This is brilliant, fabulous, magnificent! I am sitting in a far corner of the Queens Room, the largest ballroom at sea, with my favourite Animals hit “House of the Rising Sun” blaring accross the vast expanse of this elegant Art Deco public space, aft on Deck 3 of QM2. The crowds at the annual fund raising Country Fayre have thinned a little. I have guessed the weight of an enormous cake based on my stateroom number. I misread a guess the mileage contest and thus underestimated, vastly the distance sailed between Southampton and Dubai rather than the other way round! Much to my astonishment, the correct figure was around 34k nautical miles meaning we have covered a much greater distance than the 35,973 which I understood to be the distance of the entire voyage. I failed miserably in the high-low play your cards game! In two minutes the auction for Cunard memorabilia begins, including the chart for the final sector of the cruise, signed by the Captain and his Officers, heavily fingered by onlookers. It is expected to go for four figures.
The auction closed; I was successful bidding on two items, a bottle opener fashioned from a piston ring ($45) and Cunard 175 banner in clean unfaded condition($110). It makes a good bed cover. I purchased a “float”of $35 QM2 Country Fare charity currency. Most of these remain unspent and now form a legitimate part of my Cunard memorabilia collection. I was outbid on several other items. Although I am not overly keen on this sort of thing, it was a superb event which raised a worthy sum for the nominated charities; I was more than delighted to support this event albeit not very spectacularly. The chart was not the star fund raiser, bidding stopping at $350.00, probably not a bad investment.
David's Cruise 