New year, new life

We docked early in Southampton and disembarked well before 9.00. The traffic was easy and I was home in Lichfield soon before 12.00 midday.

As you'll have gathered, it was a marvellous trip and I made some wonderful new friends who I hope I will stay in contact with. The itinerary was magical and we had some super sunshine in our Canary and Portuguese ports.

But before I move away from this experience, I'd like to offer a couple of words of warning to anyone thinking of taking a Christmas cruise from a UK port and returning to a UK port. It skewes the age of the population somewhat !

A statistic that was quoted was that 90% of the passengers were over 70. (I don't think the percentage would be much less for those over 85) At times it was hilarious. The behaviour of the seriously elderly was often far worse than that of the young people so often berated. A seriously noisy spat in the Library the other day even woke up some of the sleepers ! I have never seen such a concentration of Zimmer frames, walkers, wheelchairs and sticks. (And a closely guarded statistic is the coffin count - 12)

Home again. Sparkie collected. (No sign of Cyd - yet). Waitrose visited (and I was queue-jumped by an under 50 !!!!)

The garden has changed. There is a lot of clearing to do - and two large clumps of snowdrops hold great promise for the New Year....

Thank you for following my journey and for commenting. I will now be able to get back to looking at your journals as I am home to my wifi.