Cruise Day 2

I awake to sun blinding me. Mum has pulled back the curtains at 8 am. We’re not getting off the ship until Saturday (it’s Wednesday today) - there really is no need to be up early on the days we spend on board. I’ve had about an hour’s sleep. Mum is telling me just to stay where I am, not to get up, she knows I’ve had hardly any sleep, don’t mind her, she’ll be quiet, just lie there and get some more rest, there’s no rush, we don’t have to be anywhere, no problem at all, can have breakfast anytime, just lie there, just get some rest etc. She keeps this going for a couple for hours while I hide under the duvet.

I crawl out of bed and get ready to go for breakfast. We opt for the buffet restaurants on floor 15. I’ve never seen so much food or so many plates piled so high. There’s a choice of cooked breakfast, pastries, fruit, cereals – pretty much whatever you want – and some people are having it all, and lots of it. Mum has some fruit, I have some cereal. We go nuts and have a croissant each. Other people are going back for second helpings of everything, and piling it high again. Some people seem to be making bean mountains - I have no idea what's underneath.Watching them makes me feel a bit sick.

I get a good look at some of our fellow passengers: lots of wheelchairs; lots of walking sticks; lots of hearing aids; lots of very overweight people; a few young families, a few people my age, but mainly over sixty (at least). Hmmmm…

Next stop is the library where we collect the daily crossword – this is something Mum has done on every cruise and is a set part of the ‘routine’ – and go back to the cabin to complete said crossword. We wander about a bit more, trying to get to grips with the layout of the ship, but failing. We skip lunch, having had a relatively late breakfast, and head back upstairs at 3 pm for ‘tea’. Same as before – people piling plates high with cakes, sandwiches, scones – everything they can get their hands on. Something tells me these people have also had lunch and will be snacking some more before dinner.

Countdown is approaching – oh, the excitement. Mum wants to rush down there at 3.30, convinced it will take us ages to find the place it’s happening. I calm her down and assure her I know where we’re going (is anyone who knows me well laughing at this?). We finally find the room with one minute to spare. See? You should always listen to your mother.

There are about twenty passengers waiting to play – I’ve never seen such a collection of odd, badly cut hair and so many high waistbands and belted trousers with tucked in polo shirts in one place … and that’s just the women. They look serious. They look like they sit in front of Countdown every day, jaws clenched, teeth gritted, pens clutched in claw-like hands. They mean business. The game is played pretty much as it is on TV, except these contestants jeer, ‘That’s not a word!’, ‘That’s a proper noun – you can’t have that!’, ‘You’ve already had a turn at the conundrum!’ I’m a bit scared of them. Even more scared that, if I come here every day, I’ll get one of those haircuts and buy those trousers.

After Countdown it’s a wander round the shops then back to get ready for dinner – it’s our first formal night and men wear tuxedos while women wear cocktail dresses or ball gowns. I’ve got loads of those, as you can imagine. We have a formal picture taken, but don’t buy it because I decide I have fat hands in the picture. It’s true.

The dining room does look pretty special with everyone dressed up. Two new dining companions arrive – Richard and John, from Wales. They’re easy to talk to and good fun, so we hope they’ll come back the next night. We tell them they have to come back or other people in the restaurant will think we’re scaring people away. It turns out Richard and John are constantly betting each other a drink against the answer to various general knowledge questions.

John: So, Karen, what do you know about Haile Selassie?

Me: He was the president of Ethiopia.

John to Richard: Ha, that’s a drink you owe me!

Richard to me: ‘And?’

Me: He was the founder of Rastafarianism.

Richard to John: No – you owe me a drink. See? Told you.

John: Tut.

Our waiters, Manoj and Cletus (I’m sure Cletus is taking the piss and chose that name for a laugh) saw me cutting up Mum’s food last night, and tonight they insist on doing it so my food doesn’t get cold. Aw, that was nice – and worthy of a bigger tip, obviously. The vast majority of the staff and crew seem to be Indian. We also have a sommelier, Milgred, who is, I think, from Goa, but I could be wrong.

After dinner it’s off to the theatre again. A comedian called Johnny Casson who is stuck in a 70’s time warp (and is at least 70): casual racism, mother-in-law jokes, ‘take my wife – no, please, take my wife’ kind of stuff. And he has a mullet that has clearly been carefully preserved since 1972. He had one good gag: ‘Got up last night to go to the toilet and when I came out the cabin steward had made my bed.’ Yep, the cabin stewards work very hard.

We leave the theatre to discover we have now entered the Bay of Biscay – we know this because the ship is bouncing about, and so are we. If you’ve never seen hundreds of old people with walking sticks trying to walk straight - after they’ve had a few drinks - on a ship that is rolling around, you haven’t lived. I shouldn’t laugh, especially given the state Mum and I are in, but it's superb entertainment – better than the comedian, that’s for sure.

I plan to get Mum away from attending the theatre from now on – after just two nights I know I can’t take any more.

Back to the cabin and in bed by midnight.

'Better get some sleep - Barcelona tomorrow.'

'No, tomorrow is Thursday - we go to Barcelona on Saturday, Mum.'

'Ah, right - yes, October 1st. Sorry - I forgot.'

2.30 am: ‘Is that rain?’

‘No, Mum – it’s just the noise of the ship.’

5 am – there’s a strange rustling noise. ‘Mum, is that you?’

‘Yep, just taking my tablets.’

‘It’s 5 am.'

‘Oh. Right. I’ll go back to sleep, then.’

Try to sleep, but there's Countdown tomorrow. Maybe some sunbathing. And the crossword, obviously. And food - lots of food.

Cruise Diary

A quick bit of background: My mum had a stroke in 1991, when she was 57 years old, which has left her paralysed on the left side of her body and also heralded some personality changes, including pessimism, extreme sarcasm (she was pretty good at that before), a slight recklessness with finances, impatience, and the ability to talk the hind legs off a large herd of donkeys (those of you who know me will know that I can do a fair bit of talking myself, so if I’m mentioning it …). In 2000 my family moved in with her and we have shared a house ever since. She loves cruises – the ideal holiday if you are elderly and/or disabled in any way - and she and my brother have taken four trips with P&O. She has been trying to get me to go with her for years – I have refused. Then I gave and decided to give it a go, and from September 27th we took a twelve day Mediterranean cruise on the Ventura. This is the diary of our cruise, which I had planned to post day by day while we were away, but P&O wanted £35 for 90 minutes internet connection, so, eh, naw. Some days will, obviously, be more interesting than others – but, hey, I’m writing something, so that’ll do for me.

Day 1: The Journey and first night.

Ten hours from Glasgow to Southampton on the bus. Ten hours from Glasgow to Southampton on the bus with my mum, followed by twelve days cooped up in a cabin (sorry – ‘stateroom’) together. We leave at 4 am – Mum has had her jacket on and been perched on the edge of her chair since 9 am yesterday. Okay, I exaggerate, but since at least 2 am today. As we pull out of Buchanan Street bus station, this whole thing really seems like a bad idea.

We're just settled into our seats when Mum starts telling me all about previous cruises and how much I’m going to love this. Mum has been telling me about this for six weeks, ever since we booked. It’s going to be a long night/day/journey.

Our driver is Keith, a very nice man with a Lancashire accent. He also has a tips box, which means he gets even nicer and more helpful at various points throughout the journey. The ten hour journey. Did I mention that it’s ten hours? It’s ten hours. Ten hours of listening to stuff that I've heard before and being charged £24 for a biscuit at service stations. It'll be fine.

We finally get to the Mayflower dock at Southampton at around 2.30 pm and we can see our ship, The Ventura – a ship that takes about 3,500 passengers and over 1,000 crew. It’s quite big. Really quite big. I have no idea if I get sea sickness, but I have twelve days to find out. People have told me not to worry because big ships have stabilisers. Stabilisers make me think of a child learning to ride a bike. This is not a soothing image.

We get through boarding pretty quickly - because Mum’s in the wheelchair and we get priority (the priority queue is still very big – this is a clue as to what’s to come) - and head off to our stateroom, which looks remarkably like a cabin. Okay, actually it looks like a nice hotel room in a nice hotel. We have a lovely big balcony – our escape from each other (I’m sure this will work both ways). Our luggage hasn’t arrived yet, so we go for a wander around the ship.

The Ventura only has one promenade deck i.e. only one deck where you can walk right round the ship. This means that using the lifts is an odd and confusing experience as only some lifts, either aft or forward, go to certain floors. Getting lost becomes something of a habit, as does looking for what often seem like fabled lifts to mythical floors.

We miss the actual departure – eh, Mum may have talked through the announcement – and don’t realise we’re moving until we spot other passengers with champagne, waving at the docks.

Champagne downed, we go back to the cabin and I unpack the bags that have arrived safely. We try to sleep for an hour before dinner – I fail, Mum sleeps soundly… or rather, she sleeps noisily (another side effect of the stroke). I’d forgotten about that. Twelve days, eh?

We had booked ‘club dining’ which means you are assigned a table at a specific restaurant at a specific time each night. We’d asked to be seated at a table of eight (more people to talk to/at) and for second sitting, which is at 8.30 pm. We get to the table to find it empty. We’re bang on time, so not too concerned. Other tables around us start filling up, but still just the two of us at this table. I confess to a little bit of panic setting in at this point. Twelve days, just me and Mum at the dinner table every night? Oh.

Eventually two women sit down next to us – another mother and daughter. The mum in her 80s, daughter probably late 50s, early 60s. Conversation is a bit strained until we all down a glass or two of wine, then, as is to become a feature of the cruise, medical problems are discussed. The mum has diabetes and can’t really eat this late, so they warn us we probably won’t be seeing them again as they plan to change their dining times. Oh. Given that no one else has turned up at our table for eight, this is a worry. The daughter then tells us she is on her fourth holiday this year. She’s taking lots of holidays because she’s being put on the heart transplant list soon and then she won’t be able to go anywhere, so she’s having as much fun as she can while she can. I like her attitude.

We don’t see our dinner companions from the first night for the rest of the cruise. It really is a big ship.

Mum likes to go to the theatre at night. I knew I’d hate it, but Mum is, quite rightly, calling the shots, so off we go. It’s a young guy, Will Martin, from New Zealand playing piano and singing, very, very sincerely. The kind of thing Michael Ball does – singing rock/pop songs in a classical way, with absolutely no emotion, and slaughtering them. This is particularly excruciating during Nights In White Satin. I want to shoot myself/him – Mum wants to buy his CD, and extra CDs for everyone she knows. I distract her with a Bailey’s and ice and she forgets about the CDs. Lots of people should be thanking me.

Back at the cabin, there’s a newsletter waiting for us detailing all the activities that are available the following day: table tennis; introduction to Chinese medicine; art class; cookery demonstration; whist drive; Noddy’s welcome aboard party; Countdown. Okay, tomorrow we’re playing Countdown, apparently.

Time to sleep, having been awake for almost two days. Well, that’s the plan. Like I said, Mum is quite snorey, and I suffer from insomnia anyway, so the chances of me getting any sleep are low. The ship makes a constant noise, but you get so used to it - I found it quite comforting - you hardly notice it’s there. It sounds a bit like light rain hitting a window.

Mum wakes up at around 2 am. ‘Is that rain?’

‘No, Mum, it’s just the sound of the ship.’

I fall asleep, exhausted, sometime after 7 am. Probably too excited at the prospect of Countdown at 4.15 pm.

First Post

I've been meaning to set up a blog for ages - in fact, it appears I started one in 2009, but never actually wrote anything - so now is as good a time as any to actually do this.

It's been an odd year writing-wise - one of my least successful in terms of publication, which has been disheartening. However, a little light has shone recently in the form of publication in The Spilling Ink Review http://spillinginkreview.com/issue-6/fiction/ and on Every Day Poets.

Tomorrow I'll be doing something I'm quite excited about. The second year HND students in Visual Communications at Anniesland College will be using some of my work as a project, so I'll go tomorrow and read to them, then they'll take my stories and poems as triggers for their artwork. Should be interesting and, hopefully, fun.

I'm less nervous about reading in public than I used to be. I hated it. Shook like a leaf to the extent that I had to ask for a seat to stop my legs wobbling too much. I'm getting better thanks to practice at Glasgow's Rio Café. But this will be different, so the nerves are kicking in a little. I'm sure it'll be fine...