My retirement plan had always included working the first week of the next management year so I could provide a completed set of annual reports on some of the patient safety work and that was achieved from my perspective. The final report on “Pathology labeling and sample quality improvement” has been submitted for release but I don’t know if it was actually sent on and, as there doesn’t seem to be anyone willing to take over the work, there is nobody specifically assigned the task of building on what I started.
So life after retirement seems to be almost as hectic as working but a lot less ordered when it comes to working times. I seem to have settled into a period of waking ridiculously early in the morning and starting on something as soon as I can. Most of the house building is limited by the need to stay quiet until the neighbors go to work or wake up from their ‘post night shift sleep’ so I often find myself at the boat storage around 7am doing small jobs. It also helps to have the pension lump sum as a little of that has gone on boat items as well as investing in the rental houses.
Sunday 2nd April Off to Lilliput sailing club to meet Karl and Dawn, get lunch and stay for their 3:00 AGM. There should be a set of membership application documents on their way via email. Left the sailing club about 4:14 and arrived home in Doncaster at 9:30 via the M27 route without any major slowdowns.
Thursday 6th Last day as a full time NHS employee as today is my retirement day. There was quite a bit of effort went into the office door sometime after I left yesterday.
Saturday 8th Woke up before 5 again so I had breakfast and went out in the garage to work on the outboard safety switch. I cut off the collar on the tiller which is not needed and then made a spacer ring based on a 13mm hole to fit the threaded portion of the switch then cut the plastic on the same centre with a 25 mm hole saw which left a 23mm outside diameter on the spacer. Actually ended up a little smaller because the pilot drill is a little off centre.
Similar process to make a larger washer out of one of my old number plates, this time with a 35mm hole saw as the second one.
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All fits together nicely so I started assembling it all with heat shrink tubing on the “Close to stop” set of contacts.
Easter Monday (Bank holiday & first weekday of retirement) onwards. Most of my spare time for the next 2 weeks was invested on working on one or other of the three houses – Two in the process of being converted and another that recently became vacant and needed a little work before re-letting.
Tuesday 18th Woke up around 6:30. This morning I discovered a company named Quark electronics who make GPS modules that report via wifi so can be used with any laptop, tablet or mobile phone. They also include an AIS receiver so can get the location, identity, course and speed of nearby ships which will be a significant safety help in shipping lanes close to the Solent. This might not have felt quite as necessary in less crowded areas such as the Humber estuary. I have ordered one and also the active signal splitter that allows you to use one VHF antenna for both sets of signals and improves the reception range as well (It also splits out a conventional AM/FM radio signal too which will encourage me to get a car type radio for news weather etc). Should be delivered on Wednesday or Thursday and will give me a second source of GPS data, a dedicated GPS antenna and access to the location data for as many electronic navigation systems as need it.
Sunday 20th A major chunk of the morning was spent making the first piece of the metal top for the mast erecting device. I cut the angle girder, drilled the holes in the appropriate places and filed rounded ends so the attached parts should be able to rotate around their respective pins. I will need to take it to the boat to check the arrangement and also to work out the right diameter hole for the forestay bottlescrew attachment. Once those are right I can weld on the matching opposite flange, drill mounting holes and paint it.
Sunday23rd Off to Dorset for a brief stay at the caravan before setting off for the cruise.
Thursday 27th Going to Southampton to stay in a hotel for Helen’s birthday and to be ready for the cruise. Did some last minute shopping at the mall near the hotel and had dinner at an American diner over there. When we returned we saw the Queen Mary 2 being moved up river from the berth that is supposed to be being used for our ship. She ended up moored just the other side of the Holiday Inn from our hotel. Apparently there is a problem with something in her funnel so she is in Southampton having repairs while her Atlantic crossing has been postponed and a lot of passengers flown back home.
Friday 28th Our cruise boarding was just in time to get a buffet lunch before sorting out the room and watching the departure.
Saturday This was the outward trip day at sea. You really couldn’t fault the North Sea as it was trying to be as smooth as possible. There were comments from the bridge about wind turbines but all we managed to see was another cruise liner. Formal dinner tonight so we got dressed up.
Sunday 30th Arrived at Stavangar . Everywhere was closed with it being a Sunday. Helen’s scooter managed the trip around the lake in the city centre and also a wander among the shopping streets to see some of the bridges and ferries.
Monday 1st May Woke early to see the ship going up the fjord. Fortunately I accidentally included the balcony rail in the photos otherwise it was so still that you could almost see many of the photos either way up.
Eventually worked the way into Olden which is a very small town. The berth was almost as if the ship tied up at a layby next to the bus stop.
The trip up the sky lift began in fairly thick cloud which eventually cleared so we could see the ship from the top station. A lot of people missed that entirely because they were on the P&O organised trip which was a fixed bus time in each direction. We had booked independently so were much more flexible with the shuttle bus times and stayed until the cloud had cleared.
Tuesday Today is the train trip from the Fjord at Flam up to the top station on the main line to Bergen. Flam is bigger than
yesterday’s “port” but only has 600 residents in comparison to the 6000 passengers and crew on the ship.
I went for a walk between breakfast and lunch to take some photos of the ship from the other side of the Fjord.
After lunch we went to the station. Again we had booked the trip independently so we were on the last train that got back in time for the cruise departure. Fortunately there was plenty of time as there was a technical problem with the loco which required about 20 minutes stop and a lot of banging to get it
running. I am not sure if it was a breaking problem or a failure to engage on the rack system properly (some of the line is a 1/15 gradient which would only be possible for a rack & pinion railway).
Wednesday Haguesund today – Much more of a commercial port than the other stops.
We were moored alongside next to a shipyard working on oil and gas equipment but still a beautiful place to wander around. Helen was a little worried by the steepness of the bridges but there was no problem for the scooter.
Lots of low lying islands to pass on the way out to sea for the return journey.
Thursday Another day at sea with a formal dining evening. We where off Norfolk at breakfast followed by seeing the occasional wind farm and arriving “Just off Dover” as we went to bed.
Friday 5th May Docked at Southampton around 6:00 with a scheduled disembarkation around 8:15 so we were back at the caravan by mid morning. Overnight the crew have been decorating the ship ready for the coronation.