Tuesday 1 November 2022

A Day at Sea on the Island Star, 2007

Sunday 26 August 2007. It's our first full day on our cruise and we have a day at sea whilst we sail from Majorca to Livorno in Italy.

I'm not grumpy - I'm just reading my book, ok? We spent some time reading and more time exploring the ship. Then we used up a few more hours talking to two older ladies we met out on the pool deck. I'm going to call them Cissie and Ada, because they reminded me so much of Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough's wonderful creations. On a day at sea, the ship is always full to capacity. There's nowhere else to go. So we sat with these two ladies, one of whom, it transpired, lived on a well-remembered street only a mile or so from my teenage home. "Oh, I used to really fancy a girl who lived down there!" I said unthinkingly. She only lived next door, didn't she...

A ship's shop, No matter how quick you say it, they won't serve fish and chips... Anyway, I digress... Sitting on the deck in front of us were another elderly couple, taking up a huge amount of space. They had placed their sun loungers with a full three feet at least between them and a family from Northern Ireland had arrived looking for somewhere to sit. There was room for three other sun loungers but there were four of them. They politely asked the couple to move up a little so they could get the other sun lounger in. "No!" came the brief answer. I thought they were joking at first but then the chap started snarling and shouting that they had got there early and weren't going to give up either the space between them or the space to either side. It was ridiculous. The father of the family put a sun lounger down next to the old woman anyway and she started pushing it and shoving it away and the old chap announced he was going to report them to the captain for "manhandling his wife". They had done no such thing. He actually did storm off and came back with a ship's officer, though we soon put the officer right about who was being unreasonable and who had done what. Meanwhile the old woman's breast had flopped out of her costume. "Bloody Hell!" yelled Cissie at the top of her voice, "She wants bloody ironing!" The ship's officer told the couple to move up and respect other peoples' rights to some space. They weren't happy...

The ship's library and games room. Anyway we sat with Cissie and Ada every day after that. They were hilarious. They soon found that certain drinks were on special offer so Cissie's voice would boom out at passing waiters, "Heineken Light - two for one!"

It was the formal night and a chance to meet the captain. Look at that - Fran, did you not bring my high heels???

Return to Mediterranean Explorer Cruise, 2007 Index

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