Of ships and stipes and spices

Responding to the prospect of our entertaining a crowd here on Sunday, the weather has taken a turn for the worse, with strong winds and heavy showers. Still, the forecast is good. Preparation for the gathering continue apace: the place smells like a Bombay bazaar after yesterday’s efforts – huge amounts of onion and garlic have been fried and spiced and gingered up. Today I’ll have a crack at making some naans, plus the pastry for the more European stuff.
On Tuesday, we took ourselves off to France for the day, using Norfolk Lines for the first time, from Dover to Dunkirk. It’s a longish crossing, so OK for a relaxing day trip, less so if you’re looking to cover a lot of distance in the least time: the tunnel is pretty well the only solution if that’s the priority. We ambled along the coast to De Panne, where neither of us had been before – it looks really pleasant, with tree-lined roads into the town, and some rather fancy flats at the seafront. The bad news, however, is that diesel is no longer cheap in Belgium: more expensive than in France now, and barely cheaper than the UK. So, with a view to cash flow rather than modest savings, we deferred filling up!
We stocked up on other essential fuels in the vast Auchan near the ferry port, finding everything we wanted without difficulty, then clanked merrily home. The ships were probably the best we’ve travelled on, with the possible exception in my case of the Princess Marguerite, a lovely old Clyde-built steam turbine vessel that used to ply in comfortable silence between Seattle and Victoria. It’s a great shame from the point of view of passenger comfort that steam turbines are such a rarity these days: the constant hammering of a vast diesel lump is quite unpleasant. But the architecture of the ship’s passenger lounges was excellent: floor to ceiling windows, two storeys tall (and I’m sure there is a whole set of different vocabulary for those of the naval architect persuasion), provide a really good environment. And built by Samsung in Korea. You can imagine my rant on the subject of British shipbuilding yourselves, so I'll spare you the job of reading it.