoken to them. Of the other houses, the only resident I’ve talked to is the father of the house on the corner. I don’t know how many of the kids in the neighbourhood are his, or even his name. The same was pretty much true of the house I lived in when I first moved to Sheffield, and all the houses I lived in (rented) down in South Wales.

Seems like the concept of the neighbourhood barely exists any more - I exchange more words with the owner of the sandwich shop close to my office, or the gardener who comes round regularly!

Treacle

After Dorrie’s death, I was cat-less for around two weeks before I couldn’t stand the silence in the house any longer. I took myself down to the Cat Shelter to find a suitable cat. They don’t reserve cats that won’t be ready till after their vaccinations, which is why I spent three hours on Easter Sunday waiting outside the Shelter to be first in the queue for a little 1 year old brindle tortie I’d fallen in love with the week before, Treacle. She’d been really loving when I first met her, so I adopted her and took her home, telling myself that I shouldn’t expect her to be another Dorrie. Indeed, she wasn’t. For the first week, she meowed almost non-stop. The only times she stopped were when she was eating, and when she was walking over my lap, treadling her paws (and claws!) into my thighs to get comfortable. When I shut her downstairs overnight, she cried for hours, stopped for a while in the middle of the night, then started crying again around 4am. When I let her upstairs to sleep on my bed instead, she curled up into a ball and fell asleep. Success! But no - she woke me up at 3.30am for three nights running, without fail, by walking over my head. I shut her downstairs again and hoped she would lose her voice, with all the meowing.

I read up on lone cats. The general consensus on the internet seemed to be ‘get another cat’. I really didn’t want to be a two-cat household (more animals than humans is not a goer for me), but at the same time it seemed unfair to take her back to the Shelter. So, the next Saturday, I went down to the Shelter for advice. They suggested that I could either get a second cat, or wait a little while longer to see if she settled in. The cats they had that they thought would be suitable weren’t ready anyway, so I at least had a grace period. I left the Shelter and went down to the pet shop to get some more toys for Treacle and, back at home, ordered a cat tree for her. Amazingly, it seemed to work somewhat. She played with the toys, explored the cat tree disdainfully at first, and didn’t cry quite so much. Several more nights of shutting her downstairs seemed to reinforce the idea that crying would not get her middle-of-the-night sympathy. I told the Shelter that she seemed to be settling down, and relaxed a bit.

She still spends an inordinate amount of time sleeping next to me or treadling my thighs if I’m on the sofa. Occasionally she’ll hare around the living room like a mad thing, or try to claw up the rug. Whilst I’m a bit too nervous to let her go outside after what happened to Dorrie, she does look out the window and cry now and then. I got her a leash and harness and might try going out into the back garden with her. She escaped last night when I opened the living room door and I spent 10 worried minutes in the rain trying to coax her out from under the neighbours’ cars. I introduced her to the spare bedroom for the first time today, and she meowed for 20 minutes straight, even when I shooed her out and back downstairs. Won’t be trying that one again.

It has to be said that Treacle is an amazingly loving cat. She loves attention and never turns down some fuss, unlike Dorrie, who would only tolerate so much stroking before nipping. Her favourite sleeping spot is next to me (cute, but not always a good thing). She’s relaxed around my friends, and will happily go to them for fuss. She thinks she’s a guard dog, and will growl if someone knocks on the door. She uses the litter tray, and has done from day one, and doesn’t claw the litter liner to pieces. She’s definitely got a very different personality to Dorrie, which is understandable. It’s taking me time to adjust to her, and probably her to me, but I like to think we’re making progress. Here’s hoping we find happy common ground. buy cialisbuy cialisbuy levitrabuy levitrabuy propeciabuy propeciabuy somabuy somabuy levitrabuy cialisbuy propeciabuy levitrabuy somabuy cialisbuy propeciabuy levitrabuy somabuy cialisbuy levitrabuy propeciabuy soma

Dad came up on Sunday, and we went looking for Dorrie. Unfortunately, it was too late. We found her lying under some bushes. Although there wasn’t a mark on her, we think she was probably hit by a car, and managed to get away from the road before dying.

We took her up to the pet crematorium, and I took off her collar and tag. I’ll get her ashes tomorrow.

Born July 2006. Died February 2008. She may have had a bad start in life until I rescued her at 6 weeks old, but I think she was happy with me - I certainly received enough ‘gifts’!

Love you, chicken.

My cat Dorrie has disappeared. I last saw her on Wednesday evening, and she hasn’t come home since, and the food I leave for her each morning has gone untouched. I’ve phoned the RSPCA, the local Council, the PDSA, local vets, the Cats Protection League, and the Sheffield Cats Shelter. I’ve placed online notifications on several websites, including the Sheffield Forums lost and found and the Missing Pets UK database. I put posters up locally this evening. Dorrie is microchipped and has a collar with a name tag and my phone number on, but I haven’t heard anything. Needless to say, I’m more than a little distraught.

My living room, yesterday morning. I’d just come downstairs after getting dressed, and I opened the door to find a very wet Dorrie, my cat, playing with a very wet, yet perfectly live, mouse. This is not too surprising an event, although admittedly, the mice are usually dead.

I sighed, and got down on my hands and knees to catch the mouse and chuck it back outside. Dorrie had other ideas, and before I could stop her she grabbed the mouse and took it under the kitchen table. As I shuffled after her, avoiding the wet paw prints on the vinyl flooring, she momentarily let the mouse go. It ran straight towards me, and I cupped my hands around it to stop it moving. Grabbing Dorrie’s collar with one hand and pressing her down to the floor, I attempted to pin the mouse’s tail with my other hand to pick it. The mouse jumped round and sunk its teeth into my thumb, hard, and WOULDN’T LET GO.

I had Dorrie restrained, because I knew if I let her go, she’d go for the mouse and take my thumb off too. The mouse was doing its best to take a hefty chunk out of my thumb, and was flicking my hand in an attempt to dislodge the mouse without hurting it. And it still WOULDN’T LET GO! In exasperation, I shook my hand, and the mouse was flung from my thumb and over my head into the living room behind me. Dorrie shook herself free too, jumped past me, and pounced on the mouse.

I finally managed to pin Dorrie down once again, and gingerly picked up the mouse by the very tip of its tail. I rushed to the front door with it, unlocked and opened the door, and dropped it outside, holding Dorrie back with one leg.

Then I went and nursed my bleeding thumb.

In work, I phoned the doctor to see if I needed any kind of antibiotics or tetanus shot. They said it wasn’t necessary unless the bite got infected, but as I was due for a tetanus jab anyway, I could come in that afternoon if I wanted. I explained what had happened to the head of the office, amidst much laughter (mine and hers), and went down to the doctor’s surgery that afternoon for a multishot (tetanus, polio, diphtheria).

This morning, I went into work as usual, and got a call from the head of the office around 10am. Apparently, yesterday afternoon she had told a friend in the department I used to work in that I’d been bitten by a rabid (jokingly) mouse, and had gone to get the tetanus shot.

“Oh my God,” said the friend. “Is she ok?”
“Oh yes, fine,” the head of the office said.

The head of the office had subsequently got into work this morning, to find a worried voice mail from the head of division.

“I heard you have an infestation down there, and that Elaine got bitten by a rabid mouse. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The gossip grapevine never ceases to amaze me. Talk about your Chinese whispers!

Thursday, and our last full day in New York. It’s surprising really how quickly the time seems to have gone.

We had to be up early this morning to get to central Manhattan well before 9am if we wanted any chance of getting a good vantage point for seeing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We’d read in our guidebook that the best seats were all taken by as early as 7am, and whilst we weren’t quite tough enough to be up and about in time for that, I did nudge Chris out of bed in time for us to get a subway train at 7.15ish. We reached Times Square for 8am, and it was already bustling, although we did get to very near the front of the barriers. We asked a police officer or two when we could expect to see the parade pass by, and when he told us it would be at least 9.15am, we decided to abandon our good position and go and sit down in a nearby McDonalds until a bit nearer the time. At just after 9am we pushed our way through the crowds, and whilst we didn’t get quite as good a space as earlier, we still had a great view of the larger floats and balloons. The first of them paraded past at about 9.30am, and just kept going. There were a load of stars on some of the floats - Dolly Parton, the band Good Charlotte, the cast of the film Hairspray, and several others who I didn’t recognise and only found out about when I read the news reports online later. We didn’t stick around till the very end of the parade - by around 11am our feet and legs were killing us, so we pushed back through the teeming crowd - a near impossible task - and headed downtown on the subway to see if we could find any open stores. There was a Christmas market in Union Square, and a Virgin Megastore that we disappeared into for a while. Other than that, very few places other than some cafes and newsagent type stores were open. Given that there wasn’t much opportunity for us to frivolously spend money or engage in sightseeing, we headed back to Brooklyn and decided to take it easy for the afternoon.

We went out at around 5pm for a Thanksgiving dinner. Perry’s, the diner around the corner that served us a giant breakfast back on our first day, was doing a fixed price Thanksgiving menu - $18.95 for a three course meal. I can’t think of many places (if any) in England who’d do a 3-course turkey dinner for that amount! We had a bread basket on our table, then got chicken noodle soup to start, although not the kind we’re used to. This had large pieces of spiral pasta in it, and proper pieces of chicken. Nice, mind. The main course was unusual. We were brought out a platter with peas and mushrooms on (together), a baked potato wrapped in foil for Chris, a sweet potato in foil for me (the top of the potato came off with the foil), and finally two plates with turkey breast piled high over stuffing. It looked like the same amount of turkey each that Mum would carve off to feed our family of eight at Christmas! They obviously don’t believe in doing things by halves here. The turkey was topped with a yellow sauce that had Chris poking at it dubiously. It turned out to be gravy, but I’ve never seen yellow gravy in my life. The stuffing wasn’t UK-traditional chestnut or sage and onion. It turned out to have a hundred and one ingredients. On my plate alone, I found apple, cashews, pineapple, raisins, and cranberries. More of a fruit sauce than a stuffing, really! There was far too much food for either of us to finish. We only made it so far before giving up. We were then brought desserts of vanilla cheesecake (me) and chocolate chocolate chip layer cake (Chris). And no - neither of us could finish. We staggered back around the corner to the house, and avoiding any kind of movement for at least half an hour!

Tomorrow is well known in the US for being Black Friday. All the post-Thanksgiving sales start, and people have been known to camp outside stores on Thanksgiving itself. In fact, outside a branch of Circuit City in Union Square, we saw a small line of people in camping chairs waiting outside the doors - and this was only at 1pm or so. The sale isn’t due to start until 7am tomorrow - there must be some fantastic bargains in there for that kind of devotion!

We’re not completely sure whether or not we should brave Manhattan tomorrow morning. We have to be at the airport for 3pm, but there’s still the opportunity for us to do some shopping (i.e. spend what money we have left) if we feel crazy enough. For now, some bag packing is in order.

After a late night last night at the comedy club, we were out late this morning, but planned to pack in as much as possible, with the first stop being the up to that point unseen Statue of Liberty. We figured that as it was the day before Thanksgiving, the queues wouldn’t be bad. How wrong we were! When we arrived down at Battery Park, the queue for tickets stretched out and curved back on itself for what looked like half a mile. On top of that, there was a further queue once tickets were bought to actually get on the Liberty Island ferry. Given it was later in the day, we decided we didn’t want to spend ages queueing, so instead just took photos from the harbour. Bit of a hazy day, but better things to do than spend several hours in queues.

We left Battery Park to head up the road to the World Financial Center. Chris wanted to see Ground Zero - not something I wanted to see myself - I find it hard to get to grips with the fact that a place where 3000+ people died, and what is nothing more than a construction site currently, has become a tourist attraction. I find it in very bad taste. We skirted around the site, and continued up the hill to the other parts of the Financial District, passing close to, but not directly by, Wall Street.

After getting something to eat, we took a wrong turning on Fulton, and found ourselves on Pier 16 at South Street Seaport, overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and several old clipper ships. It was still hazy, but a nice wrong turn to make, nevertheless!

When we finally found our way back on track and got to a subway station, we rode back uptown to find the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink. Chris had mentioned that there was a statue of Prometheus that overlooked the ice rink, and that the Christmas tree should be up. The plans for going to the Top of the Rock were shelved because of the haziness - visibility wouldn’t be good enough to make it worthwhile. We did get slightly confused in the Rockefeller Center when we couldn’t find the way out of the building to the ice rink, but finally made it. The Christmas tree is up, but hasn’t been decorated yet save for the star on top of it. Unfortunately, we’re going to miss the lighting of it, which doesn’t take place until next week.

We decided that the hours of walking around central Manhattan were taking a real toll on our poor abused feet - every time we sat down for any appreciable length of time and stood up again, we felt like our joints were seizing up. To save our discomfort (and wussiness) we headed back home and got a takeaway from a local Thai place.

Tomorrow - Thanksgiving and the Macy’s Parade.

Unfortunately, the heavy morning rain scuppered our plans once again. Chris still isn’t feeling 100% either, and wanted to take things a bit easier. Instead of major sightseeing (Statue of Liberty), we decided to get off the subway earlier than usual, and took a stroll around downtown Manhattan, through Chinatown, SoHo, Little Italy, NoLIta and NoHo. It was nice to see a side of New York other than the madness and shine of central Manhattan, with little shops and cafes, market stalls in Chinatown, NYU, and changing neighbourhoods. Some of them do blur into one a little - how do you tell the difference between SoHo and NoHo other than the dividing Houston Road? I don’t think I could!

We got onto the subway again at Union Square, and headed back into Central Manhattan for lunch, before taking advantage of the much diminished rain to go and have another wander around Central Park. All we saw last time was the south west corner on our way to the Natural History Museum, so there was still loads of it to see. We focused on the south east / central / eastern area, and walked up the Mall to Bethesda Fountain, rambled through the Ramble, skirted around the back of the Lake and found the Boathouse, and walked back via the Carousel (closed, unfortunately), to exit around 61st street on the eastern side.

I found out this morning that there was a Couchsurfing meetup planned for Wednesday, so we decided to change our plans and go to the Comedy Club today instead. It wasn’t until 9pm, so we had around six hours to kill. Finding ourselves in Times Square - which still dazzles me every time I see it - we stopped into the Coldstone Creamery for some gorgeous icecream, and nipped into the cinema for the second time in the week to watch 30 Days of Night. Vampire movie, many townspeople die, gets very silly indeed towards the end. Neatly killed some time, though. We went to find food downtown and got diverted into a huge Barnes and Noble bookstore for 45 minutes or so, and had just enough time to grab a quick McDonalds before we had to catch the subway back uptown to get to Broadway.

What we hadn’t been told when we bought the tickets for the show was that reservations should be made in advance - having the ticket isn’t enough, you then have to phone and book a seat. Luckily, we were only the second group on the reserves list, and we were ushered into the show a good 10 minutes before it started. The other caveat on the ticket that we had known about was the 2 drink minimum. Bar staff came around and took our orders, and brought the drinks to the tables, very welcomed as it saved gathering around the bar. There were six comedians, including the emcee, and the show lasted a good 2.5 hours. I’d never heard of any of them before, but all bar one were extremely funny. The one I didn’t find so funny still got laughs, but just wasn’t to my taste. Far and away the best was a comedian called Erik Rivera, who had us all in stitches with his race / ethnicity inspired monologues. Towards the end of the night, the bar staff brought round the bill for each group, and it was here that Chris and I discovered how they can sell discounted tickets. For a bottle of Bud Lite and three Cokes, the bill came to $29.07. This included $8 for the Bud (£4 for a bottle of American beer!!!), and $5 (£2.50) each for the Cokes. There was also an obligatory gratuity of just over $4 added to the bill, and tax of $2-ish. Chris and I were disgusted. Talking to a friend of his in San Jose online later, Chris discovered that comedy clubs do generally make their money through the price of drinks. Well… at least the comedy was great.

By the time we’d got back to 7th and 57th to catch a train, it was almost midnight. The journey back to Brooklyn was as long as ever. We finally got in at just after 1am - a long day!