A summary of Gallivanting in October 2022

Having arrived home five days ago it is time to reflect on the highlights of this trip.

I feel as though it has been a cultural feast.

Being able to go to Tosca at the Metropolitain Opera House in New York City and then La Boheme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London on one trip will be remembered.

I would return again to the Metropolitain Museum of Art in New York city on another trip. There are many other Museums in New York City that one can visit. The 9/11 museum is well done and worth a visit. 

The last two days in New York were fine weather and I ascended to the 102nd floor followed by the 360 degree view from the 100th floor of the One World Trade Center. Great views of the Statue of Liberty, New Jersey and New York Harbour.

Leaving New York City on the Queen Mary II afforded spectacular views of lower Manhattan. 

The gentle seven day crossing of the Atlantic on the Queen Mary II was truly a luxury ferry trip. I had never felt so pampered in my life. I did enjoy a Bridge lesson and duplicate Bridge every afternoon. 

I was glad to visit niece Caryn in Winchester, cousin Jo in Oxford and my friend Tom in Cambridge before spending nine days on my sisters farm near Canterbury. 

The Reform Club on Pall Mall is very convenient for any tourist activity in Central London. The center of the club, the dining room and the library are majestic and fun to experience. 

I did have time to travel on the new Elizabeth Line of the London Underground and get off at Whitechapel where I walked around the new Royal London Hospital (where I trained between 1960 and 1964). I even managed to grab a half pint of beer at the Good Samaritan which was our watering hole as students. 

In Cambridge we had dinner one evening with two other contemporaries with whom we had been undergraduates 1958-1960 more than 60 years ago.

The Canterbury Festival highlights for me were two talks - on Everest 1922 and Tom Crean's Antarctica. Then there were two walks. For me the best music was the Carducci string quartet, the MozART group and Bach's Mass in B Minor sung by the Canterbury Choral Society in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral.

Here at home in Victoria one realizes that we often have some amazing music. The day after arrival home I attended a screening of the 1928 silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" at Christchurch Cathedral. It was accompanied by "Voices of Light" a libretto brilliantly performed by the Vox Humana Chamber Choir conducted by David Stratkauskas with accompanying instrumentalists.