Day 3, Southampton

Today we transferred from Portsmouth to Southampton, courtesy of our lovely new taxi driver friend. On the way he told us of his early life in Eritrea and how he fled in 2005, travelling without papers and in constant peril across Sudan and Libya, then by boat to Italy and train across Europe, before smuggling himself across the Channel hidden behind a truck tyre. Initially his asylum claim was rejected until eventually, after asking the panel if he was expected to die in the street in England, his appeal was successful. It was such a tale of hardship, endurance and suffering that I feel as though I will never complain about anything ever again. Happily, he has promised to be waiting for us when we return from our cruise on 28 March ☺️

We are now staying in the rather splendid Harbour Hotel in Southampton, where the very helpful reception staff arranged for our room to be ready 2 hours before schedule. We had lunch in the sixth floor restaurant which was absolutely lovely before heading across the road to watch Nosferatu at the Picture House Cinema. Sadly, after the opening horrifying jump scare, it all proceeded in a rather predictable and unconvincing manner. The critics are right, the cinematography is stupendous, but the rest of it is all a bit daft and unsatisfying. Those of us old enough to remember cannot fail to note the multiple glaring similarities to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version of Dracula. Even the mighty Willem Dafoe struggled with the daft plot and at times pantomime antics he was obliged to perform! But hey ho, it passed a couple of dreary and very rainy hours on a Sunday afternoon. ☺️