Well here we are cabin 8001, our home for the next four months after what seemed a whirlwind two or three weeks.  Christmas, followed by the sail away party, which for those of you not in the know held a couple of surprises for me. I had no idea that certain members of my family had been plotting for months to attend without my knowledge, despite the fact that I had been to a party with all of them the previous week at my sister’s house in Lancashire. Then we were surprised by the cake organised by Ruth and baked by Steve which was so good it was devoured in seconds.  The finger buffet put on at the Jolly Brewers was also a firm favourite with everyone. A good night all round, the only sad thing was my youngest sister who it appears had done all the organising, broke her arm two days before the party whilst visiting her daughter in London. Thanks Judith, you will by now have had first hand reports.

At 09:30 on the dot Darryl arrived to load the taxi with the cases Carol didn’t believe would fit – they did – just and off we went, great drive down, bright sunny day light traffic, we were going to be an hour early. That was until we got to within half a mile of the dockyard gate. There we sat for a further hour within site of the ship. Anyway we crawled in almost exactly on time. Darryl planned it well 🙂

All our bags were delivered to the cabin and unpacking began, interrupted only by life jacket drill, which was a bit of a bummer as there were no pretty young things to help you tie them on as there usually is, only a wisecracking Aussie who couldn’t help ‘not’ mentioning the ashes 😡 , still never mind we didn’t have time to dwell on it, champagne party time for the full world cruisers, (320 of us) another cake (ours was better. See pictures) and caviar petit fours h’mmm (why is caviar so expensive?). Then back to the cabin to continue unpacking (think we bought too much) and drink the complementary bottle of champagne (well Brut Polacker) while we waited for the Queen Mary and the fireworks –sailing was delayed to 8pm- 8pm came and went and then the fireworks started about 200 yds from our cabin. We couldn’t have had a better view but how could they all be coming from that little tug and why were so many coming out of the water by the tug? But it was one of the best displays we had ever seen, it just got bigger and bigger, higher and higher and louder and louder. It was only after it was all over and the tug sailed past us that we realised that it had all come from a low lying barge along side the tug.  No sign of us sailing so we made our way down to dinner and as we went we had an announcement from the captain saying we were going on our own as the Queen Mary had been delayed because she was waiting for an ambulance!   Sobering thought, someone would not be going on QM’s world cruise.

Dinner and time to meet our fellow diners, they all seemed a great crowd, one other couple going all the way round (from Barnsley so some Roses banter to come I guess) the others getting off in the US. After a nice meal of mushroom consomme, Venison, followed by ice cream (what else?) we turned in, all that champagne, not a patch on IPA.