So long, Silversea

It's always the same at the end of a cruise: the friendly, attentive staff - even Ronill, the cheeriest waiter I've ever had the pleasure of being served by - are distracted, busy, looking ahead to their new guests; and we, who have had their sole attention for the previous two weeks, are now an impediment. It's really quite sad. So we had our last breakfast at La Terrazza, annoyingly not thinking to sit outside on the deck and bask for the last time in both sunshine and our glorious surrounds (though Brenton, the Golden Voice from Adelaide, was savvy enough to snag himself a table out there).

And then we waited for our colour to be called, setting off, when it was, on one of those tedious days that a trip inevitably involves: trailing down to the tender, crossing the Thames to the Millennium Tower Pier, waiting for a taxi - at least we had a cliché drive past many of London's iconic sights as we squandered, to the driver's delight, £91 getting to Heathrow - and then sorting out a hire car. Boring (though we did at least get a free upgrade to a big Jaguar). And then there was the protracted escape from the airport, which involved numerous GPS misunderstandings and several complete circuits before making it onto the dubious delight of the M25. So much traffic! It was to become a theme...

We headed down into Kent, to meet up with the Firstborn and partner at a lovely little pub at Bramling near Canterbury, the Haywain, where we stayed in a converted coach house. There was a lot of catching up to do, beer and cider to be drunk in the garden, some amusement to be had at the bossy pub dog, Charlie, then an excellent dinner (whitebait!) and finally, disappointingly too tired to stay for that evening's karaoke session, bed on a stable surface for the first time in a fortnight.