Oh, Mary, this London’s a wonderful sight,
For the people are working by day and by night.
They don’t sow potatoes nor barley nor wheat,
But there’s gangs of them digging for gold in the street.
At least when I asked them that’s what I was told,
So I just took a hand in this digging for gold.
But for all that I’ve found there I might as well be
Where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.Percy French (1854-1920)
Got up this morning at 8.00am as usual, to the sun shining brightly through the gap in our curtains. We had a nice relaxing sea day to look forward to today, en route to Dublin Bay. Usually, the ferry can cross overnight from Liverpool to Ireland, so we were interested to see how they were going to extend our cruise so that we spent an extra 24 hours at sea. 🙂
We decided to go to the Britannia restaurant for our breakfast and enjoy waiter service rather than queueing in the buffet. I enjoyed a bowl of Bran Flakes washed down with coffee and orange juice, and followed it with some juicy Scottish kipper fillets.
Looking at the Daily Programme, we saw that the WW2 historian, Mihael Kushner, was doing a presentation called The Spy Who Loved HImself, relating the real-life story of Eddie Chapman, the ineffectual German spy, crook and all-round bad boy. The adventures of this guy were hard to believe at times, but it was an interesting and fascinating talk and we learned something new.
After the talk we had about an hour and a half before the next one, so we went back to our cabin and pottered around for a while, and enjoyed a glass of prosecco each as Trevor was wearing his polo shirt with the Sunderland AFC shirt and we were still celebrating! 🙂
As we watched, the Queen Anne, which had been gliding along at an almost imperceptible rate, seemed as though she had stopped altogether now. This was soon confirmed by the sound of the anchor being lowered. A quick look at Google Maps showed that we were just off the coast of Northern Ireland at a town called (ironically!) Newcastle, and the picturesque sweeping mountains we could see were the Mountains of Mourne (hence the title of today’s blog). 🙂
When we were so close to Northern Ireland, and weren’t due to dock in the Dublin Bay until tomorrow,, we couldn’t understand why Cunard didn’t include a visit to Belfast on this cruise; it would have been good to meet up with my cousins Alan and Margaret, Adam and Brenda again, as we have done in the past. As it was, I sent Alan a photo of the mountains and he asked us to “give us a wave!” as we sailed past. 🙂
At 12.00 noon we returned to the theatre to listen to another talk by marine historian Eric Flounders, who was giving a presentation about the legendary Cunard ocean line Queen Elizabeth 2 (or just QE2). She was probably the most famous ocean liner in the world. Trevor and I were privileged enough to have enjoyed two fantastic transatlantic voyages on the QE2; one in 1997 and one in 2000. This was in the days when cruising with Cunard was something special, rather than the “Carnivalised” experience it tends to be today.
We really enjoyed the talk a lot and felt all nostalgic seeing the photos of this great old ship. What fabulous memories we have of her. 🙂
This took us nicely up to lunchtime, and we went up to the Artisans’ Foodhall for a light lunch; we didn’t want to have too much as tonight was formal evening and there was to be a Grand Gala Dinner, where we were all asked to wear red and gold, Cunard’s colours. The Queen Anne was still firmly at anchor, and an announcement from Captain informed us that he had decided to anchor here for a few hours to allow us to enjoy the scenery, which constantly changed as the Queen Anne turned slowly on her anchor.
At two o’clock we returned to the theatre once again, for a production by the show company called “Cunard Street”. It was designed in the style of a radio play, and the narrative was accompanied by old photos and film reel of famous past Cunard ships. It was an interesting performance, something quite different, and we really enjoyed it.
The afternoon passed in its pleasant way, and we enjoyed sitting out on our balcony watching the world go by. I had an appointment at 4.00pm to have my hair put up in the salon, so I decided to get my makeup on beforehand, as it would save time later, before getting dressed in our glad rags for the final formal evening this cruise.
I usually wear my hair in a chin-length bob, so it’s not particularly long. With some effort and imagination, however, most hairdressers are able to give it some sort of volume and put it up into a glamorous updo, which the girl did on this occasion. Carole had given me a voucher for $40.00 off a hair treatment, and I was glad of this as the updo should have cost me $69.00 (51 quid – much more than the 35 quid I usually pay at my regular hairdresser). So it only cost me $29.00, plus a 15% tip I added on.
Back in 4066, I finished getting ready. I put on a full-length, bright scarlet ruched dress that was actually quite flattering, although nothing on the planet was ever going to hide my belly, despite my Spanx. 🙁
I wore it with a pair of gold sequinned heels, which satisfied the “red and gold” dress suggestion for tonight, as they are Cunard’s colours. Trevor teamed his dinner suit with a red bow-tie and cummerbund and, thus attired, we made our way to table #393 in the Britannia Restaurant.
As we took our seats at the table, our waiter handed us a special souvenir menu which not only included the culinary offerings on for tonight, but also outlined a little of the Cunard line’s illustrious history over the years. You can view/download the menu here.
I started off with a melt-in-the-mouth duck parfait, followed by watermelon and feta cheese salad. At around 6.00pm, we noticed that the Queen Anne was on the move again, next stop Dún Laoghaire (which is pronounced dun leery).
For the main course, we all opted for Cunard’s cost-cutting “surf and turf” which consisted of filet mignon with three tiger prawns, instead of the traditional lobster. Then I finished off with rum-roasted pineapple with passion fruit sorbet, accompanied by coffee.
Then we all had a post-prandial liqueur each and partook of a couple of nice little petits fours, which included crystallised ginger. All in all, a delicious and plentiful meal.
The featured entertainment tonight was called “The Beatles Experience” and consisted of a band of four guys doing their tribute to the Beatles, even down to Paul’s famous left-handed guitar playing. The theatre was packed out and we had to go quite a few rows back before we found a seat. People were standing at the back and along the sides of the room, and Trevor and I looked incredulously at a man who was standing there in a t-shirt, baseball hat and baggy jogging pants – and this was formal night! Not only was it disrespectful for all of us who had made the effort to adhere to the dress code, it was Cunard’s own fault for not enforcing the code. Why bother to have it if you aren’t going to stop inappropriately dressed people going into the theatre?
We really enjoyed the performance a lot. They played many of the Beatles’ well-known, catchy songs and the audience joined in with the words with gusto. A great show. The entertainment on the Queen Anne really has been very good.
Afterwards, we met up with Billy and Carole in the Commodore Club as usual. They both said that, while they were enjoying this cruise and they were glad they’d tried Queen Anne, she was just that bit too big with 3,000 passengers, and they wouldn’t come back, sticking with their old favourite Queen Victoria. Trevor and I tended to agree; we prefer much smaller vessels where you can get to know your fellow passengers. This is why we tend to cruise with Fred Olsen more than any other line – we just prefer them. 🙂
We stayed in the Commodore until about 11.30pm, then made our way back to 4066 for a nightcap of Bacardi and Coke, before we settled down for the evening. Tomorrow we would drop anchor in the Dublin Bay, and we looked forward to whatever the day would bring.