Chatting about the gubbins of my daily life, my rummage through the moments in my day which bring me pleasure.
In the days, weeks and years to come I hope to be able to look back on these posts with fondness. Perhaps you will enjoy reading them.
We returned from a cruise on October 10th 2018
Whilst we may not be completely decision averse, we do have difficulty in taking the plunge. Sometimes we can’t decide whether to buy Cross and Blackwell or Heinz beans so booking a 24 night holiday was momentous.
I’m not sure when I first had a hankering to sail into New York City. We visited for the first time in 2009 specifically to see Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band at Madison Square Garden. That alone made it special. The places we visited and the friends we made during our stay are another story, but those few days are still the best days of my life. Perhaps that’s why I fell in love with NYC.
We thought about booking for our Silver Wedding Anniversary in April 2017, but in the end, decided to go for my sixtieth. As it happened we were in the middle of the Atlantic on my birthday so it worked out perfectly.
When I started looking, the only crossing I could find from the UK was on the Queen Mary. It was important I sailed over from the UK but if you were to ask me why, I couldn’t really explain. Perhaps it was the romantic notion of immigrants sailing over to the land of the free. Just as well we weren’t planing on doing it for real, given the current situation in the USA.
The Queen Mary had it’s drawbacks though, not least of which was no convenient return sailing. We would disembark in NYC, transfer to a hotel for a few days then fly back. Not a problem really but we talked ourselves out of it. We love New York but did we want to spend time there on this holiday? Would there be a problem over the weight of suitcases for the plane? What about the hassle of unpacking on the ship only to have to pack again for the hotel transfer, unpack at the hotel and pack again to fly home.
I had forgotten about it, but presumably hubby had not. One evening he spotted a cruise which sailed from Southampton into NYC then sailed up the eastern coast of the USA, on to Canada and back to Southampton. It seemed perfect.
After much procrastination we were in the Travel Agents – our local independent is a cruise specialist so we decided to draw on their expertise. We convinced ourselves we didn’t have to make a decision straight away. We were just fact finding, testing the waters (an appropriate idiom I thought) but when I started searching for our perfect cabin – not near the launderette, not near or beneath the disco or the theatre – we knew it was getting serious.
So it was on 24 September 2016 we booked a transatlantic cruise, sailing on the P&O Aurora, on 16th September 2018 – almost two years away. Plenty of time to get used to it and change our minds!
Today’s best bits
Making salt dough Christmas decorations
Booking a cruise around New Zealand for our visit to the Australian relatives in 2020.
Today’s boring bits
Weather – cold, wet, windy. Worst weather for a long while
Tea – Home made chilli (from the freezer) and baked potatoes
TV – Robin Hood (the one with Russell Crowe). Well – I was only half watching between weaving
Lego builders thingy
Jayne's Days 