Our trip to England and France began with two days in New York where, after watching pigeons picking peas from the vomit on the sidewalk near Broadway and 45th.Street, we boarded the Queen Mary 2 docked on the Hudson River. This photograph was taken on a formal night with a Titanic, Grand Staircase backdrop. Ironically Captain Warner reported the smoothest, uneventful Atlantic crossing he had ever known.

A daredevil sea rescue helicopter goes under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Staten Island. The QM2 cleared it with only 11 feet to spare. Whew!

Before long we were eating in one of the nine excellent restaurants on board offering everything from sushi and lobster to fish and chips.

It may have helped that I became good friends with Executive Chef Vincent Heselton.

Which led to a private tour of the galley where 11,000 meals are served every day and included Chocolate Lava Cake with "Chocoholic" Sauce, 2,000 calories

Charlie's pajamas did not quite cut it for the nightly chocolate (more chocolate!) layout by Steward Carlos.

But all is forgiven for Ascot Night.

After five days at sea Charlie was up at 3 am to watch as we moved up the Solent to dock at Southampton where his great-grandfather Chief Steward Royal on the SS American had come alongside 150 years before. The QM2 weighed in at 150,000 tons and and the American, which boasted of chamber pots in the cabins (see chocolate nightly layout above), was only 2,126.

Molly steps carefully off the bus in Chelsea after a wheel hit a bollard at an intersection.

To make up for that we stayed in the same hotel and room where we spent our honeymoon in 1952.

High tea at the Savoy across the road with niece Melodie is a must

As was a pint of Upper Canada Dry with Melodie and Chris at the Maple Leaf pub, Covent Garden

61 years later an aged Able Seaman poses on HMS Belfast moored on the Thames near Tower Bridge

Uncle Frank is all right up in Nottingham with his pints of mild at The Malt Shovel on High Street Beeston.

Frank's still all right in front of Dillon's garden pond in Burbage, Leicestershire

Seen from the ferry to Le Havre we pass the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible of the Falklands war, an Isle of Wight ferry and the masts of HMS Victory dry-docked at Portsmouth Royal Naval barracks.

We spent four idyllic days at Dillon and Pam's cottage in Fourneville near Honfleur, Normandy.

Stereotypical perhaps but French holiday pictures must include Dillon in a stereotypical pose with his baguettes.

Talking of food this colinot in the Honfleur fish market with béchamel sauce and a good muscadet tastes superb ..aaaah.

At the classy Clairefontane racetrack in Deauville the rain showers were defeated when the sousaphone player in the jazz band put his instrument over his head.

The showers kept the people away from the rented umbrellas but it makes a good shot.

Back in London Molly wanted another cruise on the Queen Mary 3

Molly was pleased to see her two favourite nieces and an unrelated sunflower

While Charlie visits Hazlerigg Hall, Loughborough University his residence from 1948 to 1951.

Finally, no visit to England is complete without beer and chips. So to end we had a pint of bitter in the Coal Hole pub and chips cordwood style in Cookham Dean Bottom....how English can you get?