Frozen beauty of Antarctica.......

Above photos are from the website of G Adventures 

Time is getting short, I leave for Argentina on Wednesday, and I'm up to my eyebrows in packing my gear for the big adventure to Antarctica. The M/S Expedition shown above is the ship Paula and I will be sailing on for 18 days, and the zodiacs will be our transportation for shore excursions onto the ice.

Reading more about the journey and shipboard facilities available in such a remote location, I now realize it will be difficult, maybe even impossible, to stay in touch here on the blog while I'm away. Internet connections are not always an option and when they are the cost is prohibitive. Uploading photos will definitely not be an option as, even when possible, it could cost about $30 a minute, yikes! Anyway dear readers, you know I'll do my best, and if I can post now and then I will........if not, please be patient and wait for my return in early February.

Off now to work on the packing - think warm, waterproof, 

comfy and very casual. No dressing for dinner this 

trip thankfully.

This quote is my mantra for the day...............I'm in 

the subtracting stage, methinks those duffel bags are 

getting mighty heavy!

Kissing cousins.....................

When you leave home at a young age, I was almost 19, and travel far to find adventure in a foreign land, you sometimes lose close contact with some members of your original family. Cousins can be few or many, and being close to them when growing up is always fun. I only have two first cousins and, along with my brother, we are four in total. Fortunately we all spent time together as children as we lived within a few miles of each other.

As active kids we spent time at the local beaches in our respective beautiful seaside towns.........cousin David and me in Torquay (above - Thatcher Rock), cousin Susan in Teignmouth just along the coast

I never thought I'd see myself in a photo where I actually look short (I'm 5'8"), however the men in my English family are definitely tall...........and handsome, don't you agree?

My first cousin David on the left is dad to my three second cousins - Gary standing on my right, Aaron ready to dig into a delicious Christmas dinner, and lovely Nina giving her son Fraser age 4-1/2 (my third cousin) his first guitar lesson - Santa had obviously emptied his sack for such a good little guy. 

Fraser wearing the NC State shirt we brought him from North Carolina. He's just started school and was such a well-behaved kid.......and much less shy than when we met him for the first time in 2011.

On Christmas Day we had our meal together at a local hotel and I was thrilled to get a photo of my cousin David and his entire family.......Gary, David, Nina, David's wife Marsha, Fraser, Tosh his dad, my hubby Bob, me and Aaron.

Everything about being home for the holidays was wonderful. Although the weather could have have been kinder to us we still had a few minutes of sunshine now and then between the rainstorms....above pic is of the small terrace outside the apartment windows where we stay. It wasn't a biting cold rain, temperatures were quite mild, it wasn't gusting wind except during a storm on our last night. Whatever came we accepted and for me it was home, just as I always remember it when growing up with my family in a beautiful spot on the Devon coast.

Do you have close contact with your cousins? They often remind you of childhood times you shared and bring back so many fond memories. 

Starting over...............

JANUARY ~ named from the Roman god Janus who is 

represented with two faces looking in opposite 

directions, as retrospective to the past, 

and prospective to the coming year.

January 1 ~ New Year's Day

January 6 ~ Twelfth Day ~ Epiphany

The wintry hedge was black

   The green grass was not seen 

    The birds did rest

     on the bare thorn's breast

            Whose roots, beside the pathway track

              Had bound their folds o'er many a crack

       Which the frost had made between

                      

     ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley ~

I've made no resolutions.......but I do have plans for 

this new year, once January is over and I'm home again.