Stargazing

2 weeks to embarkation. The cruise ticket was emailed to us today. Also the booking confirmations have arrived from Addison Lee for the limousince service to and from Berth 101 at the City Cruise Terminal. It all seems so much closer now. And yet still so much to do.

Also today I received a wall map of the night sky showing al the constellations in the northern hemisphere.That was a little disappointing as we may also see some of the more southern constellations when we reach places like Singapore or Panama. Also the map did not show the largest and brightest stars, which would have been much more interesting, than merely the constelations. Nothing impresses people more than somebody talking confidently about stars with exotic names from Greek mythology and give a sense of their relative size and distance. These are the same stars that Phileas Fogg would have seen, not to mention Magellan, and the Chinese explorers in the Middle Ages. It is good to sense that wonder as you see them appearing more clearly like an over-arching cover stretching from one visible horizon to another over the huge Pacific Ocean. I wonder how the lighting of the vessel will affect our view of the stars.

I think we have also sorted the post problem during our absence. Our friend Kasia will spend every Thursday night sleeping in our spare room so that she can return to her New Forest home after spending 3 days working for the F.A. in Wembley, without having todrive down from London during the night. Also our Ukrainian cleaner, Ola, can come every other Tuesday. Between them they would be able to keep our postal locker clear. Good plan, Albina. 

Still cannot get shot of my community responsibilities. I even have new ones. I was contacted by a member of the Polish Consulate to discuss my cooperation with Janusz Kochanowski, the first non-Communist Polish chief consul who officiated in London between 1991 and 1995. This was in the heyday of my activities as a Polish lobbyist, through my editing the historic Orzel Bialy monthly magazine, and acting as Vice-President of the Federation of Poles in Gt Britain. Kochanowski tagically died in the famous air crash in 1990 when President Kaczynski perished. The Consulate is to hold a conference in April to discuss Kochanowski's contribution to Poland's diplomatic history. Unfortunately, I will miss it because of the world tour, but I agreed to visit the Polish Consulate next week and give them as much information as I could about how we co-operated. After the termination of our succesful campaign in 1992 to abolish the need for advance UK visas for Poles, the Foreign Office staff gave Kochanowski a T-shirt imprinted with an enlarged version of a Polish entry visa. Kochanowski passed this amusing artefact on to me, as he thought I deserved it most. I was quite touched and I believe I still have it somewhere, although the print would now have mostly faded. I must find it and present it back to the Consulate when I visit them next week. 

Also I spent a pleasant lunch hour with a very attractive Polish lady writer who seems to have a big soft spot for me. Every year she buys me a plush teddy from Harrods and has urged me to write that blog. She had recently published a book about her brother winning a reality TV show for the advanced in age, called the Love Sanatorium. She was the first to put the idea of doing a travel blog when she heard last year about our voyahe and she even presented me with a small elegant blank note book issued by the Polish Academy of Science, so that I can write notes in between journeys and publishing blogs. Thank you, Grazyna. And Albina just loves your teddies.