Sunday – The Final Day and Exhibition

Having travelled almost 12,000 miles since leaving Tilbury on the 5th of January, this was our final day at sea.

Every day, when the Captain has give his noonday ‘Positional Ship Report’, the Dutch Host, Peter, has given an announcement for Dutch passengers – in Dutch, of course. Today, for the first time ever, he gave his announcement in English as well as Dutch, which was rather sweet. He wished everyone a safe journey home tomorrow and tallked about what a wonderful trip it had been, and all the magnificent things we have seen. He talked about how well the Dutch and English passengers had got on together, and the conversations we’d had; we’d talked about all sort of things, he said – the only topic that was a bit thorny was about the euro.

I went along to Neil Bonner’s final lecture in the morning (sadly, the only one I’ve been managed to attend), which centred on TV and TV commercials in the 50s and 60s. It was a great talk, with some surprising facts and a lot of humour; he even threw in a couple of conjuring tricks.

At 1pm, after lunch, it was time to set up our exhibtion of paintings. Everyone from the classes turned up, and it was all hands on deck, blu-tacking and taping the massive pile of paintings onto the walls of the corridor outside the Craft Room, in time for the advertised 2pm start.

All went very well; folks turned up in their droves to admire the work that had been produced during the last 6 weeks. Despite the normal reservations about their own individual abilities, everyone whose work was exhibited agreed that they all looked absolutely fantastic, jumbled up, and in no particular order of painter or subject. I’ve spent weeks reassuring them that they would look great once they were all put together… and they did!

So… In the immortal words of Mary Poppins and Bart Simpson; my work here is done.

For myself, it’s been an enjoyable cruise, with no major incidents or catastrophies. There are always moaners and complainers (I was sat next to Mr Happy in Marco’s at lunchtime, who had a list of grievances as long as his arm – if he could complain about the sea being too wet, I’m sure he would), but those dissenting voices are outnumbered, I’m sure, by a greater volume of people who have enjoyed themselves and appreciated the diversity of locations we’ve visited over the last six weeks. The Marco Polo is a fine (and beautiful) ship; the staff work very hard and, despite the occasional skirmish, is an extremely friendly ship. I look forward to returning to it in July, when I’ll be working on the Marco Polo’s 50th Anniversary Voyage to Canada.

In the meantime, if you’ve been a regular reader of this journal, then I hope that you’ve enjoyed sharing the trip with me. Tomorrow, we’ll be back in Tilbury, London, and I’ll be heading back home to North Yorkshire. Until the next time…..