We're back now, did you miss us? It's been a rare old busy time of late. I've been approaching the deadline for the book on Blackpool and we had a holiday booked which meant I had to buckle down and get it finished before we could go off enjoying ourselves!
I'm glad to say the book, a look at the Blackpool of the Victorians and Edwardians through their postcards, compared with modern views of Blackpool taken by yours truly from as close to the original viewpoint as I could manage has been written and photographed and packaged off to the publishers. More news as and when, but the book to be called "Blackpool: Then and Now" and written by John D Burke (to differentiate myself from the chap who wrote so many excellent TV and film scripts and spin-off books) is due to be in the shops for Christmas. Let me be the first to wish you a merry one...!
So with the book contents finished I could settle back to enjoy the holiday - a cruise on the Thomson Celebration starting in Marmaris, Turkey and taking in Istanbul, Lesbos, Kusadasi, Piraes for Athens, Mykonos and back to Marmaris again. The tour was called Ancient Wonders, hopefully not in honour of us, but describing the places we were to see...
And to make it even more special, our friends Tomas and Maris were aboard, performing as 2Intense in the Horizons bar above the bridge of the ship. We've kept in touch with them since we first met on the ship a few years ago and had been eagerly anticipating meeting up with them again.
The flights to Dalaman and transfer to the ship were negotiated without any mishap and we spent our first full day at sea, getting used to a life revolving around food and drink... bliss...
On 23 May we arrived in Istanbul, a rather overcast but warm Istanbul.
At one side of the ship the Bosphorus was a source of entertainment as the many small tour boats and ferries dodge around some very large cruise ships and cargo ships.
Some were rocking about quite merrily, making us exchange early morning glances as we had booked a tour along the river on one of these small craft! We decided to prepare for it and headed into the self-service restaurant for fruit followed by bacon, eggs, beans, croissants, washed down by a couple of mugs of coffee.
The view from the other side of the ship was of the more modern city. So, here we were in a crowded street with passengers from three other cruise ships coming out the same port authority door and waiting for excursion coaches. Our coach arrived to take us across the river to our excursion boat.
On the river the cormorants are gathering to watch our antics so keep tuned and the next entry will tell the tale of the river cruise. No whitewash...
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