I am not long back from working around the Caribbean as a cruise lecturer for P&O Cruises - well, some-one has to do it!!!! - and everyone is asking me what I have brought back. Actually, apart from photos and some great memories, very little. When you have weight restrictions on flights it does mean serious shopping isn't so easy.
Actually, I am not one for buying "souvenirs" anyway really. I collect Christmas tree decorations so a glitter-embellished shell, bought in Barbados, is now on my tree ( every December is like a world tour of memories as I put up the decorations), a CD of a steel band will remind me of the weirdness of listening to carols being played around the islands as the sun beats down, and a handful of nutmegs from a tree in St Vincent is my haul... probably not what most of the passengers have taken home.
I do keep a diary on any trip (whether for work or a holiday) and will be creating a scrapbook with postcards, leaflets and memorabilia collected from the ship.
As we had to sign-on as a member of the ships crew, just like anyone in the merchant navy, I also have my "discharge papers". Can you imagine the puzzlement of our ancestors when they decide to trace the family tree and discover them? "What were great great grandma and grandad doing, running away to sea, when they were in their fifties?!"
