PAUSE

To be honest, I think I'm going to pause the old slideshow here for a while because I've got slightly bored with it, given that we're over a hundred posts in and barely a third of the way through them.

That, and the next set is another long, laborious trek through somebody else's (i.e. Grandfather's) holiday photographs which is never as much fun as I always think that it's going to be.

Next up on this scanning spree there are four boxes "helpfully" marked "Himalaya 1967" which refer to a Mediterranean cruise on a P&O ship that was clearly not the much-praised SS Canberra, and taken several years after those adventures with which we started this longest of long hauls several months ago.

Launched in October 1948, SS Himalaya entered service in 1949 and for much of her life sailed between Britain and Australia, presumably carrying more than a few of those emigrants who sought out a new life "Down Under" before being converted to carry only tourist class passengers, and had a "controversial" (it says here) conversion of her funnel design at some point along the way.

She had her final voyage in late 1974 and was scrapped the next year.

I've done a little bit of research on these photographs because, as ever, Grandfather's lack of extensive labelling did leave me rather clueless as to where most of the pictures were taken, but my reliable informants (via TwitWorld mostly) tell me that at least some of the pictures were taken in Lisbon, and, well, that's about it really...

That said, delving into an old box of postcards that I still have has added one or two further further clues, with mentions of capri and blue lagoons and Spanish villages on a postcard sent by my Grandmother from Palma. Investigating those connections might suggest that, if I find myself with time on my hands, maybe further connections might be made.

I do have other reasons for wishing to withdraw into my shell for a while; I fear that social media is likely to be swamped with Referendum Rantings and Footballing Frolics for the foreseeable immediate future, and feel that this might be a good opportunity for me to take a step back from all that sort of nonsense (if I can...) and go outside and sniff the summer breeze for a while.

But I do still also think we all need to take a slight break from this slidemongery, so I'm off to regroup... and yet I know that I'll very probably be back and see you all once again on the other side.