Cruise - First Day

Blog 15 -first day

With the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun and the dawning of the family, ‘Blinking heck, we’re on a monster of a boat – ship - whatever.’  It’s like being on a floating village with long straight Romanesque roads either side (you remember, port and starboard) and crossroads leading to secret magical nooks and cranies of delight – yeah, it’s a floating shop really manned by charming people ‘who are here to help you’ (part with your on board allowance plus.)

Tell you what- it’s great! but back to the new day.  As with all societies the early bird catches the Costa. Sitting at the Costa crossroads you first see the senior generation of non-sleepers, usually in pairs, but there is always some gentlemen prepared to sacrifice their first holiday morning lay-in for their fair ladies and fetch a cup of the famous Arabica bean solution to begin their better half’s day.

As the dawn gives way to the glorious rays of early morn, a new presence is seen, these are not quite as senior as the first group but not far off. They wear the traditional guise of Fitman. You’ve spotted them in small numbers at home. They wear the obligatory short shorts, black or navy, clean and with creases so nearly senior can tell back from front.

The tee shirts either match or are so contrasting that, one observer pointed out, perhaps he dressed in the dark. I don’t know if you seen it as well, but nearly all the tee-shirts belong to some geezer riding a horse called Ralph something -DeLorean  (the man not the horse) I think it says or they proclaim that they were NIKEd.

But that said credit where due, there are far more adventurous early mo(u)rners all over the boat / ship you know what I mean, looking for some poor soul named JIM. He’s in deep doo-doo this guy Jim, must be with so many hunting him (Deck 5 – midships).

As the morning wears on the look and ages change, Costa crossroads also adapts to the new influx. the latest breed are usually very tall and if turned sideways with tongue out look zip-like. They make fitman look – well you can guess.

The fit young man types must be Jim’s mates’ cos they invariably know where he hangs out (I’ve already told everyone else midships deck 5- trust me they usually pass me as i stagger my way to the lift.).  So let battle commence, the young fit things do awfully well when up against the less robust stature than the young seniors.  The difference between the two are if you equate fit young person as a six-pack, fittish young senior is a party seven (sorry about the age of this gag, only it deserves an outing every now and again just to keep the sixties and seventies alive in the minds of non-believers , you know ‘em ‘if you can remember the sixties you weren’t there. I was in the sixties for about two weeks when I got myself a ticket to see Jimi – see the link, tenuous or what? -nice one Cyril.)

Back to the ocean blue, or more realistically the North Sea green – why is the North Sea green?  Answers please in a sae to whoever wants to listen.

The day starts full of promise sun shining through huge panes of glass encouraging families to sit by them to offer a taste of summer and the opportunity of waiters to practise their homing in skills -usually good at two feet, not so good at anything more than an armchair width, until a pattern of continuous head turning and loud ‘can’t the dozy twat see me. he must I’m the one dragging my tongue along the concourse’. 

As the day progresses the atmosphere becomes more partisan, with the ’I’m here so I’ll done everything on the programme to the ones that lay on the (usually wet) sun loungers determined to enjoy every last ray and go home with a tan? Sort of.

You can always be sure that the captive audience will have a great day with all new exciting experiences from beauty treatments to splashing in the pools to stuffing yourself stupid with 24 hours a day feeding binges.

With all sea days being a series of events to cater for all tastes I find myself doing the blog in a variety of usual and unusual places(subject to a weird imagination such as I use from time to time. The meal last night was in the Coral restaurant. We sat down to start the meal and what with activities outside I easily came to the Dambusters. In a somewhat different environment, there was a bright orange and blue boat with funny foreign writing on (guessed the job yet) belonging to the fjord pilot (environment – water).  But where is the Dambusters link?  The step was simple as Alan’s cheesecakes.  The table we had been conducted to was number 617!!!  Immediate link for the more aged group of semi-foodies but for you young things here goes: the boat belonged to the fjord’s pilot, a creature of both sea and air. The RAF number their squadrons for identification purposes and 617 was given to probably the most famous RAF squadron ‘The Dambusters’.  Amazing story plenty of reading material and on-line if you’re interested. Must admit to feeling s..t tonight, so the rest of the stories will have to start tomorrow.