SeaCity at Southampton

Linda and Peter, Ange and Paul - dear friends and cousins

This morning, Linda and Peter drove me down to Totton near the New Forest, where I am once again staying with Ange and Paul.

After a welcome cup of coffee, it was time to say goodbye till who knows when to Linda and Peter.  They'd love to come out to see me and Australia, but it's a bit of a worry in Europe right now.  But we'll definitely see each other again.  I love them heaps.

The old court house converted

As soon as they left to drive back to Sussex, Ange, Paul and I drove into Southampton to visit the SeaCity Museum.  This is a brand new museum which has replaced two older museums - the Maritime Museum and the God's House Museum.  This year is the anniversary - as if we didn't know - of the Titanic Disaster, and this museum is dedicated to just that, but is much more as well.  It has a history of the different groups of people who moved through Southampton on their way to somewhere else - soldiers off to war, Basque children coming temporarily in 1937, Russian emigrants arriving overland to travel to far off places, ten pound Poms on their way to Australia....

Replica of a 2nd class cabin on the Titanic

We had a very happy three hours wandering through the museum and all agreed that it would take two or three visits to see it all and maybe more to absorb it.

The vast majority of the crew of the Titanic - employees of the White Star Line - were residents of Southampton, and less than a third survived.  The dots show where these crew members who lost their lives lived.

As we came away, it started sprinkling, and now the rain is once more setting in, and the forecast is for it to keep up until at least I leave England - less than a week now.

In eight days time I will be home.

In just a couple of hours, Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors will be holding their June monthly meeting, the second that I have missed.  I will be thinking of you all!