To the Frozen North - Qaqortoq, Greenland

Up at 0605 (!) as the ship was due to leave at about lunch time. For once, it was cloudy & started to rain, as we left on the bum boat at 8. We were on another ramble, round the big lake behind the village, called 'the city' by the local guide on account of its being the biggest settlement in South Greenland. It rained on & off until Avis had had enough & we turned round but the guide turned the party round soon after, as I think there were more & more deserters. Having said that, there were interesting flowers to photo.

Qaqortoq harbour	The only fountain in Greenland	Typical houses
The lake behind the town	Grotty view back from the lake	Campanulas

Back at Qaqortoq, we went to the Community Centre for a Greenland Buffet: local soup (very nice) & dried anchovies, cod, whale & fried whale, very tough indeed but susceptible, just, to dunking in the soup & hard chewing. We got on the bum boat again at about 1050, so were on the Back Watch at just after 11. We needed to shower & change, as our clothes were wet & getting grubby, so we put them in for laundry & hang the expense.

	Qaqortoq Community Centre...	...in Inuit
Dried anchovies	Dried cod	Fried whale
Church from the harbour side	Church from near the lake	Inside the church
	index.html

I was 'on' at 1730, so revised the "Off the Beaten Track" talk I was giving a bit to include music in the title page, which I had to edit with the waveform editor, "Wavepad". No matter, there was time for a cream tea.

Then, the girls of the Notturno String Quartet played the Schubert A minor Quartet in the difficult acoustic of the ship's Neptune Lounge. After, I (now in my slops like a seaman) played the Alpine General show (stuff I had photoed on walks) with Harty's Irish Symphony. I had loaded, after some editing, half the Schubert 10th Symphony on the start of the OTBT talk. This went better than the Spanish, as there was more than double the audience. Then we had four sea days on the way back to Dover, so what does one do? I set up this web site but there is always much to do. Lectures (other than my own "British Music of the Sea"), shows, silly deck games (shuffleboard - I prefer watching the paint dry, as shipboard maintenance is continuous), quizes, the ship's choir, reading, eating & above all, chatting.

More formal dinners

Strangely, as we neared Dover, the Cruise Director said he was giving me 'prime slots' on the following Norway Cruise. This cruise had been billed as a 'classical music special' & the performers were good but there was no music lecturer, apart from me We were pax who had paid for both cruises.