Saturday's animals

Yesterday we made the journey up the M5 to my sister-in-law's in the Cotswolds. Lucy has married into a farming family and is a huge animal fan so it was inevitable that our trip would feature some four-legged creatures.

Three Labradors and a Jack Russell

The first encounter was of the canine variety as we tried to gain entry into Lucy and Pete's house. (Pete is Lucy's husband.) The Jack Russell (Lucy's) and black Labrador (Pete's) were doing their best to deter us with some scary sounding howling. Well it was scary sounding to me anyway. Since I was bitten by a relative's dachshund when I was a toddler (I still have the scar to prove it) I have been far from a dog fan.

But Matt boldly went ahead and I was fine. The Labrador (Jet) is actually rather lovely (I even rubbed her tummy when she asked) and the Jack Russell (Meg), although usually rather too energetic for my liking, stayed in her basket until Lucy came home - and then started charging around the house.

Our plans for this morning had to be altered. Subsequent to lots of late night chat we had a lovely lie in. The lie-in is one of those luxuries that I seem only to be able to indulge in when away from home.

Anyway, once we had finally emerged into the world we made our way into Wotton-under-Edge. The boys split off to watch the rugby while Lucy and I tackled the shops. Wotton-under-Edge is blessed with some of the finest charity shops. Last time I was here I got a complete 1968 dinner service, in its original box, for £25. Today I got an unused (still in its original cellophane) murder mystery game for £4. I also got some rather lovely things from the local shops to adorn my garden with. And a fishing net.

After lunch and a nap (the lie-in didn't make up for all the late night chatting) we went up to The Farm. Here I had to contend with more canine shenanigans as we were joined by 2 more black Labradors for a walk around the flora and fauna. Tessa and Pip are younger and more boisterous than Jet. Add Meg into the equation and I spent much of the walk fearing that I would be knocked off my feet into the slurry, or mauled horribly by one of these hounds.

I found looking at the calves much more pleasing, they had a nice lick of me but I drew the line at letting them suck on my fingers.

Getting friendly with some calves

We met the steers (boy cows who've had their bits chopped off) who didn't know the fate that will soon befall them on behalf of a higher end supermarket. And the steers who go to the slightly less high end applications.

Our tour of the resident bovines finished with a walk through a field of dairy cattle, during which I was only momentarily scared when it looked like the Jack Russell was going to take one on. Fortunately she thought better of it and our walk continued uneventfully into a field of wheat. This was slightly scarier as the dogs could not easily be spotted amongst the crops so I couldn't be sure from which angle they might try to get me.

Shantag (the brown eyed side)

But I emerged unscathed and we moved on to be introduced to the horse that Lucy is probably going to buy (she bought the horse box yesterday, hence our slightly challenging entry into the house). Shantag is a rather unusual looking horse with one blue eye and one brown. I'm not a horse fan really but was feeling braver with my animal encounters now and enjoyed giving Shantag a stroke on the nose. I would have fed her a sugar cube but didn't have any.

Wednesday's sight-seeing

Wednesday, May 8^th 2013

Today was our first shore day: Cartagena on the Costa Calida – the warm coast. There were a few organised trips but we had read our touristical literature and felt pretty sure that we could take care of ourselves.

We disembarked after breakfast (slightly more substantial today as we would probably skip lunch) and followed the signs for the Castillo de la Concepcion. This was in order to achieve one of our customary touristical activities of Going Up Something High. Unfortunately we caught up with an organised group of Americans from another ship (the group was organised, not the individual Americans). 

The big lift

There is a big lift (or elevator for any trans-Atlantic readers) to take you up to the castle. Unfortunately it was a small lift, the capacity of which was reduced (in units of people rather than pure mass) because there were a number of obese Americans ahead of us in the queue.

Leaving Matt to keep our place in said queue I negotiated my way to the information / ticket booth where (after being told about all the various combination tickets available) I ascertained that it was possible to skip the lift and walk up to the castle. So we duly commenced our ascent of the stairs that circumnavigated the lift, only to find after about one storey that they were blocked off. We did however happen upon the Refugio de la Guerra Civil. I’ve been really interested in the Spanish Civil War for a few years (since I read a novel in which it was the backdrop), so this museum housed in a municipal air raid shelter built into the hill under the castle during the 1936-1939 conflict was a happy coincidence. We parted with our first tourist Euros of the holiday and it was €3.50 (in total) well spent. After the recent horsemeat debacle I was particularly enthralled by a recollection about donkey meat which was being passed off as horsemeat.

Subsequently we meandered around the streets of Cartagena and found the elusive pedestrian route to the castle, where a few more tourist Euros were well spent. There were a number of interesting displays, this time about the older parts of the City’s history. This section was completed with a 2 player game in which Rome (me) battles Carthage (Matt) based on answering questions about what the displays have just told you. Carthage showed strength in answering questions correctly. Rome showed strength in answering questions incorrectly quicker than Carthage, which was advantageous to Rome when both got the wrong answer. But ultimately Carthage was victorious.

In the grounds of the castle there were peacocks who chose not to do a handsome display for us (I would have liked to get a photo to paint) but I was wiser than to provoke them into doing so.

Matt tries out his jousting skills

And then there was an area set up for practising your jousting skills. Matt did well, especially as we had that wibbly feeling from transferring from the ship to solid ground. 

Oh, and the original intention of the castle visit – to Go Up Something High – was met as we were able to climb to the top.

Panorama from Something High in Cartagena

We descended into the town and further helped the local economy (which does give the impression of needing help) by purchasing some snacks in a bakery (skipping lunch is much better in theory than in practice). 

Trying out a local snack

I had something intriguing that was a bit like a giant sweet poppadum, mildly flavoured with fennel and pine nuts. I also popped into a supermarket (while Matt rested / snacked on a bench) to get some soft drinks and was pleased to be able to help an American (or possibly Canadian) couple choose some red wine. They were getting into quite a grumpy debate about it. “Why don’t just ask someone?” said the wife, which I took as my cue to explain the difference between a Rioja and a Temperanillo. I have no idea what the difference (or indeed differences) between a Rioja and a Temperanillo is but my best wine buff impression and thus prevented any more marital disharmony. I’m still pondering whether the end justified the means.

We meandered back to the seafront of this very pleasant town, stopping for an ice-cream on the way (clearly justified as we had grossly underspent our tourist Euro budget for the day), and were back to the ship with a bit of a margin before departure.

Unfortunately for Felicity and Terence they did not make it back to the ship: the captain announced that we would be leaving without them. I mused about the possibility that the captain had invented Felicity and Terence as a lesson to the rest of us not to miss the boat at subsequent ports. Matt and I then planned our train journeys around Europe should this calamity befall us. We decided that they would be fairly straightforward trips, perhaps even enjoyable, apart from Corsica to Gibraltar which might be a little too tricky in the available time.

Nb. During an interlude in last night’s dancing I took a quick trip to the library. The city in North Africa that we had seen was indeed Tangier. Marakech and Casablanca being located to the West (not the East as I had thought which proves that my knowledge of North African geography does indeed leave a lot to be desired).

Tuesday's dining

Tuesday, May 7^th 2013: continued

To make up for our extreme laziness earlier in the day we did a vigorous 20 minute swim before getting ready for dinner. It was getting quite late now and it was strange being in the pool with the early buffeteers heading past in their formal night regalia.

One of the things I like about cruising is the possibility of getting dressed up. I love wearing dresses but rarely do so at home (maybe I should do more) but here I can wear one every night. And tonight I was planning on wearing my wedding dress. It’s not a supremely wedding-y wedding dress and since I had the bottom of it trimmed off it passes as a lovely ball gown. The challenge now was going to be fitting into it since I am at least 5kg heavier than I was on my wedding day plus with all the swimming I’ve been doing my back has got kind of muscly. It would definitely be wise to wear it towards the start of our holiday rather than saving it for the end.

I had to enter the dress head first (I used to be able to go feet first) but with assistance from Matt I was fastened in. Assistance is probably the wrong word as Matt did all of the fastening.

Alstromeria?

We had another great table at tonight. Jackie (travelling with her cousin Jill) was able to identify my up-until-now-unidentifiable flower as an Alstromeria. Debbie (travelling with her husband Simon who had celebrated his 50^th birthday last year) was celebrating her 50^th birthday whist on board – she looked amazing. They were some of the younger people who we met. Raymond (travelling with his delightful wife Rosa) looked like the eponymous captain from a brand of fish fingers. He had no social graces – which I loved. There was little pansying around with small talk as Raymond presented the topics available for conversation as religion, politics or sex. It turned out that he was highly into astrology (albeit in a highly amateur way) and when he asked what I thought about this I was duly tactful and said that I had an open mind; which he said was “very good, for a chemist.” I recounted the occasion that I was on a radio phone-in horoscope slot. We also had quite an in-depth discussion about the literature/film interface. So we didn’t talk about religion, politics or sex after all but it was a very engrossing evening.

More dancing tonight. I don’t know if it was the dress that I was wearing that made me feel particularly elegant but it seemed to go better. We even managed to navigate the oval dance floor for a bit of quickstep (one of my favourite dances to watch but least favourite to do as I always feel a bit like a galloping horse).

After 3 full days at sea (which have been immensely restful) I am finally feeling confident finding my way around the ship. My initial confusion was not helped by the facts that

1. there is no deck 13
2. all the decks have a number and a letter name
3. some of the decks’ letter names progress alphabetically but not all of them are included in this system (e.g. lido, sports, promenade)

But through repeated wanderings this has now passed. So much so that I was quickly able to direct us out of the smoking gauntlet on our pre-bed promenade on the promenade deck (or deck 7 if you prefer) - even in high heels.

Tuesday's photo opportunities

There was no alarm failure this morning – Matt had taken charge of the phone. But it was set on full volume and woke us up with a shock. Matt is always the first to leap out of bed in such circumstances but was unable to turn the alarm off in his semi-conscious state so threw the phone at me and told me to deal with it.

We ate breakfast with a couple who referred to each other as “The Husband” and “The Wife”. This was somewhat distracting and added a level of complexity to what would otherwise have been a simple conversation. “The Husband” and “The Wife” had been married 26 years and it was their first holiday together. “The Husband” told us that “The Wife” usually goes on holiday with her sister while he stays at home, looks after the 4 dogs and watches what he wants on the television. “The Wife” and my husband had an impassioned conversation about Yorkshire Terriers. “The Husband” and I joined in, enthusiastically but not quite so passionately. We looked at photographs of the Yorkies in each others’ lives and discussed their ailments past and present. “The Husband” took great delight in describing the Yorkie graveyard in their garden, complete with granite headstones.

They said that they had seen dolphins this morning which prompted a discussion about the benefits of having opposable thumbs and being able to walk on two legs versus the “price” we pay for this in terms of the rearing of young. I resisted the urge to test out walking on my arms and legs, deciding that this was something that should be investigated in the privacy of my own cabin.

We had the laziest morning so far, I didn’t even manage a cursory swim. After liberally application of sunscreen we chose some sun loungers on the “sport’s deck”. Since when lazing and reading has been a sport I’m not sure.

For the second day in a row I showed great virtue and chose the lighter options for starter and main at lunchtime. Followed by hot pudding and ice-cream. We sat with some very nice people (despite their mildly xenophobic attitudes) and discussed whether the 1969 moon landing was a conspiracy. This was clearly something that would not be settled over lunch – Matt and I were the only ones who weren’t born at the time so it was probably a bit difficult to contribute convincingly to the conversation but that didn’t stop us trying. We talked about social care and how it may well be cheaper to the tax-payer for people who require long term care to go on a permanent cruise (we didn’t talk about whether this would be the most appropriate way to deliver long term care).

Nature report 1

• Yesterday’s non-human life-forms observed were a fly and wasp. Fortunately they were more interested in Matt than me. I hate wasps.
• Today we saw a whale blowing from its spout and also some birds. I said I thought these were skuas but this was based on nothing more than a vague recollection that the skua is a sea bird and we are at sea. A more accurate description would be “sea pigeon” – they were sort of pigeon sized and coloured but with more crescent shaped wings and were more elegant in flight.
• Despite asking all the people we’ve sat with what the flowers on the table are I am yet to find someone who knows (although one lady told me she has some in her garden).

These natural conundrums would have been quickly answered with instant access to the internet or a photo sent to my parents but in these circumstances may never be resolved. Maybe a trip to the library is in order.

As we approached the Straits of Gibraltar Matt got nearly as excited as he had done when he had seen the boats towing oil rigs on our previous cruise. My knowledge of North African geography leaves quite a lot to be desired (actually my geographical knowledge of the whole of Africa leaves quite a lot to be desired, although I can tell you that Timbuktu is Mali) and we spent a while debating what the large settlement was. I decided that it was probably Tangiers. This is because I think that Marrakech and Casablanca are further east and Tangiers is the only settlement I know of until you get to Egypt. A trip to the library before dinner is definitely in order.

One of the benefits of being at sea is that I don’t lose Matt to the taking of innumerable photographs. With the sighting of land both port and starboard this could not continue. Not to be outdone I took a break from my sun lounger and ventured up to the imaginatively named “Sky Deck”. Here I had to contend with very gusty winds and use my core to steady myself whilst I tried to get a panoramic shot of North Africa and another of Southern Spain. 

I also got a paparazzi style photograph of Matt reading – sun protection now provided with by his yellow sarong (plus factor 50 underneath).

I think that I impressed Matt with my knowledge of African geography, identifying that the Atlas Mountains can be located on this continent. Whether these were the mountains that we could see was another matter.

We packed away our books and headed to the front (I suppose I should really call is the bow) of the “Lido Deck” to get a good view as the ship made its way through the Straits.

The Straits of Gibraltar

Given that there are 3000 passengers it was a pretty poor show that only 7 or 8 of us experienced this. It was blowing an absolute hoolie (I had to keep myself warm with my swimming towel) so I suppose that should excuse the very elderly. But really? On a beautiful afternoon, to miss this? There were more people plodding away in the gym behind us.

Matt and I spent a few minutes posing for photos with the rock of Gibraltar positioned as a hat.