A celebratory voyage
What better way for Wallsy to ease into retirement than a Literature Festival at Sea on board Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth. Sounds like a great idea, except the trip wasn’t purchased as a retirement celebration, it was booked as my 2024 Christmas present. It just happens to coincide with his retirement and I am more than happy to share the celebration.
We left home yesterday morning (Tuesday December 10), slightly later than planned, and just outside my comfort zone in terms of airport arrival times go, for our 10am flight to Sydney. It was of course fine, but Wallsy did feel vindicated for having purchased Value Express parking, which meant that, on arrival at the Value Carpark, we simply had to hand over the car keys and walk away from the car without spending time driving up and down each row to find a park ourselves.
Being my Christmas present, was also justification for seats in the pointy end of the plane apparently, a space we soon discovered we were sharing with leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton. Wallsy promised me he hadn’t been kicking the back of his seat all the way to Sydney, but Peter didn’t look impressed when we left the plane, especially as he had to wait for some of the hoi polloi to file past before he could get his luggage from the overhead locker and then to add insult to injury, bumped his head in the process!
Despite the couple on the travelator who were on it for the ride and forgot to either contribute some effort to the journey themselves, or keep to one side so others could overtake, Wallsy eventually made it to the end where I was patiently waiting, and we then took the train from the airport to Circular Quay (what a convenient concept!). Following a short walk, we found ourselves at our accommodation in The Rocks.
After we had checked in, settled into our room and sourced a late lunch nearby, we navigated our way on foot across town to Pyrmont where we had a special rendezvous to keep. We happened to have just crossed the Pyrmont Bridge when they decided to open it to let a vessel through, so of course we had to stay and watch. It wasn’t Tower Bridge, and although it is a swing bridge rather than a bascule bridge, it was still an impressive feat of engineering to witness. The frustration of the Uber Eats riders who were delayed while the bridge opening occurred, was also quite entertaining
Despite this delay we still found ourselves on time for our 4pm assignation at the Sydney Lyric stage door. Here, we were met by our friend Martelle, who is in charge of wardrobe for the stage show Hamilton, and taken on a fascinating back-stage tour. We saw costumes all lined up ready for the performers for that night, and learnt about quick changes, stand-ins and many other fascinating facts about the behind-the-scenes operations of a stage production.
Thanking Martelle profusely, we left to allow her to get on with her job, and found an atmospheric Pyrmont Pub for dinner before returning to the Lyric to enjoy that evening’s performance of Hamilton. I had seen the show during the Melbourne season, but it was new to Wallsy. With a largely different cast I almost felt as though I was enjoying a whole new show. Although performing the same roles, it is evident that different actors bring different interpretations and their own personality to the production. We both loved it, especially with the added details and little things to look out for, that Martelle had provided.
We walked back to The Rocks after Hamilton, and settled in for the night, as tomorrow promised to be another big day.
Comments
Post a Comment