Day Two, 12^th July – Sea Day

The aforementioned Brontes’ biography I’d brought along was a 37-hour read according to my Kindle, a very similar timeframe to this meandering rubbish I should think.  However, should you flag, pause a while to imagine how many hours it takes to slog this stuff out on a keyboard.  I’ve already got Blog fatigue and have only just begun (as the Carpenters would say/sing.)

Sea days gave me plenty of time to get through the Brontes. I was halfway through the book when I boarded and had reached the bit about Branwell’s affair with the wife of his employer (a thing I knew nothing about before.) There was only one form of employment for the self-educated but slightly impoverished Brontes back in 1840, and that was either as a governess or a tutor.  Branwell had delusions of grandeur, aided by being the only valued son, but failed miserably at getting anything published (at the tender age of 20 mind you) and began a quite rapid descent into drink and opium, especially after getting the sack for sleeping with one of his students’ mother’s.  It’s clear this evil woman was the actual death of him.  Ms Barker does a good job of using extant (her favourite word) letters from all parties to weave a compulsively realistic tale. There’s even an almost throwaway comment by Patrick Bronte, in a letter, suggesting that mental illness and addiction ran in the family – news to me but not surprising given that simply to be alive in 1840 would give anyone the heebie-jeebies.   I’ve digressed.

There had been little sleep for me the night before. The husband had slept like a log. I’d booked a twin cabin. Our alarm clock had gone off at 7 am. I was already awake, hyper aware of the ship’s movements. ‘What time is it,’ the husband asked.  ‘7 am’ I replied. ‘Feels much earlier than that,’ he said. ‘Well, it is,’ I said, ‘it’s 6 am our time.’  I got up. It was much the better option to remaining in bed, for the mattress was the worst mattress I’ve ever had the misfortune to lay my head upon. To call it ‘firm’ would be an understatement. It had the quality of one of the stone slabs in Haworth graveyard, right next to the Bronte parsonage. I may as well have slept on the floor.  I went to the bathroom as the husband went back to snoozing.

P&O bathrooms are a lesson in how to cram everything into a tiny space without you really noticing. The toilet, on the other hand, was a lesson in noticeable discomfort.  It was raised to such an extent that my feet didn’t touch the floor, which felt weird, like I was an oversized toddler. I’m average height too, at 5’ 4”. The seat was very narrow and rock hard, to the point of pain if you sat there too long. Its most alarming feature however was its suction  mechanism.  Rather than fill it with copious amounts of water, both in the bowl and a tank, it operated via a powerful suction system whereby the ‘waste’ was driven down a tiny hole at the bottom of the bowl and into a network of narrow pipes.  Clearly, I’d forgotten the loo situation from our past cruises, for the noise emitted from the loo, when I pushed the large flush button above it on the wall, was deafening. I don’t think I can overstate the shock and fear induced by my first flush of this monster loo, for the sound was akin to a lion’s roar or a volcano erupting, which was to prove eerily appropriate. There was a notice above the flush button instructing us to never sit on the loo and flush it at the same time, presumably lest we too be sucked down the bog.  The shower cubicle was miniscule, but the shower was really very effective.

We had breakfast in the buffet. I aimed straight for the healthy breakfast bit and filled a small bowl with cold soaked porridge oats, apricots, dried bits of banana and sprinkled on a few pumpkin seeds and flax seed (this was the first time seeds of any kind had ever passed my lips.) The husband filled a bowl entirely with pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, apricots, prunes and figs. We found a table (I would later scout for free tables and sit there while the husband got his grub first.)  ‘You’ll be on the turbo bog all day with that lot,’ I said.  I took a mouth of cold porridge and pumpkin seeds and nearly gagged. How the husband was managing to eat a pile of the stuff was beyond me.  I tried the flax seeds next and spat them out immediately, as my body instantly rejected such an abomination to its precious system.

The husband then went to the top deck (his favourite spot but also deck 13 which I avoided at all costs) with his ancient binoculars, which don’t work but due to the fact he doesn’t have my superhuman eyesight, he doesn’t notice. I caught up with the Brontes in our cabin, the bit where Charlotte stalks her married French teacher via lovelorn, increasingly desperate letters.  I also lay down on the husband’s bed, wondering how he’d slept so well, to find it was nearly a world away from its supposed twin. Right, I’m nabbing this bed tonight I said out loud, to myself.  I took the opportunity to sit on said bed and watched the sea from our window. A thing I’d hesitated to do since boarding, being that nothing but an enormous expanse of sea filled me with mounting terror.  The previous day had been calm, the sea a pleasing blue. Today the sea was grey and there seemed to be much more wave activity going on. I turned the TV on to the Aurora channel which displayed the Beaufort Wind Scale. I’d noticed white foam on top of some of the waves. The scale told me that anything between force 5 – 8 caused ‘whitecaps’ on the waves.  Wind must be picking up thought I, with a sense of inner dread.

At 12 noon our Captain (Simon Love) made the first of what would be his daily midday announcements. Told us a bit about where we currently were – going by Dover I seem to remember – mumbled on about some other stuff and announced that the sea was lovely and calm.  Clearly Captain Love’s state of the art weather systems were missing the whitecaps. He then handed over to ‘Jess’ his weather girl. Jess gave the following day’s forecast as light winds, calm seas, plenty of sunshine and a pleasant 18^o C.  How lovely thought I. How SAFE.

At 1 pm we raced to the buffet to find it heaving.  We filled our plates with grated carrot, shredded cabbage, coleslaw, grapes etc etc and exited the buffet in search of a table. We found one by the pool at the side of the Lido bar which was serving burgers, hot dogs, pizza and chips. This grub was included in the cost of the cruise, like the buffet. We sat picking at our salads whilst the husband continually glanced at the tables around us where cruisers were tucking into burger and chips.  ‘Those burgers look quite good,’ he said, ‘better than I thought they’d be.’  ‘Eyes on the salad,’ I said.  Looking to my left I then noticed a Jude’s ice cream bar.  Well, I’m learning where things are, I thought, and which ‘things’ to avoid.

We spent the next few hours finding our way around the ship. Poking our heads into the Curzon theatre, and The Playhouse (mini theatre) and the casino and went for a latte in the Raffles lounge which became our favourite place to hang out.

We had dinner in the buffet. We wolfed it down, which was probably a sign of extreme hunger due to subsisting on salad and seeds or could have been something to do with the sea air. Dinner introduced us to the ‘hot’ side of the buffet. There were mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, green beans. A cook was carving pork slices; there were sweet potato chips, bits of chicken and, further along, rice and spiced dishes. None of it was particularly hot, which didn’t bother us at all on that first night.  I looked out to sea from the buffet windows, commenting on the whitecaps, which the husband laughed off. ‘They’re not really whitecaps he said, not rough enough for that.’   ‘Looks pretty rough to me,’ I said, trying to quash a sense of impending doom.

By 10.45 pm I was feeling nauseous. Aurora had begun to rock and roll (and not in a good way) an hour earlier. As the ship lurched so did my stomach.  I sat on the cabin settee trying to read The Brontes, just at the point where Emily was desperately ill with TB and suffering in a very similar way to myself but had to give up as reading was giving me vertigo.  Suddenly my phone pinged.  It was the friend letting me know that a volcano had erupted in Iceland on the 10^th July, and was our itinerary now changed, and how unbelievable this would happen on our cruise, and this was all accompanied by volcano erupting emojis, fire emojis and that fearful blue faced one.  Such was my frame of mind that I had visions of this eruption somehow reaching us in the midst of the north sea and sinking the ship, or that we’d be suffocated in a huge cloud of volcanic ash whilst Aurora was pelted with giant rocks. ‘ It’s miles away, the husband said. ‘Calm down.’  I took a sip of P&O canned water (£6.90 for 6 cans) in an effort to drown any rising thoughts of imminent disaster.

I then nabbed the good bed, the husband not believing that there was any difference in bed comfort at all.  Set our alarm to 7 and fell asleep, as the floor beneath me lurched and swayed and rose up and down in an alarming manner.

Day Three, 13^th July – Sea Day

I awoke surprisingly refreshed. The husband was staring up at the ceiling like he was frozen. ‘What’s wrong?’  I asked. ‘I haven’t slept at all,’ he said. ‘Well, you did,’ I shot back, ‘you were snoring.’  ‘That must have been the only time I kipped then. You were out practically all night.’   ‘Do you believe me now, about the bed?’ I demanded.  We then discussed what the hell was wrong with the bed, being it looked exactly like the other one.  Days later I would finally be driven to pulling off the sheets and mattress protectors on both, to find the ‘good’ bed had a duvet wrapped round the mattress under the bedding. We managed the bed problem by alternating who slept in the good bed, thereby assuring a reasonable night’s kip every other night.

I showered etc feeling remarkably chipper, partly due to the previous day’s reassuring weather forecast. We went for breakfast. I found a table and waited for the husband. He came back carrying a plate filled with two eggs, two bacon rashers, two sausages, two black puddings, tomatoes, mushrooms and baked beans. Before I could express my outrage, he rushed off, returning with two bits of toast and loads of butter.  ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed. ‘Getting my money’s worth,’ he replied. I had to accede that he had a point. Had we really paid £3,790 (plus £135 for internet access) to torture ourselves with cold porridge and flax seeds for two weeks. ‘Where did you get all that?’ I demanded. ‘From the hot section. Go and look round the buffet, there’s loads of other stuff.’  Throwing the text I’d got from our GP surgery several months ago (informing me I was pre-diabetic) to the sea winds, I got up from the table and embarked on a thorough reconnaissance of the buffet area.  I came back with a bowl of cold porridge with apricots (minus seeds) in an effort to at least ingest something that counted as healthful, then went back and filled a plate with two mini (everything in the buffet is ‘mini’) croissants, two pains au chocolat and two apricot pastries (why is one of anything never enough?)  Then I went back for two bits of toast, a pot of jam and lashings of butter.  P&O have now done away with trays, requiring multiple trips before you can stuff your face.  Never had breakfast tasted so good. 

We exited the buffet and the husband said he thought he’d just go up on top and look around a bit.  I didn’t question this at the time. I went back to the cabin.  I walked down six flights of stairs to get there, because I did not want to use the lift alone in case it got stuck. As I walked along, I was momentarily ‘thrown’ to the side a bit, like the floor had given way beneath me. I grabbed a rail and walked unsteadily down the length of the corridor to our cabin. I picked up The Brontes, to find Charlotte intent on getting Jane Eyre published, along with several poems by all three sisters, but then discovered that reading was giving me vertigo. I got up from the settee and looked out the window. The sky was an ominous grey and full of dark clouds. There was heavy rain striking the window and the floor beneath me began to rise and fall as though the ship were riding an enormous swell (which it was.)

I sat down on the bed, which was moving up and down, as multiple swells followed, and gripped the sides of the mattress so I wouldn’t fall off.  Side to side I went, and back and forth and up and down, my stomach (now full of breakfast) lurching along with the ship. An hour later the husband came into the room. ‘I feel awful’ I groaned. ‘Go up to the top deck,’ he said, ‘like I did. I felt dodgy coming out of the buffet. You feel it less, high up.’  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’  I moaned.  ‘Didn’t want you to know ‘cos knew you’d start worrying about it,’ he said.  Before he got the last word out, I was rushing to the loo. I threw up twice. First time I’ve thrown up in twenty years. As if throwing up wasn’t bad enough, the monster loo was moving along with the ship which made it very difficult to target the bowl.  I cleaned up after myself, staggered out and fell onto the bed, a shivering, freezing wreck.  ‘We paid £3,790 to throw up,’ I wailed at the husband. ‘Over £3k for the pleasure of being tossed about on the high seas and feeling like crap!’  Then I demanded he get me one of the travel-sick pills I’d packed. I chewed on a Stugeron (first time in my life) and promptly fell asleep (to the husband’s immense relief, I’m sure.)

When I woke up, I felt much better, even though the ship was still lurching about. It was as though all the lurching was a sort of ‘background noise’. My brain noticed it but, crucially, didn’t seem to care about it.  ‘These Stugeron pills are really good,’ I remarked to the husband.  ‘And as for that weather girl. We must take anything she says with a pinch of salt.’   The husband agreed, being that she, and the captain, had also neglected to say anything about an erupting volcano.  ‘Yeah’, he said, ‘when we get to Iceland it’ll be: ‘tomorrow’s forecast is light winds, mill pond seas, a lovely warm 25^o C, Oh, and a touch of lava with occasional ash showers.

That night the clocks went forward another hour.

To be continued….