valeriesbookofme

  It's 5:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, the doves are cooing outside my window and I am lying in my sweaty bed, having changed my nightgown twice. Can't smell worth a darn, joints hurt, coughing sporadically, temperature is currently normal after spiking last night at 101.7. My COVID home test came back negative but, regardless, I am sick and won't be mixing with people until the symptoms go away.  I started feeling sick on Friday night in Phoenix. Daughter Laurie had paid for tickets for me to go with her and granddaughter Mercy to see "Stars on Ice," the traveling ice show that features US championship figure skating. She'd bought them at Christmas and one of the reasons our vacation trip was planned during April and early May was so that I could get back in time for it.  I have a long history of going to ice shows. When I was quite young my parents used to take me to the Ice Capades in Montreal; it was an annual outing. My dad was a Mason and he was closely inv

  On April 6 th   I posted a blog called “Another Week” wherein I wrote that R and I had booked to go away for a month. This is what I wrote: “ The day after Mitzi died, Richard suggested we book two cruises--one going out of Fort Lauderdale to England, one returning a week later. One on the Queen Mary 2, one on the Queen Elizabeth. We had been holding back a long time from traveling together, partly from the COVID pandemic (although of course I went away solo last Fall) but mostly because of Mitzi. She couldn't be left alone and, after my trip in the Fall, I realized she couldn't be left with Richard either. She was glued to me. So all of our conversations about travel--and we dearly love to travel--began with "after Mitzi passes." All this is to say that although it seems a bit of a jump to be booking a month away the day after Mitzi died, it was something we had been thinking about for a long time. Everything has become extremely expensive though--flights, hotels--

  These photos (in no particular order) were taken yesterday morning as I joyfully explored the upper decks in the early morning. Sun! Sun! For the past five days the skies have been a steely grey, the sea an equally steely grey, sometimes with whitecaps. The ship has rocked and rolled, people following suit.  I have continued my daily routine: up at 9:30 am London time—the ship’s clocks have gone back one hour ever night but somehow my internal clock doesn’t recognize the time change although afternoon naps have now become a fixture (9:30 is variously 5:30 am, 4:30 am, etc.) hope to grab a treadmill at 7 am, if not, then wait for 9:30 when the fitness folks are off doing something else having fulfilled their morning duties in the exercise room; breakfast in our dining room at 8:15 am, then find somewhere to read. I usually find lots of corners to curl up in and I have finished two more books since Spain. Both mysteries, my fuzzy brain can only handle those. Meet up with R at noon and

This is the Garden Lounge on Deck 9. Although gale force winds were blowing outside, the sun shining through the glass roof made it feel like we were in a warm sheltered—albeit plant less—garden. I arrived too late to get a Bingo card so I just sat at a quiet table at the side and watched the same man win three games out of four. By the third time the applause for his win was decidedly unenthusiastic. By sunset the sea looked deceptively calm but the wind was still blowing so much that walking out on the deck definitely wasn’t on. I couldn’t open the doors to get out anyway. On Thursday night I saw a great revue called “Palladium Nights,” a salute to the famed London Palladium and the stars who appeared there in the 1970s and 1980s. As I meandered back to the elevators to go up to my cabin, I stopped to listen to the lone saxophonist playing in the Grand Lobby. I splurged and had my hair cut and styled on Friday. I had a photo on my phone from my trip to London in September (see below)

 It’s Thursday morning, we are somewhere out in the Atlantic. The sea is very calm, almost glasslike. After Monday’s nightmare embarkation, I wasn’t feeling very well on Tuesday. Nothing respiratory, it was my old nemesis, diverticulosis, which flares up when I am super stressed. It’s flared up a few times on this trip—bad stomach cramps, tiredness. Which of course makes me even more nervous that this could be some new version of COVID; no respiratory problems, all digestive. And we are testing again this morning. Just tested actually, about 10 minutes ago. Sitting and wondering if our names will be called on the intercom to go directly to our stateroom. Do not pass go, walk of shame, off to COVID jail (the term the lady on the Queen Mary 2 used) for 10 days. Actually, just after we sat down, they announced the list of names from the last lot of testing before us. We all froze while they read it out, everyone literally stopping in their tracks on the walkways to listen. And then a col

  A nightmare getting onboard. An absolute freaking nightmare. At one point Richard said he wanted to forget the whole thing and take a flight home. He was semi-serious; I am thankful the Security people were kind and solicitous rather than arresting him. But I will start at the beginning. We had had a lovely time in Southampton leading up to embarkation day. The hotel was comfortable and quiet, close to a large modern shopping mall with restaurants and stores. We had no problems getting from London to Southampton on the National Express bus; it’s just a long ride. Of course I was nervous about the embarkation COVID test but finally just before I went to bed on Sunday night I had a kind of epiphany of peace. It was strange but all of a sudden I wasn’t worried anymore, ar least not to the extent I had been. So on Sunday we arrived at the Ship Terminal at our appointed time of 12:30; so did almost the entire complement of passengers.   No we didn’t all have the same appointed time, it wa