Friday's trip

A short hair cut

Thanks to a late night I was reasonably well prepared for my 9am departure to catch a train across south west England. All that I needed to do was eat breakfast, pack one item off the washing line and prepare a picnic for the train. Getting up at 8am gave me plenty of time to stay on schedule. That was until Matt decided that he wanted his hair cut. In fairness, I’ve been saying for a few weeks that he should get a haircut but up until today he’d been more tolerant of it than me. Our usual hairdresser, Katherine, being unavailable, the only course of action was for me to test my hairdressing skills. I was keen to use the kitchen scissors but Matt was insistent that I used his beard trimmer (he doesn’t really have a beard). 20 minutes later Matt was considerably de-haired (more de-haired than had been the original intention, but it was at least even) and I was no longer on schedule. We were both covered in lots of small bits of ginger hair.

I didn’t think that the schedule would permit me a shower to remove the small bits of ginger hair from my person, but in actual fact I made it to the station with plenty of time to spare. I was even able to position myself on the platform in anticipation of my allocated seat. Here I observed some teenage boys indulging in the peculiar practice of spraying deodorant all over themselves. They have clearly not yet learnt about the biology of sweat but I resisted indicating to them the parts of their body that would better benefit from the application of deodorant.

Phase one of my trip to Southampton Central station passed uneventfully. My allocated seat was in the quiet carriage. It wasn't very quiet but I didn't mind. A rather haughty sounding woman did mind and made an unofficial announcement that could everyone please keep the volume down. Which was mostly met with barely disguised sniggers of laughter from the rest of the carriage.

Phase two was so uneventful that I even managed a little snooze. That was until Sherbourne, when a posh couple boarded. At least they seemed posh to me. They had a rather dilapidated shopping trolley from which they extracted their picnic packaged in bags from a high end supermarket before precariously shoving it into the overhead stowage. The woman was pleasingly eccentrically (sorry about the double adverb use) dressed:

• bum-bag - which wasn't removed or ventured into at all
• sunglasses - even though she wasn't in the sun
• sunhat - even though she wasn't in the sun
• headphones - even though she was relentlessly talking the whole time
• elastic band around her wrist

Her picnic seemed to consist of lettuce leaves freshly plucked from a lettuce, which she did not pause in her talking to masticate. I felt rather sorry for the young lady from Jersey who happened to be sat next to them who did remarkably well whilst they argued about how she could best get to Regent Street (I think they thought that she'd never ventured onto public transport before). The posh lady wasn't wrong when she described the countryside through which we were traversing as ravishing though.

My tiffin

It wouldn't affect me, but there was much consternation when it was announced that the train wouldn't be stopping at Clapham Junction - apparently it was too hot. I just had time eat my picnic, which due to the morning's time constraints consisted of the leftovers from the day before's tea (sweet potato, mushroom and spinach curry). I don't know what the posh lady would have to say about this as she was now in full swing about her tea the day before:

• fish pie in which she couldn't find any fish
• meringue which surely wasn't made with free range eggs
• and if they could afford such good wine why couldn't they have organic potatoes?

With one stop to go, the train was ominously stationery. It was hot on the train and I was uncomfortable from all the little bits of ginger hair all over me. Apparently someone had driven into a bridge (apparently this is creatively called bridging) so we would have to take a slight detour. Still, I was only 10 minutes later than scheduled and hadn't kept my dad waiting too long.

Before heading home, dad kindly agreed that we could pop into the shops. It was a successful mini-trip as I bought no more and no less than had been intended (apart from a possibly unnecessary purchase in a large toiletry store to use up a voucher).

Dad's driving was funny, he kept insisting on pointing out various highway regulations both to me and other drivers (imagine a finger pointing at the speed limit sign).

Stag beetle - spotted whilst walking

After catching up with my friend Katie, it was time I made my way down the road to the Waterside Arts Festival event: "Jazz at the Grove". I was to join my parents and all my aunts and uncles (at least all those that I know about), and was to bring my mother-in-law's Yorkshire terrier, Fred, who is temporarily residing with my mum and dad. It was a very pleasant evening for the 1.7mile walk; unfortunately Fred didn't agree and refused to walk any further after less than 0.1miles. This meant that I had to carry him the rest of the way in his special carrying bag. I suppose he can be forgiven as he is 14 years old (which possibly makes him 98 in dog years although I always thought that whole thing was a bit dubious), but I think a few car accidents were only narrowly avoided as people gawped at me while I walked along with him cradled at my bosom - I have found this to be the most comfortable and secure way to carry a small dog. 

Friday's toilet scenario

Friday, May 10^th 2013

It was a good job we gave our feet a rest last night as we spent most of our day in Cannes walking. I loved Cannes and I even got to wear my anorak. We had to take a tender from the ship to the port and I thought that it would be cold / windy. It was actually warm and draught free but I was still pleased to be able to wear my anorak.

In terms of High Things to Go Up, Cannes tempted us with the Super Cannes observatory. However, it was not obvious how far away this was, or how we would reach this and we weren’t really tempted by a possibly time consuming detour to the tourist information to find out; plus it was looking like a bit of a hazy so may not even have been worth the trek even if we had tried. We could see it up a hill; today’s touristical map did at least have a scale but no isobars. It looked like the walk might be about 5 km but there was no obvious pedestrian route marked and with no road names marked either it would be a bit risky.

Instead, we started the morning with a promenade around La Croisette – taking numerous detours to gawp at the super yachts. It really was something to see them in situ, rather than at a boat show. I don’t’ think that I believed that anyone actually bought them before. But here they were. And people were polishing them; they were polishing the insides of cupboards. When I say people I think it must have been “staff” – apparently it costs at least €1 million to run one of these things each year. We enjoyed posing with our favourite Bond Villain-esque vessels.

 

We also amused ourselves by looking in the yacht agents’ windows – a variation on the more common touristical activity of looking in estate agents’ windows (we did that too). We will not be buying a super yacht any time soon (nor a villa on the Côte d’Azur for that matter). Maybe we exuded an air of the luxury yacht type though as a man on the quayside seemed to think that we could do with some luxury transfers – private jet anyone?

Now Matt was getting rather keen to use the toilet. He followed the sign to the sanitaires in the marina, while I perched under a palm tree and wrote a postcard. Next thing I knew my phone was ringing – Matt sounded panicked: the sanitaires had been locked, he’d found another set of loos but these were shut for another half an hour and I was nowhere in sight. Things were clearly getting desperate. I was time I took charge of the situation. I found Matt and offered words of encouragement about the quality of his bladder while we took the scenic route through the rose garden to another WC that I had located on the touristical map.

Nature report 2

• Cannes is pleasingly free of seagulls. There are quite a few pigeons but they are fairly inoffensive pigeons – one was taking a bath.
• I spotted 2 lizards today. I always find this quite exciting, something I think that I have inherited from my dad.
• With less than a week to go until the Cannes Film Festival preparations were in full swing. Notably this involves bolstering the already plentiful palm trees, with the installation of many more on the beach. We saw a demonstration of how this involves cranes and badly driven diggers. I wonder what they do with all the extra palm trees when the festivities are over.
• There were lots of bottle brush plants. Apparently they’re poisonous (I seem to remember my mum warning me of this when I was little, even though I don’t think I had a propensity to eat random plants).
• Based on a highly unscientific study, the Yorkshire terrier appears to be the most popular breed of dog in Cannes

We found the WC to be a hi-tech toilet booth. There were four people in front of us in the queue: 2 friends (they looked local) and a couple (they looked Northern Europeans). It was a slow throughput at the hi-tech toilet booth as between each use it was disinfected, washed and dried. You did however get up to 20 minutes in the hi-tech toilet booth when it was your turn – which would potentially mean a very long wait for Matt.

The hi-tech toilet booth finished its cleansing cycle from the previous visitor and one of the friends went in. For some reason (optimism probably) I thought that the other friend didn’t need to visit the hi-tech toilet booth; but I was wrong. Friend 2 went in after another cleansing cycle. I spent a while pondering who of my friends I would be prepared to share a hi-tech toilet booth with. Quite a few probably – it was a spacious hi-tech toilet booth.

After another cleansing cycle the girl of the Northern European couple went in – we would be next. But no; the boy of the Northern European couple was also going to use the hi-tech toilet booth.

After witnessing a total of 5 cleansing cycles, it was finally our turn to use the hi-tech toilet booth. And a great 50 cents’ worth of hi-tech toilet booth it was too. I must say that there are worse places to queue for a toilet: there were shade and sun options and we saw at least 3 trains go over a bridge just over the road.

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.