TOPS had decided she wanted to join me on this cruise, so we took the car across to Blighty so we could do a big shop on the way back. It’s certainly a lot easier than being a foot passenger on the ferry and having to lug your luggage (is that where the verb comes from?) up the ramps. No problems and in time for a couple of drinks at the hotel in Portsmouth that evening. Next day, drop the car off next to the ship and all goes very smoothly – quickly on board, decent cabin, instructions waiting. They only want three talks though so I’ll have to find something to occupy me in between visiting Trondheim, Tromso, Alesund and Hamburg.
The other speakers are an astrophysicist, a r etired detective, and a woman who I can’t really understand what she’s talking about – I think she’s writer but her first talk is about trolls. The astrophysicist clearly knows his stuff but there’s a lot on his slides and the projector in the theatre has seen better days – TOPS later said my slides were difficult to see properly. The detective’s introductory line is “Hello hello hello” and then he says it again, encouraging the audience to reply. Mmm.
We’ve been to Norway a few times now and still haven’t seen the Aurora. Some people told us they had seen them at 0300 in the morning from the top deck. I suppose we spend too much time in the Commodore Club.
Actually, the reason TOPS came was because it was our twentieth wedding anniversary so we lashed out on a posh dinner and a bottle of champagne. The maitre d’ remembered us and cleared the adjacent table – nice man. I think if we’d stayed in Durham we’d probably have made a few quid from the pub sweepstake on how long it would last. The longest estimate was eighteen months, but these were the same people who’d bet I’d be thrown off the ship at the first stop on my maiden cruise back in 2013. She also was keen to visit Hamburg so it was a bit of a disappointment that because of a delay due to a medevac the Captain cancelled Hamburg and replaced it with Bremerhaven.
As usual, speakers were asked to do a Q&A with guests towards the end of the cruise, this time in pairs. I was with the astrophysicist so we agreed to do 22.5 minutes each. No problem. Next day it was the other two speakers so we went along to find about a dozen people sitting in a circle and the detective had started before the scheduled time. Most of the group were male and either ex-police or emergency services: all felt the need to share what their job had been. After about half an hour, TOPS tried to ask the author a question but the reply was basically shouted down by other people more interested in telling everyone about their job. She was furious and we left. With no Ents staff there you do need to manage things carefully.
Anyway, we got back to Southampton, did a shop at Costco, and got the overnight back. This was over a month ago but there is a reason for the delay…on Day 3 I was walking along a passageway when a man approaching me sneezed rather athletically and I walked into a cloud of viral debris. Sure enough, I got ill and still feel pretty poorly. TOPS tested positive for Covid a few days after we got back so I must have had it before then. It goes without saying that you have to be careful about personal hygiene on cruise ships, especially at this time of year. For my last talk there were about 400 in the audience and lots were coughing…. I understand that in recent weeks the Captains have included a reminder in their midday address from the bridge.
Anyway, I’m back on QM2 for a transatlantic in January – methinks I’ll take some masks and hand sanitiser – there won’t be many on the sun deck. Later in the year I’ve got a mystery cruise on Saga from Southampton. Hope it’s not going to North Shields.
thehairypsychologist 