Dear transatlantic diary: Day 7

After breakfast, there was going to be another guest speaker in the theatre. This time, all the World War II veterans were going to be speaking and discussing together their experiences of the war, where they were when it ended and the reaction their parents had when they found out they were returning home. Again, there was not a dry eye in the room, it was such a fantastic experience getting to hear all their stories and how it had affected them at the time and since.

After the guest lecture, we stayed in the Royal Court Theatre as the show that was being rehearsed all week, After You, was going to be performed for the first time. Luckily, we kept our seats as it was a sell-out and every seat was taken. The show was pretty good and you wouldn’t know that only earlier in the week it was the first time that the cast had set their eyes on the script.

We skipped lunch today as we had booked in for a Champagne Afternoon Tea in the Veuve Clicquot Champagne Bar. We were served our pink Champagne and asked what type of tea we would like to try - I went for the Rooibos tea and it was delicious. I also found out that this type of tea has lots of health benefits so I made a note to buy some on my return home. Our Afternoon Tea was presented to us on a luxurious silver-tiered tray. The first tier consisted of a vegetable and goat's cheese filo tart and a crayfish croissant. We also had three scones each; one plain, one chocolate and one with fruit. There were also numerous cakes, each with different fillings, all of which were delicious. There was more than enough to go around and we ended up again taking some away with us for later as we couldn’t finish everything.

Before dinner, we all met in the Commodore Club for some farewell cocktails. Most of the group went for Cool as a Cucumber (the gin cocktail we made in diary entry 5).

We all decided that we needed an early night tonight as we had to be up at 4.30 am to watch the entrance into New York.