Day 5 - whales and burnt eye lids!

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The final day of our holiday was spent crossing the north sea and the fine weather in England spread far enough east for us to catch it in all its glory. The sun split the skies today. But had we packed for hot weather? On a trip to Norway in May? No way! So we sunbathed in jeans and assumed we couldn't possibly get sun burnt. How wrong we were. I can only wear one top now until the tan fades as it's very pronounced in a scoop neck kind of way!! Read my book with my chin (or at least one of them) resting on my chest so I have a very unattractive white chin strap that is going to be treated with some self tanning cream before I let myself be seen in public! Richard is his usual shade of magenta pink in any places his hat failed to shade. We had a bit of a David Attenborough moment in the morning. They made an announcement from the bridge that a whale was about to swim down the port side of the ship so we left our - not inconsiderable - breakfast to go cold and raced to the other side of the ship. But it was all to no avail so we walked, a little dejected, back to our cold toast (and fried bread and sausage and eggs and beans and black pudding and tomatoes and mushrooms and hash browns!!). And then we just glanced out of the window next to our table and saw two different whales swimming along the starboard side of the ship. They didn't exactly do their sea world act - no jumping out of the water and doing somersaults or blowing jets of water but they were real and right there next to us and it was a lovely moment for the final day of our Norwegian exploration.

In the evening we went to the celebrity restaurant on board: Sindhu run by Atul Kochhar. Spiced scallops, tandoori rabbit, spiced fillet steak and a biryani cooked under a pastry crust aren't normal items on Indian menus but they were wonderful and accompanied by the lightest and loveliest naan breads ever. Crikey do we need to get home and eat beans on toast for a week!

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