Went on a short cruise from London Tilbury, just before Christmas 2016.  Amsterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp (Netherlands, Germany and Belgium), featuring Christmas markets.  Was shocked of course hearing about the Berlin incident, when I’d just been on a similar market in Hamburg.

I went on my own with the intention of being sociable, but it was difficult, it was mainly all couples or groups of friends and I felt rather awkward chatting to strangers and very much feeling the loss of my life partner, who would so much have loved to have been on the ship and seen all the things I saw.

There was a stunning sunset as we set off, and I bought lots of nice things including some clothes, and ate the most wonderful Belgian waffle I’ve ever tasted.  I discovered a lovely little zoo in the middle of Antwerp which had a wonderful exhibition of chinese (japanese?) lanterns in the shapes of different animals.  What I chose as my favourite photo on return, was one of these – the elephants below – which seems to have captured a nice variety of ‘texture’.