Today's addition for the Expedition Storage: his 'n' hers neck gaiters, snoods, infinity scarves, or whatever you want to call them.
I'm sure I'll agree once we get north of northitude.
Having covered the top and bottom of the food offerings available on MS Maud, we come to the main course. See what I did there? :o)
Aune is the largest of the three restaurants aboard, and serves the majority of the meals, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Named after the Norwegian ship chandler and polar expedition supplier Tinus Aune, it occupies almost a third of the length of Deck 5, at the stern, and has full-height windows on all three sides offering fabulous views from any seat.
Breakfast, served from 7.30am, is a European-style buffet with a variety of hot and cold options; lunch starts at noon and is also a buffet; evening meal is slightly more rigid - a three-course meal served in an allotted time slot, at half-hour intervals from 6-8pm. Your "dining slot" is allotted during boarding at the start of the trip. For anyone like us, who prefers to eat earlier rather than later, it is apparently no problem to change to a different time (phew).
That concludes our brief taste of the catering options. I have to say it's made me quite hungry. It all looks and sounds fabulous and I won't be at all surprised if we end up doing a "dish of the day" type post once we're at sea.
Roughly twice the size of Lindstrøm, this restaurant is at the other end of the cultural scale, offering bistro-style fast food at all times of day or night (because you might fancy a snack once you've spent your five minutes freezing your nuts off on deck staring at the stars).
A recent addition to the ship's catering offering following the refurbishment, this casual cafe serves a selection burgers, hot dogs, tortilla wraps etc alongside more substantial dishes like grilled chicken, steak and salmon. Their massive selection of equally massive milkshakes is, allegedly, legendary.
Our ship has three restaurants, all situated on Deck 5. The first, and smallest, of these offers "fine dining" at all times for passengers who have a suite. They even have a waiter service for breakfast. Lindstrøm is also available to the rest of us plebs (for dinner only) if we want to pay. Fortunately, the price isn't as steep as you might expect when you hear the phrase "fine dining", so we're intending to try it at least once during the expedition, and maybe twice.
Named after Adolf Lindstrøm, a Norwegian chef and polar explorer who did all the cheffing for Amundsen. The food can be an upmarket version of what's on that day in the main restaurant, or may be unique. The main thrust of the catering here is always to showcase local cuisine, recipes and ingredients.
I used to claim to be a "fast follower" (back in the days when technical staff were put through a "marketing sheep-dip" because our managers - who were almost all from a marketing background - decided we needed to understand the subject, despite the chances approaching zero that any of us would ever use the information), but now I'm not so sure.
The fact is, I never seek out "developments" in, well pretty much anything, unless I'm actively looking to buy that thing. So, since I have less than zero interest in clothing, especially outdoor clothing, the existence of these things that arrived in yesterday's post came as quite a revelation.
It shouldn't be a surprise, in these days of ubiquitous tech, that people who spend time outdoors in the cold, and therefore need gloves, still want to access their tech.
So these clever little guys come with a special rubbery spidery pattern on the palms for added grip. You can actually turn your hand almost vertical before the phone tips off, which is pretty damned essential when you're aboard and any droppage is likely to be followed shortly after by sinkage and consequent irreversible lossage.
But it's better than that.
Two of the fingers and the thumb also have small patches of conductive material, so you can still work the touchscreen through the gloves. Pinch and spread and tap and whatnot. I had to up the sensitivity on mine, but hey, it's all good. Awesome.
We got new coats and fleeces in that delivery too, but compared to the gloves they were all quite mundane.
Today's delivery - long johns.
Or to be entirely accurate, replacement long johns, because our first attempt was... no. Ever slept on a nylon sheet? Yeah, that. They went straight into the charity shop pile. Some unfortunate homeless people will benefit from a slightly warmer life experience this winter.
I even cast a long, sideways glance at these, when we opened the package. For me, the phrase "long johns" conjures an image from the distant past of old B&W movies watched on a Saturday afternoon, of some Wild West duffer emerging from his shack carrying a shotgun, and wearing what would, forty years later, come to be known as a "onesie."
They turned out to be surprisingly nice to wear. I began to understand why people develop a liking for latex would choose to wear them, even in a regular winter. Not that I'm intending to do that. Unless that heating bill goes up again.
And so, almost as if it never happened, we wake to the familiar sight of Dover Harbour, our phones reconnect to UK providers, at UK times, a...
