The Grand Exhibition – Last Sea Day

No-one saw it coming. I’ve been telling my students in the art classes, for a long time now, that we would be holding a grand exhibition alongside the crafts, in the Arts and Crafts Room, on the last sea day. The last two parts were correct, but it turns out our exhibition would be taking place in the Supper Club, and neither myself nor Carolyn, the craft tutor, were told about it in advance; we all found out about it in the daily Today programme the night before.

I told my people about it in the morning session, which I’d described as a sort of ‘drop-in’ centre, where folks could finish off paintings and I would demonstrate some extra techniques and engage in a Q&A.

The Supper Club is a much larger room than the Craft Room, which is a good thing. The issue we had was that lunch would be served in there, giving us very little time to get things set up ready for a 2pm start (the exhibition was down in the daily blurb as being 2pm – 3pm). We voiced our concerns, but the time and place – it seems – was set in stone. Needless to say, no-one was surprised when we all turned up at 1:30pm to find guests still eating their lunch.

The show – as they say – must go on, and so it was, with all the great efforts of those whose exhibition it was, everything was set up in record time; a little late, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

Paintings and crafts were shown, everyone proudly showed off their results to fellow guests, and all were happy. In the immortal words of Mary Poppins and Bart Simpson, my work here is done.

We’ll be arriving back at Dover in the morning, and Tracey and I will be heading North for home as soon as we have disembarked.

And so we come to the end of another great adventure, courtesy of Sage Cruise Lines. We’ll be jumping on board again in December, when we head off over the Atlantic Ocean for what is described as Festive Celebrations in the Caribbean. Bring it on!…