I am by a window in the CHART LOUNGE, typing and listening to harp music. I may not

In the Chart Lounge

even get to a book today because I will be busy doing nothing. In all the theatre venues being televised are the preparations for the parade up the Thames for the Queen’s Jubilee Pageant, and in the main corridor on board preparations are being made for a Jubilee

Street Party (pictures to come later). Unlike some of my travels where I have taken pictures of my fabulous meal presentations, I have felt awkward doing so here; however, on my list today is to take images of menus since Chris B. asked for an idea of

In the Royal Theatre with the Jubilee broadcast

meals on board, and these are at the end of this post. But in the meantime let me work from notes made as I was falling asleep and when I first awoke.
Wordpress, which hosts my blog, has a wonderful array of statistics. I know what pages were looked at each day, search terms used bringing people to my site and referral ISPs. Yesterday my record for page views was broken – 71 – beating my previous record of 69 on November 11 , 2011, after I returned from Fatima, Portugal. There were 24 views of my 2 June page, 33 of 31 May/1 June, and my post of 29/30 May had four visits. One search term used was RAY BLOG QUEEN MARY, and I asked my tablemates at dinner if it was one of them, and Paul said, “yes it was me, and my wife loved your writing.” Did I tell ever tell you that I love to write and blog, experience wonderful ways of life, and dress up? Of course I have!

I could not have had better dinner companions, and with each successive meal we learn more about and from each other. Steve was correct about falling into a rhythm while cruising, and I am sure it is a tad different for everyone. You have noted by now my rhythm which today is being fine tuned to relaxing with nothing (I did go to an advanced digital photography seminar this morning – still too confusing and too much to learn). Back to my table: this is Mark’s 38th crossing, and Val and Norma have also made multiple crossings as has Steve. Janet is returning from Wisconsin, so this is here second crossing, and I am the baby with ¾ of a trip. The more you cruise with a line the more perks you get, and except for Janet and I the others have been invited to special parties, and Steve received multiple bottles of champagne (he brought them to share last evening). More will come on this later, but I am going to pause to dine on luncheon.

Did I tell you that you can learn a great deal from strangers at lunch? Yes! I sat with a couple from the UK and a couple from New Zealand. My UK tablemates are train fanatics, and now I have the Great Rail Journeys website bookmarked. The New Zealanders told me

In the Commodore Lounge

they had just relaxed in the Commodore Club Lounge, so here I am now with all my toys, a glass of chardonnay and looking out over the bow on the 9th deck. I shall stay put until I go down to photograph the Street Party, which I learned from the UK couple is a tradition pretty much started during the Coronation in 1953, but has roots back to just after WWII. They described the food, including “fairy cakes”- a type of cupcake. I have just spent some time reading camera manuals that I have as PDFs in my laptop, and it is time to head to the DIAMOND JUBILEE STREET PARTY which you will see below.

Those images are followed by today’s lunch and dinner menus, and hopefully I have them set up correctly so if you click on the image you will get an expanded more readable version. Tonight my table is doing something special before dinner, and since I have internet time left I can share this with you tomorrow. So, enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and in response to Chris Z’s comment in an email – just retire now, there is too much to do. Bye, yours, RAY

Preparations for the Street Party

I just tried a preview, and these menus did not expand, sorry.  But hopefully you get the idea, and also one side of one of the menus is just not working.  I cannot get everything right!

Below is lunch also