Big Ships part 2

Feb 20th

I woke up at 6:05 this morning. It was still dark. I lay quietly for a few minutes, contemplating the feelings my dream had left behind, then I heard the foghorn of a big ship, and I remembered – the QM2 had arrived! It was surprisingly loud considering how far away it was.

So I put on the television and there it was, on breakfast TV, huge, majestic, all lit up in the dawn, pushing slowly through the harbour. Again, it sounded its horn, three times, and it carried all the way to my house. It was so exciting! Imagine being on board, and every city you go to, all these little boats come out to meet you and everyone’s got up early and is lining the coast, cheering you, and helicopters are flying overhead, and you’re all over breakfast TV, live. Now that’s a welcome!

I decided I was going to take a different route to work, taking the train that goes past Woolloomooloo. But, bright spark that I am, when I boarded the empty train I FORGOT to sit on the right side. So I made my way to the doors thinking I could look out of the windows there, but this annoying woman got on and planted herself directly in front of me. I ended up standing in the corridor downstairs, bending over to try and peer over all the seated people and out of the window. Don’t think for a minute that these people were all as eager as me to see out, and were thankful for their superior vantage points. Oh no. You should have seen the gormless, stodgy lot of them, sitting their like cold puddings, gawping straight ahead. Was I furious? Oh yes. Did I see the ship? Sort of. Never mind. I’ll see it tonight and it will be great.