New Forest

Southampton today and a sad farewell to Wayne and Karin who are heading home to Newmarket. Busy day on board with staff prepping the ship for the onslaught of new passengers…our steward, Anshul, looked a bit overwhelmed - it looked like we were the only cabin in his row that were staying for the second half of the cruise so he had a lot of work to do. Hopped off the ship and headed into town. We walked by the Mayflower memorial, a memorial to the 1620 pilgrim ships that headed to America. Then we made our way to the Solent Sky as it had been highly recommended by our Aussie friends. It’s a museum dedicated to the history of flying boats and the Spitfire, housing over 20 aircraft from the golden age of aviation. The Solent region was the centre of aviation research and development between 1910 and 1960. Paul enjoyed it, but only managed to take one picture, and had some interesting discussions with one of the volunteers who was impressed with Paul’s knowledge of the airplanes, particularly the engines. We headed back towards the city centre, passing the Church of the Holyrood (known as the church of the sailors) which was erected in 1320, but damaged significantly in 1940. We continued along Blue Anchor Lane, alongside the Tudor house, that in Medieval times, was used to bring up imported goods to the market place and then down by the Southampton town walls. It had been raining on and off all morning so we ducked into the West Quay shopping mall (check out the vending machine for fresh flower arrangements), continuing with my quest to locate one of my favs, The Flying Tiger (glorified Dollar Store) which, I might add, we’ve been successful with in every port so far, except LeHavre. Jacqui, my craftaholic on board, found it today too (I had brought back Santa tissues for the ladies a couple of days ago) and LOVED it…her husband, Malcolm, was less impressed. Stopped in for lunch at Franco Manca where they make their own sourdough pizza crust and source their ingredients from small suppliers across Italy and the UK. Paul ordered a “No Logo Lager” - bit spicy (the pizza, not the Lager), but delicious 😋. Heading back to the ship we popped into Ikea to get out of the rain…same shit, different continent and then into McD’s for a coffee. Dinner and a show (comedian) and then off to bed.Read more