Dear Friends of the WAVEers - We've just come back on board from a lovely day of wandering about in Honfleur (with the exception of two wasted hours on the "outer harbor boat tour" which showed us lots of the industrial port and spent about 45 minutes showing us the Pont du Normandie - Normandy Bridge - which is either the longest suspension bridge in France, or in Europe, or in the world, or in the universe - the endless superlatives in French coming from the onboard narrator made it quite confusing to determine what was in fact the reality of the bridge). But all that was forgotten over a huge pot of mussels in white wine, with frites and a chilled bottle of muscadet, in an outdoor cafe overlooking the inner harbor.

I am now here in the computer room in order to avoid the dreaded task of packing (see thread on "The Six Stages of End-of-Cruise Grief). Perhaps after another gin & tonic or two I will be able to face the music and the suitcases. We intend to pack before going to the Cordon Bleu cocktail party and dinner tonight, as we assume that we will not be the most efficient packers afterwards. Then, we can have a final lovely late night in the Observation Lounge listening to Hal Fraser (who, by the way, was last night the target of a shocking and obscene verbal assault by a passenger who did not like Hal's choice of songs - we have all pledged to show our solidarity to Hal tonight by showing up and protecting him from such abuse by creating a shield of appreciative fans at all of the tables close to the piano).

Tomorrow, it's on to London for a few days.

Cheerio - Fred