Back to Britain – September 2025 (Month 6)

As trailed in last month’s blog, the main highlight of September 2025 was my cruise to Norway with my sister.

On Queen Anne to Norway

Many many months ago I offered to take my sister on a cruise to celebrate selling Mum’s house.

I decided we should book the cruise with the hope that we would have sold the house by the time the cruise came around. That didn’t quite happen, but on the day before we left for the cruise we finally got a buyer and the chain was all in place, so it looked like we really were celebrating. (Spoiler: the chain fell through as our buyers lost the buyer for their house, so Mum’s house is back on the market).

Anyway, Anna and I could both do the first week in September and we were booked in on Queen Anne (the newest Cunard ship, just one year old). We even got an upgrade to a cabin in a great location next to the pavilion (indoor pool area).

Klaus and I have three cars between us but the question was, which car would I take to Southampton (via Benfleet where my sister lives).

Carl the Mercedes Benz would be the obvious choice but Klaus had to do some long journeys for work and wanted to use Carl. Also his ongoing suspension problems meant there was the risk I’d need to call out the AA which would be very stressful!

My SLK would be a possibility but the boot is really small and we would struggle to get all our luggage in there.

So in the end I decided to take Rex the BMW i3… with an electric range of 80 miles. The journey to Southampton via Anna’s would be 200 miles, but Rex also has the Range Extender petrol scooter engine which will keep the battery topped up and has a 9 litre tank (about 80 miles). I bought a 5 litre jerry can which I filled with fuel too so I could top up from that if necessary.

We were travelling to Southampton the day before the cruise started and staying in a hotel near the dock. The hotel cost also covered parking for up to two weeks.

The good thing about Rex is he has a very large boot when the back seats are down. My suitcase fitted in with loads of extra room.

So I set off with a full battery and when it got down to 75% I turned on the Range Extender. You can barely hear this engine and the car drives just the same, it just keeps the battery at 75% (plus/minus 3 percent depending on uphills or downhills).

I got to Anna’s house where she was doing us lunch so I plugged Rex into her charging point at home and he was at 97% after an hour.

Anna’s suitcase fitted in fine and then it was time to head off to Southampton. But first we dropped in on Anna’s daughter Gwen who was having a party to celebrate her 30th birthday.

You can see some of the themes of the party here – RIP to my twenties, etc.

Here are Anna and Chip the dog chilling out waiting for the guests to arrive.

We spent about 15 minutes with Gwen, Harley and a couple of her friends who were getting everything ready. They gave us a couple of cookies for the journey and we set off to Southampton, about 130 miles away.

When Rex was down to 75% battery again I turned on the Rex and we pootled along round the M25. All was going well, and then as we were heading towards Portsmouth I suddenly had a warning…

Oh no! The one car that was working properly was throwing up an error message!

The car still drove the same so we carried on. What else could we do?

I wondered if this was because the Rex was being used much more than it normally was, but didn’t really know what the problem was and the warning message wasn’t particularly specific…

We made it to Southampton, parked at the hotel and then went out for dinner at Greek restaurant in the Westquay Shopping Centre. We both got soaked by rain on the short walk back to the hotel.

The next morning after breakfast I took Anna to a church service in Southampton that she wanted to visit. The Drivetrain Warning was still on and I started getting really nervous that the car might stop driving whilst I was collecting her again and we wouldn’t have enough time for the AA as boarding was at 14:15. She had planned to stay for a lunch thing after church but I messaged her and said I was picking her up after the service ended. She was OK with that, and I picked her up and we made it back to the hotel car park. I felt confident now that we would be able to get on the cruise ship – we could even have walked to the dock if necessary!

That wasn’t necessary as the hotel parking included a taxi to the dock. We headed off and arrived at the very efficient check in. We were in our cabin within half an hour, having gone to the muster point. We then had a good look around the ship.

Here is Anna as we set off…

As we sailed away from Southampton there was a rainbow.

We were just a few metres from this pavilion area with a roof that was opened when the weather was good.

Traditional wake shot.

We enjoyed our first evening meal in the Britannia Restaurant. We were on a round table and the conversation was going across the table with 8 of us which I found rather hard to hear, so after that we asked for a table for 2 which meant it was easier to speak (and we were usually beside another table to could chat to other people).

On the first full day, which was a sea day, Anna and I went to the theatre for a talk about the different places we would be visiting in Norway.

Later on I went to the first of many talks, this one was about detectives in fiction and on TV.

There was also a talk on forensic science and another on art heists.

The first evening was a black and white themed gala evening so we dressed up a bit.

Here we are waiting for our dinner.

Beautiful sunset.

The next day we arrived in our first port, Stavanger.

Queen Anne dwarfs the buildings.

Anna and I walked around for a bit, did some window shopping and ended up visiting this tower.

We went back to the ship in time for lunch there.

The picture below has Anna on the gangway.

Interestingly we didn’t have to take or show our passports at all, the Cruise Card seemed to function as that as we were scanned in and out. We also had to go through a metal detector each time we reboarded, they were very good at security.

One thing that is special about Cunard is the afternoon tea, served by white-gloved waiters, each afternoon.

Anna and I had afternoon tea every day, and each day the menu of sandwiches and cakes was slightly different (although the sconces were always the same).

We set off from Stavanger with very calm seas.

Anna and I visited the very top of the boat to look down onto the Pavilion.

The evening meal on this day was a standard smart dress but I had another floor length dress.

The next day we were cruising in Nordfjord

We stopped at Olden for a walkaround.

This was a very beautiful, small port. Anna and I walked to the shops (which were mostly outdoor clothing and a supermarket).

On the way we passed some German Dotto trains… which presumably will be signwritten for a Norwegian company in due course.

It was very peaceful in Olden – except for the 3000 passengers from Queen Anne. A lot of the crew were also out enjoying the fresh air.

There was a trip to a local cablecar which I didn’t do but this photo of the visit was shared on Facebook.

We were back in time for afternoon tea as usual. Anna went for a swim.

I swam twice (first thing in the morning) but Anna did a bit more swimming than me. She liked the hot tubs too!

As we left Olden they serenaded us with music from giant loudspeakers on a trailer – Rod Stewart’s “Sailing”, various other nautically-themed songs, and lots of people were waving as the ship set off. It was rather lovely.

I dressed for dinner in my new gold dress that I bought in Newmarket a week before the trip. This was the bargain reduced from £800 to £100…

Anna and I had open dining which meant we could choose when we wanted to eat and we booked our time each day using the website. We sat in the upper level of the Britannia restaurant, looking down on where the second sitting would be.

The food was always excellent and there was also often a good choice for Anna who’s a veggie.

One morning we went for room-service breakfast.

It’s nice to have it but there’s not much room to actually eat it. But we thought it worth an experiment,

On another morning we had breakfast in the Pavilion’s café which is much healthier food and that was OK. I liked their lunch but the breakfast porridge was a bit of a disappointment to me (the normal porridge in the Artisan Food Hall (Buffet) was fine).

On this day we had arrived in Alesund. I went off the ship quite early for a walk, Anna stayed for a while watching the lifeboat practice.

I got off Queen Anne, once again a bit shocked by how enormous she is.

I walked into Alesund town which was very nice indeed.

I had seen that there is a walk up a steep hill with views of the town so of course I did that. It was 450 steps up…

The views were really worth it though.

I saw several trees with carvings… reminds me a bit of Suffolk where you often see woodcarving in situ.

I walked down a different way, it is always easy to see what you are aiming for when the ship is so large.

I dressed for dinner again in a long dress.

We had another beautiful sunset after our tasty evening meal.

The next day was a visit to Haugesund.

Once again I headed off the ship quite early for a walk around. Anna and I started off together and then separated to do our own shopping.

Once again I spent nothing. I spent zero money in Norway, not even on anything to eat (there was always food on Queen Anne), so I can see why I as a visitor was bad value for Norway. I loved the beautiful scenery though.

We waved goodbye to Norway and headed home.

I went to another talk about art which focused on Banksy and other street art, as well as investments in artwork.

Anna and I dressed up for the gala evening which had the theme of red and gold.

After yet another lovely meal we went to do some more jigsaw puzzle in the Games Room. Anna had spent quite a lot of time there during the cruise.

Walking around the ship on the Promenade Deck is very different to Queen Mary 2. Queen Anne has a very sheltered Promenade and you can’t see over the bows, on Queen Mary 2 the promenade deck is very windswept but it’s wider and also much longer as you walk right around the bow.

We arrived back in Southampton on the Sunday morning and Anna and I had decided to do self disembark, which means we take our own suitcases. This turned out to be an excellent idea as we walked straight off the ship with no problems and into a taxi. We were back to the hotel picking up Rex the car within 15 minutes. He still had his Drivetrain Error but I managed to get back to Anna’s to drop her off and then home without any major problems.

All in all it was a very enjoyable holiday. Queen Anne is a very nice ship but I definitely preferred Queen Mary 2 which had a slightly more exclusive feel and more character. Anna enjoyed it too but was less interested in the dressing smart for dinner.

Corona again

I was feeling a bit coldy after my cruise and did a Coronavirus test – positive! Not a huge surprise having been on a cruise but annoying. My immune system seems still not to be all that great as I had a cold sore on the ship, had a mouth ulcer before we went and then got Corona. But Beans on toast helped.

Unfortunately Klaus and I only overlapped by 2 hours after I got home from the cruise before he had to go away for work for the best part of a week. So I just stayed at home taking it easy, very relieved we had a good stock of tissues as I was quite sniffy. Overall it was like a relatively mild cold.

When I was better I went out and about in Bury St Edmunds and bumped into Paddington Bear.

More about cars and trains

After I got back from the cruise I took Klaus to the railway station in Bury as he was taking the train to Blackpool. And of course there were problems with the train at Hebden Bridge and his whole journey took hours longer… he arrived after 8pm on the Sunday night. He was collected by a colleague the next morning and they travelled to a trade show in Scotland together, eventually returning via Blackpool where Klaus collected his temporary company car which belonged to a colleague Brendan who had left the company. It’s a blue Skoda Octavia saloon with a petrol engine (which is amazingly efficient) and we will have it for the next few months while he awaits the arrival of his company car (a Mazda) that has been ordered. The blue Skoda is called Brendan after its former owner.

One of my early tasks was to sort out Rex’s Drivetrain warning. Chris, the guy who had sold me Rex, is always a mine of useful info and he suggested I buy the Bimmerlink app to find out what is wrong with Rex.

High voltage cables and insulation problems didn’t sound very nice so I got in touch with the local independent BMW garage and booked it in for them to check it over. They discovered one of the main cables had damage and there was lots of corrosion where one of the cables met the heater and this was a known problem with the early i3s. They changed the cable and the heater, which cost £1400, and that seemed to do the trick. It was an expensive repair but the car was still excellent value for money. If it had been written off for some other reason I would have bought another one straight away because I really like the concept.

This month Samantha the SLK’s Engine Warning Light came on again (for her NOx sensors) and we couldn’t get it to turn off with our OBD dongle. So in the end Chris (who sold us the BMW) kindly came round for pizza one evening with his Mercedes Laptop and reset the error code for us. I took it in to be MOTed a few days later (without driving it in the meantime) and it passed the MOT with no advisories! With the engine light on it would have been a fail and I was running out of time to get it fixed. Chris will change the NOx sensors for me himself in a little while when he has got another car out of the way – he has turned out to be an excellently helpful chap.

A bit of culture

This month I visited another church with the U3A which was St Mary’s church at Troston which was another lovely Suffolk church. Unfortunately the tour guide had got the wrong month (!!!!) and was on holiday in Yorkshire so we had to just look around ourselves. Fortunately one of the group had bought her paperback guide to Suffolk Churches so she was able to read out a bit of information about it.

I loved this classic bit of messy church pulpit with piles of old books.

Here was some very old graffiti at the back of the church.

One Saturday Klaus and I decided to drive to the coast to see the sea, but this time to travel north. One plan was to go to Wells Next The Sea but we ended up doing a different route which Klaus had planned out, changing tack halfway and ending up in Sheringham, where they happened to be having a 1940s weekend with loads of people dressed up in wartime clothing. It was very interesting. We saw the sea as well.

From there we headed further east to Cromer where we had a piece of cake and looked at the sea there too.

Cromer felt a bit run down, we both felt that Southwold and Aldeburgh are nicer to visit, as well as being much nearer. It was good to take Samantha the SLK out for a drive though.

A visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford

Something Klaus and I had planned to do for ages was to visit the Imperial War Museum at Duxford.

I had been once when fairly young and all I could remember from that visit was that there was a Concorde there.

We arrived and were chatted to by a very friendly welcomer chap who told Klaus what German planes were in the collection and recommended that we go to Hendon to the museum there to see more German stuff.

He told us some Spitfires would be flying in a few minutes so we stayed outside to watch that. There were various planes being flown throughout the whole day – we saw four different spitfires in action, alongside lots of other planes both old and new.

Klaus spotted a V1 rocket

We stopped for some lunch in the American exhibition and then looked around their exhibits. They had a B-52 which was just stupendously big!

We really enjoyed looking around Duxford and thought it was very good value for money. We will definitely go to visit Hendon sometime soon too.

Next month…

October will be a busy month as we are having a visit from Klaus’s friend Oliver and his wife Iris, and then the following week we will have a long weekend in Germany to visit Klaus’s father and also to see Lara, Gudula and Frank again. We are looking forward to seeing them.

Klaus will also be applying for his Spouse Visa at the beginning of October. He is currently on a Skilled Worker visa which is much less secure (it’s linked to his job) and when you switch visas the clock resets about how long you have been in the UK which is important for a future citizenship application, so he wanted to get the Spouse Visa as soon as possible. We hope it will all go through smoothly, we have spent a long time on the application as we have to prove we have a genuine marriage. Which of course we do, so hopefully it will work out OK. Once we have that visa we can relax a little more. The decision will probably take up to two months.

See you all next month!