Bank Holiday Weekend!

Bank holiday weekends can be both marvelous and a tad frustrating. It is a fabulous feeling to have a whole extra day off work; on Saturday the weekend stretches ahead and that feeling of having a 'free' day of holiday is fantabulous. The only problem is that everyone else has the day off too, which is only right and proper of course, but in my part of the world invariably everybody plans to do the same thing, and the traffic along the coast roads is always chokka.

This bank holiday was different, I spent it on ... shhh.... a cruise with my parents, sister, Nana who is 90 and Great Uncle who is 92 (you'd never believe it if you saw them). It lasted four days and stopped at Zeebrugge in Belgium, Rotterdam in Holland and Le Havre in France. Now I have to admit I was dubious. Whilst I absolutely can't wait for our flotilla holiday in June, sailing the seas on a big tanker of a moving hotel has never really appealed but I decided to go in with an open mind.

Negatives:

• lack of relaxation, it's a really busy holiday and you are constantly moving from one thing to the next (most of those things involve food!). This was my day: get up, have breakfast, go ashore and explore, come back to boat, have lunch, go ashore again/watch film/use gym, have afternoon tea, get ready for dinner, have dinner, watch show etc, go for a drink, bed. Exhaustifying.
• There's a theatre on board ship which puts on nightly entertainment, on one of the nights there was a comedian who was really very funny but on the other nights we had the Cunard singers and dancers who were honestly absolutely dreadful and that's being nice! I now know where the negative description of 'cruise-ship cabaret' comes from.
• The thought of the environmental impact of these great big boats.

Positives

• The fact that it was perfect for my Nana and Great Uncle, they had a brilliant time and really enjoyed themselves. The fun and laughter over dinner every evening was wonderful.
• Visiting Belgium with my family. I grew up there and it was really lovely to be back on home turf! In the morning I went to Bruges with my sister and parents which was lovely and then after lunch K and I went to Blankenberge and wandered in the sunshine before triumphantly finding a supermarket in which we could buy our favourite childhood foods which we can't get in the UK. Yum!
  
  

  
• Visiting Honfleur which is so pretty, wandering around the art galleries and sipping cafe-au-lait.

• On the formal evening with everyone dressed in black tie hearing my great uncle say how proud his mother would be if she could see him and my Nana on board looking so smart.