Note: This blog (below) is the last relating to the QV 2020 South America Voyage. This will be the first you come to having accessed my blog address. Each of the 79 days have been documented; the first few blogs are illustrated. Scroll back to Day 1 for a complete acount of the voyage, and further back for accounts of other events, and right back for the 2018 QM2 World Voyage. Not a bad thing to do in these day of self isolation.
Suddenly, there’s that realisation that the day after tomorrow, I would be sleeping in my own bed for the first time in eleven weeks. That’s one very long time to be away from home, but, not my record. I doubt I shall beat the 120 days I set on a World Voyage in 2018. It should be possible to scroll back through just over two years of writing blogs to that awesome voyage to Australia and back on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. I had thought about packing my suitcases and several bags around ten days before the end, and, in fact, did manage to complete that necessary but irksome task in good time for the heavier stuff to be taken ashore for me. Apart from a lack of porters on the ship, Cunard did look after us right to the very end of the most remarkable of voyages.
For most of the time, we were well ahead of the Coronavirus menace which would catch us up eventually after transiting the Panama Canal. Our last port in South America, Cartagena in Colombia was the first virus casualty, followed by Fort Lauderdale, where guests could disembark for onward travel which was becoming very unpredictable. Ponta Delgada in the Azores would have been our final port of call, before Southampton. This would have meant perhaps six more days of warm sunshine before a final cooling off as we headed for Southampton, another three days away. Quite why Captain Tomas Connery re-routed us for those final days, reduced by two, to Southampton, through cold and wet climes of the North Atlantic, I can only speculate. And as soon as the word “compensation” was bandied about, Connery (who kindly signed my picture) decreed that if we wished, we could stay on board for up to two nights in Southampton, thus negating an obligation to compensate for early arrival!
Because of the lock-down, Roger, my neighour who had offered to collect me in his campervan was no longer allowed to drive, even to pick up a friend, either at the port, or anywhere else I could have got to.
Four pieces of luggage had been taken ashore during the night, for collection and transfer to the coach I had booked a seat on a few days earlier. I struggled, from my stateroom, with a further three bags and the painting I had at that particular time, wished I had let somebody else win at the auction! On that last morning, I bade Jo farewells in the Lido, and at the luggage collection point where she appeared unexpectedly, one final time. I got to see one or two others also. I think Christina was the very last person I said goodbye to at Knutsford Services, but by that time, I was obliged to keep two metres away from her or anybody. That’s “social distancing” for you!
While cool, the last three days of the voyage including that one-day-early coach transfer to Knutsford, were lovely and bright. The UK had basked in quite warm spring sunshine as its citizens got their heads around self isolation and social distancing, disinfecting worktops, wearing disposable gloves, and panic buying wet wipes and loo rolls. And while most passengers were glad to be going home, I think that same number would have been more than happy to stay on board where the virus hadn’t yet developed.
The journey to Knutsford felt like it was going to take forever. However, much to my amazement, we were pulling in 45 minutes earlier than I was advised originally. The coach was less than a month old, bearing a “20” plate, issued from 1st March 2020. A Buxton taxi arrived not long after I and others had been dropped off at the Service Station which felt eerily quiet. We drove through the town where I had lived with Mum and Dad between 1969 and 1975 when I moved to my present home near Buxton. I still have a soft spot for Knutsford and go back from time to time to remind me of what would be the all too brief time I resided there. My parents, on the other hand, lived out their lives there, and I could visit as often as I wished.
This is my second day in the new real world of the virus menace. So far, the “shock” hasn’t hit home. My red convertible is now a dead duck with completely flat battery. A bookshelf in my bedroom has collapsed, only very recently leaving a heap in the far left hand corner of my bedroom by the window. I do have fresh food in the house, but need to establish a shopping routine whereby I don’t leave the house. And I shall have to carry out all my own housework. It’s about time!
Brilliant! Now I am at home, I can send the photos. My plan now is to go through the blogs I was not able to illustrate while on board. This will take time. However, access the blog via Google and the the revised illustrated versions should start to come through.
Many thanks for reading, David, on what should have been the day I came home, 28th March 2020, 17.15hrs, Harpur Hill, Buxton.
David's Cruise 