The Safety Link

This is the penultimate day of luxury, education, entertainment and gourmet eating on board Cunard's Queen Elizabeth, on her Maiden season of sailing. Tomorrow we have to pack and leave.

It's been quite a journey not only of the Atlantic ocean, but in terms of tolerance towards each other in a small space and towards our fellow passengers who are not on the whole in their first flush of youth and have trouble with mobility and various other ailments.

We have learned to accommodate the slow movers with their mobility aids, those who seem spaced out by the general hubub, and have tried to gravitate towards the younger set with whom we associate ourselves, however unlikely that may seem to be.
We have identified the people we like, and enjoy meeting them as we go about our various activities.

We have been very entertained by lectures by Lord Winston ( today it was on the subject, 'What's Wrong with Playing God' , by Herbert Kerrigan on various aspects of the law, by Christine Roussel on the Ottoman Empire and today on the restoration of The Statue of Liberty, and by Jerry Labriola on Forensic Medicine. Also Matt Costello, a very multi talented novelist, games writer and magician made an impression.

We have been entranced by the singing and piano playing of Phillipa Healey, by the flautist Suzanne Godfrey, by the violinist Greg Scott and many many other talented people.

And we have eaten well!
Not as much as some others, but enough for clothes that fitted 3 weeks ago feeling uncomfortably tight now.

I worked out that, barring room service which is 24/7, the buffet restaurant is open 22 hours out of 24. It means that the only time you can't go and find something calorific to consume is between 4am and 6am.

A sobering thought for the third world to digest.

My blip is of the propeller on the lifeboat underneath our balcony and which I have put my name on throughout the voyage. It's no 14.