Final adventures

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After we left Lisbon we had a 2 day voyage to London. On the Friday most of the day was taken up by rehearsals and the final choir concert. We had had an extra practice after we had left Lisbon on the Thursday, so Friday morning at 11am we did the final rehearsal. We were not sounding too bad!! We did a sound check in the Palladium, then had lunch and at 2-30 were back for the show. As before, the Ukulele band went first. I liked their name, A Band on Ship!! Then we joined them to sing We'll meet again. Then it was our turn. I sat in the second row as the weather was not good and the ship was rolling. Overall we did well. The song we were most worried about, The Phantom of the Opera, went well. Any way it had been a great experience and an enjoyable one. I met some lovely ladies and it filled in some hours.
That day the mood changed. In the morning we had heard an announcement asking for one of the crew to report to the engine room. By the time we were at our sound check, an announcement was made that one of the crew was missing and we were turning around to return to where he was last seen. The ship had been searched and it was presumed that he had gone overboard. The search and rescue was being coordinated by the Spanish authorities and we had to go back and join the search. This certainly put a damper on all activities and everyone was very concerned for the crew. The weather was bleak and we all knew we had little hope of finding him alive.
That night was the last Formal night and Baked Alaska dinner. This was very enjoyable and the food was great. Our two waiters were fabulous guys and we had a great table. The Baked Alaska was superb.
The next day we were informed that our arrival into Tilbury was to be delayed by 24 hours. Deb emailed our accommodation to inform them about that and all we could do was accept the inevitable. The search was called off and we resumed our voyage towards London. That afternoon, instead of the quiz, they ran a swap shop for all the tokens we had won during the quizzes. We had 62 in total. For that, we got 2 sets of wireless headphones, Deb scored a battery charger and the others grabbed assorted key rings. Not bad!! That night it was hard saying our goodbyes to some lovely people we had got to know over the course of the voyage.
We arrived into Tilbury late on Sunday night. We had arranged a coach transfer into Victoria station. We were up early as we had to clear immigration on the ship and that started at 7am. Then we left our room and went to the assigned bar to wait for the call to disembark. Our luggage had been taken the night before. About 8-15 we were given the nod to leave the ship. We found our bags in the terminal and proceeded outside to the bus. It was pouring rain and quite cool. We found the right bus and boarded. We then sat waiting for over an hour as some people had not followed the instructions and they wouldn't leave without them. Most of us were fuming about that!!
At 9-15, we eventually left and drove into London. We were dropped at Victoria station and from there we took a London cab to our lodgings, the Hyde Park Executive apartments. Sounds good?? Well, it didn't quite live up to the title. The apartments are in one of the lovely terrace row houses, typical of this area of London, but our room was very small, even though it did have cooking facilities. It has been OK.
After we checked in we walked back to Queensway, a street brimming with restaurants and shops. We chose Bella Italia for lunch. This proved to be a great choice. Fletcher had a prawn spaghetti while I had a chicken pasta. As we had not had breakfast we were rather hungry. The food and service were excellent and we enjoyed it very much.
From there we walked to Queensway underground station and went into Tottenham Court Road. This was the start of our book store tour. Despite the rain, we walked first to Foyles. Here we found 2 books we wanted. Then it was a walk along Charing Cross Road and a stop at the Cambridge pub to rest. Then down Shaftesbury Avenue to Picadilly Circus. This is the part of London we know and love!! The next bookshop was Waterstones. This is an enormous store, covering several floors and contains everything you would want. We found three more purchases and were pleased when I used my Waterstones card and found we had £10 credit. This meant one book was free!!
The last stop was at Hatchards, but though there was plenty on offer we had enough to carry home!! By this time we were rather weary so we returned to Queensway. As we were walking back to our room we stopped for a drink at Ceru, a restaurant and bar with a middle eastern flavour. We had a white wine from Armenia. We liked their menu, so booked for dinner, then returned to our room.
At 7pm we returned to an excellent meal. They served smaller shared platters. We started with hummus and pita bread which was delicious, thensquid and prawns. Both were great. We should have stopped there but I couldn't resist the leg of rabbit and the lamb in pomegranate sauce. Very delicious but very filling. We took our time and washed it all down with an Israeli white and a North Macedonian rose. A great night. However, it was marred by a message from Malaysian Airlines that our Wednesday night flight,had been cancelled. When we returned to our room we read an email which told us we had been rebooked on Thursday morning. No offer of accommodation for Wednesday night!!. However, we managed to get an extension on our current room, an extra £120, but it was better than trying to find somewhere else. It will mean a 15 hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur though!!
Tuesday we had booked for lunch at Harrod's fish restaurant. We spent the morning resting then took the Tube into Knightsbridge. We explored Harrod's for a while until it was 12-30, our time for lunch. Kerridges fish and chips is the name of the restaurant in the Dining Hall. Here, Fletcher had his Dover Sole while I settled for a shrimp buttie and chips. The serves were large but delicious and the chips the best I have eaten for a while. From there we went to Covent Garden. Fletcher needed a new belt which we found in the market. Then it was into the square to watch the buskers and drink a good white. There was a great string quartet then a couple of jugglers.It was pleasant as the rain had disappeared and it was warm and sunny. That afternoon we returned to Bayswater and bought a couple of sandwiches and white wine from Sainsbury's and relaxed in our room and watched some TV.

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