2008

October 4th we were invited to a reception onboard the Queen Elisabeth II (QE2) cruise liner, as it is on its last cruise before going to Dubai where it will be permanently employed as a hotel.	Now this I find interesting: captain A.R.Woodall was employed on the QE2 in 1987!	The present captain welcoming us onboard
the following pictures from our tour are mostly selfexplanatory	the Theater	Sportsbar
	one such sign specified that shorts are not allowed out of consideration to your fellow passengers(!)
	the Mauretania
	These memorabilia were donated by a former passenger - it turns out that none of the items had actually been on sale on the vessel - so he probably was just giving back what was originally belonging to the vessel anyway.
the Corona		the weather was terrible - rain pouring down constantly!
Sunday the weather improved remarkably so we went exploring just outside Belfast	As always the national Trust provides you with a good map of the area	A blue sky, but it was quite windy up there.
Through the grassy areas, rubber netting was laid out to protect us from sinking into the ground completely.	Our local friendly livestock.	Clouds gathering, but it stayed dry the whole day.
A Sunday walk to Rowallane Gardens - a 20 min drive from our house. The walk starts at Rowallane House, the head office of National Trust Northern Ireland.	There are no comments to add to these pictures, so just enjoy the scenery and seasonal colours!
		And so the tour of the gardens ends where it started: at Rowallane House. I hope you enjoyed it.
	During a brief visit to Liverpool I went sight seeing while Poul was working. This is Metropolitan Cathedral - one of the biggest cathedrals in the World (locally known as Paddys Wigwam)
The stainglass window at the top of the dome	The altar can be seen at the far end - made of a single 20tonne piece of marble	The cathedral is richly decorated in all sorts of styles.
There are many little chapels in the sidewings of the main room. This one is dedicated to the memory of lost children and babies. (A book was provided for people to enter the names of these children for prayers)	The tapestry on the wall is woven in three pieces and later assembled. It is made from all sorts of materials including old plastic bags.
St Josephs chapel	The Lady Chapel	I don't remember the name of this one.
Abraham and the sacrificial goat.	The ??? Chapel	The chapel for baptising new converts to catholicism
On the way to Albert Docks I walked past Liverpool Cathedral - built in the quarry where most of the materials for building in Liverpool has been extracted.		St James' Garden is in the old quarry and was the first proper green area for the public to use.
The old Albert Dock has been renovated and now houses bothe shopping and sightseeing		The Yellow Duck tour: in the amfibian vessel your are taken on a guided tour of teh strrets of Liverpool followed by a tour of the docks ... on hte water.
	Here your can jsut about glimpse the duck getting into the water at the slope at the far end of the dock	and here it's sailing along.
The Merseyside Maritime Museum is huge - it houses 3 floors of maritime exhibitions and one whole floor dedicated to the International Slavery Museum	This canon used to be placed at Birkenhead where it would be fired everyday at one o'clock	there were numerous ships models on display
Travelling to the new World was not excactly comfortable. If you managed to dodge the perils of the citys thieves and conmen this is where your trip across the sea would be spent. An adult ticket (13yrs and up) was £3 (6 weeks wages for a dock worker in those days). the ticket would also pay for your return if you were not allowed in to America due to health problems(!)	The passengers were split into 3 sections: young single men in front, then families and lastly young single women. If a family had children over 13yrs they would normally be taken to stay with the "singles".	Every adult would be allocated a place on a bunk - 18inches wide and the length of the bunk - under 13's got ½ length. One of these sections would hold maybe 4 adults or 2 adults and 4 shildren or 8 children. Two sections shared one toiletbucket being emptied once a day if the hatch was open (hatch was nailed sown for days if the ship was in a storm). Daytime in fair weather was spent on deck.
The International Slavery Museum		some stories of families emeging from the slavery
A model of a sugar plantation	Torture instruments were frequently used on slaves	- and so were branding irons(!)