The Big Game

P&O do elegance very well. The Oriana even has a bar called Tiffanys with a stained glass ceiling. How elegant is that? (I don’t know why women always complain about glass ceilings – I suppose it’s the dusting) Anyway all this elegance attracts a lot of serial skiers.
For those who don’t know, skiing in this context means Spending the Kids Inheritance. This is why at Southampton you see lots of fifty-somethings waving a tearful goodbye to their ageing parents. They’re actually crying because they are waving goodbye to another few thousand pounds. In the elegant bars and dining rooms of the Oriana, serial skiers play a game called Cruise Ship Poker. The winner is the player who can boast about the most and / or the best cruises.

The game is played throughout the ship but the big games start in the main dining room at 4pm over tea and crumpets. We’ve been on quite a few cruises and thought we were ‘ready’ so 4pm found us seated at a large dining table in front of a window with the sea rushing past. The air was heavy with tension. The aroma of jam and crumpets covered a faint smell of linement and warm rubber.

The lady at the end with the badly fitting skin opened with a back to back cruise on the Artemis. I saw her and raised with 3 separate cruses within a twelve month period. I thought the man with liver spots opposite might have a World Cruise, but I was delighted when he only played the Singapore leg. I knew that my four Aurora Cruises would always beat a single leg of the World. I played my Auroras with quiet confidence and leaned across the table to gather up the pots of clotted cream. ‘Of course they changed the itinerary in 2006’ smiled Liver Spots ‘doing the Singapore leg last year allowed us to see some ports that we missed out on our World Cruise in 2005.’

I sank back in my chair defeated. The harsh truth is that we have a lot more skiing to do before we are really ready to compete at this level.

Dave x

The sun comes out briefly

Cabin B207

Our cabin

Tuesday, 30th December 2008

Hi everyone, it’s my turn to blog today! It’s 3pm and, after two days of grey seas and sky, the sun has just emerged. Dave has immediately decamped to the balcony, wrapped up in Berghaus, woolly hat, (and cords) – and is sitting on a bath mat placed on the seat of one of the recliners as the cushions are very wet. It’s still very breezy out there, and not really sunbathing weather, but hey, we’re on a cruise don’t you know!

I don’t have anything much to tell you, as we’ve spent most of the time so far asleep. We’ve not been to any shows, films, krizzes or presentations.

The ship is lovely; very traditionally fitted out, not at all glitzy. It seems to us to be exceptionally stable, considering the huge waves and white horses we can see through the windows. Motion discomfort bags have not yet appeared in the stairwells! Most of the public areas are still decorated for Christmas, and there’s a massive gingerbread village in the reception area. We’re on a table for 8 in the evening, and our companions seem really nice – two couples about our age travelling together, and one older couple who are very chatty and have some interesting tales to tell. It was the first formal evening last night and we were joined at dinner by one of the ship’s engineers, who bought the wine for the table, but unfortunately only one bottle of white and one of red – Dave was not a happy bunny.

Looking forward to reaching Madeira tomorrow lunchtime, and the fireworks at night. Dave may blog again tomorrow, but meanwhile I’ll wish you all a Happy New Year. Hope you have a lovely evening, whatever you’re doing. We will raise a glass to you as the clock strikes 12.

Love
Janet x x x

p.s. A quick note for those of our friends who still think people who go on cruises are posh... the two ladies who chatted incessantly behind us on the coach were actually discussing where they’d bought their cruise outfits. Peacocks in Blackpool, Matalan, and ALDI !!!

Sailaway photo

Are we nearly there yet?

We left from Blackpool Coach Station or more precisely just outside it because of the skips that the Council had used to block the entrance. ‘They do it every Christmas’ our driver told us as we boarded. ‘It’s to stop the Gypsies camping, those bastards spoil it for everyone’. ‘One of them has a £300,000 house but sleeps in a caravan’ added one of the Cruising Klan in the front seats ‘they don’t go to school you know, they send the kids to ASDA to learn how to thieve’ said another. We chose a seat well down the coach. I hadn’t had time to buy my Mail on Sunday but I felt fairly certain that I’d be able to borrow a copy later.

There were only a few passengers from Blackpool and Preston and so we had to get on the North Wales coach at Knutsford. They had been waiting for us so we left straight away without a comfort break. Our new driver reluctantly explained that there was a WATER closet at the back that was for EMERGENCIES. From his tone we were left in no doubt that any emergency had to be life threatening and that anyone foolish enough to attempt No 2’s would have to complete the rest of the journey on foot.

We didn’t stop again until Warwick services, which presumably do the best backhanders, so we decided to go for the all day breakfast. They had a different counter for each hot meal so that you could get them quickly before you joined the long queue for the coffee and cashiers. It’s probably a health and safety thing about not carrying hot food in a dining area.

Back on the coach I decided to get out the laptop and watch Minority Report on DVD. Who invented shiny screens on laptops? All I could see when the sun came out was a reflection of my belly button. It made the story hard to follow and, as a metaphor for Tom Cruise, it was the wrong part of my anatomy. More distracting however was that, no matter how far I screwed the phones into my ears. I could still hear the conversation from the seat behind.

The women in the seat behind talked at each other in droning monotones. After a while strangling the life out of them seemed to be a perfectly responsible course of action. They reminded me of bagpipe players but not for the noise. They sort of filled themselves up with air and then words came tumbling out. All they could do was to try to aim some of the words at the current subject. Together they could have dispensed with the need for Guantanemo Bay. Strap a terrorist to a chair and then let those two sit behind with a nice pot of tea. No one could resist for more than a couple of hours. ‘Osama Bin Laden, third cave on the left, I’ve jotted down his postcode and mobile number’

We arrived at Southampton about 2pm which was pretty good and even better we got on to the Oriana and into our cabin in record time. Most of our luggage joined us soon after. The one that didn’t contained a rolled up coat and lots of wires and batteries from chargers, adapters and so on. We were still listening for the sound of a controlled explosion when we sailed.

The case turned up and the Bay of Biscay is relatively calm – more shortly.

Dave xx

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