Countdown to holiday

Well the holiday is getting close enough that I've got the suitcase out of the loft!  The books and the hand sewing is all sorted - I'll start on the clothes a bit nearer the time.

Towards the end of the month we are flying to the arctic circle - then 6 days on a ship  down the west coast of Norway.  It's not quite a cruise: we are going on a sort of ferry, but it also has bedrooms.  Its one of 11 ships on the Hurtigruten line.  It is a working ferry - for some people it is the way to get to visit grandma in the next town, or to attend a hospital appointment, there are 11 of the ships, and the round trip is 11 days, so each town (36 of them) gets visited by a south-bound and a north-bound ferry every day.  They have been going since 1895 (don't worry, our ship isn't *that* old) and went every day even when Norway was occupied by the Germans during WWII.  We love Norway, and both would love to see the northern lights, and this year we celebrate our silver wedding anniversary - so we reckon we deserve a treat for putting up with each other for so long!