Italian Splendor

The Carnival Cruise Lines newest ship was in Dover today. Carnival took delivery of the Carnival Splendor at Fincantieri shipyard in Sestri, Italy, on June 30th.

The ship was be officially named during a ceremony today presided over by its godmother, Myleene Klass.

I must say that it seem strange to see a ship delivered to a British Company that was made in Italy, it seems such a tragedy that a maritime country like ours no longer has ship yards capable of competing with Italy.

From the White Cliffs car park I was able to check the spelling, as the various WEB pages reporting the naming seemed to be confused as to how to spell Splendor. Dover's attempt to become to Cruise Ship centre of the UK continues, and if it brings trade into the town I presume it must be good, but to be attractive to visitors Dover needs to have rather more than a face lift, I can see it acting only as a docking point while the tourists are whisked off by coach to Canterbury never to actually spend time here.

I noticed that this Greenfinch was still singing flat out in the garden, does this mean that they are onto the nest brood, despite the extremely autumnal weather?


This young Blackbird stopped following the male about for a few minutes while it had a good preen, unfortunately it wasn't particular about the background it chose.

With a much improved forecast I've set the moth traps up and look forward to finding some exciting migrants in the morning, but in reality it would be good to get a normal size catch of moths that should be around at this time of year.