CRUISING

Also, a sort of job

The old man and I are home from an eight day Fred Olsen cruise around the Baltics, lets make a few things clear, I hadn’t a clue where the Baltics is, my Geography’s desperate and I may have thought we were going to the Balkans. However the cruise had the words,‘Fairytale Castles’ in the title, and despite being the least likely Disney princess, I fucking love a fairytake castle, Im furious I dont live in one.

Also, it was a job, I dont get this kind of job very often, all the stars have to align, in other words, it happens when the first choice celeb isnt available and I am. The dates were perfect, three weeks after finishing a six month tour, just over a week of bobbing about on the high seas, yes please and thank you very much.

Geof and I are not your average cruise recruits, we are snotty, cynical Londoners, quick to criticise/ sneer etc, was this really going to be our cup of Lap sang ( not that we drink that muck tbh?) But God knows, we needed a holiday and we are rubbish at planning and booking our own, this solved all the problems, where to go? Denmark, Germany, Latvia and Estonia, what to do, lounge about on board, eat, drink, eat some more and occasionally get down from the deck onto dry land and see some sights.

In Tallinn, ( thats in Estonia, you clots at the back of the class) we would abandon ship several days early and fly home, as we both had stuff to see to back in London.

Because this was a work thing, everything was organised for us, flights to scotland to meet the ship in Rosyth ( thats near Edinburgh by the way fellow geog thickos) and transfers everwhere When stuff can go wrong, but if it does its not your fault, is easily the most relaxed way to travel. And nothing did go wrong, because the people organising everything knew what they were doing.

We were guests of the boss Fred Olsen, without ever meeting the man himself, Fred, if you are reading this, thank you, thank you for an experience we wouldnt have missed for the world. Thank you for our cabin- yeah the cabin, whoop, whoop, we had a bath, a bath on board a ship, hahahaha.

I suspect we lucked out with the cabin, not only did it have a bath, we had a balcony with balcony furniture, but even better than staring at the view whilst lounging on the balcony furniture was staring at the the view whilst lying down on a big fat bed.

A bed that was made for us every day by a non stop smiling team, who also folded the ends of toilet paper into a boat. An origami trick that Im proud to say I temporarily mastered and then forgot by the time I actually wiped my bum.

We also got afternoon canapes, Oh God Im missing it already, where are my afternoon canapes and my boat folded loo roll? More importantly where is my all in buffet breakfast, my huge choice of evening meals, my cheese plate ‘afters’?

Im afraid I will have to fill you in on more of this holiday another day, because I am now forced by hunger to go and cook my own bloody supper and the choice is pasta pesto, or pesto pasta.

Next ch- what to do when you experience seasickness and fill one and a half cardboard bowler hats in the medical centre…. I bet you cant wait