Happy May Day!
Breakfast ✔️
Lunch✔️
Stupid boat rocking like a seesaw ✔️
Another warm day so after a few hours reading in the comfy seats on deck 5 Si took me up to the sun deck for some warmth in my bones. Plenty of seats spare, but still the annoying running track. It was a bit warmer than yesterday which was nice. Whilst lying on the lounger I noticed black stuff all over the place, on the deck, towels and my skin. It was soot from the ship's chimney, fluttering down from above me.
Supper time came around all too quickly, and once again a delightful selection of foods to choose from. Karen had been in a few of the seminars and was telling us about the Medici and is going on a tour of the kitchen tomorrow which she is looking forward to. I’m looking forward to hearing about it, I’m sure it will be interesting. She’s having trouble getting comfortable so I said for her to try the spare quilts under the sheets to act as a mattress topper, she said she’ll give it a whirl tonight bless her.
Tonight was a formal dinner with black tie and cocktail dresses. Well we didn’t acknowledge that particular dress code because we have no such items with us. There were a few people who hadn’t bothered so we weren’t alone in that. Not that it bothered us in the slightest as you can imagine.
The boat is pretty much all accessible for Mildred, the toilet doors are button operated which makes things simple. The lifts are a pain in the ass though. There don’t seem to be enough, and today we waited for 10 minutes for one to stop at our floor and when we got in, it proceeded to stop on every floor and more and more people crammed in. I thought a fight was going to break out at one point because some people who were rather large were trying to squeeze their way in and the people at the front of the lift were having none of it. They lost their shit big time.
We retired to the quiet lounge for a while to do some more reading, and found out why the boat was rattling and rolling more than usual. We have a medical emergency on board and we are diverting to the Azores to drop them off. We aren’t going into the port because that costs a lot of money, so they are sending a boat out to transfer the patient. We expect to get to the Azores in the early hours of Saturday morning before heading into Madeira and docking there on Sunday…
The creaks and groans the boat makes are distinctly unnerving, and I am functioning on a high alert status, a new one for me I can assure you!
I’ve finally worked out what the whole cruising thing reminds me of. It’s Butlins. Activities and competitions all planned out for you, cabaret shows, bizarre meet and greet people at breakfast and lunch. The one guy had his hand stuffed up a puppet, and was dressed as a hot dog, directing us to wash our hands before eating. Another one was singing a stupid handwashing song playing a ukulele dressed as a frog. What fresh hell is this?
The reason we used the quiet lounge tonight was because the captain was having a meet and greet on level 4 and people were getting their photos taken with him. I thought he should get back up to driving the boat to be honest instead of rubbing shoulders with guests. The photographers are around all the time, but the images, whilst nice aren’t what you’d call a bargain, needless to say we won’t be bothering with that. I have enough photos on my phone.
Having had enough for one day it was time for bed. Tucking the sheet in tight hadn’t eased the anxiety levels at all, so tonight I’m taking extra meds.
Much love
X