Once again Rudy rises …

Or, in this case, Rudy has already risen, but let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story. Usually, I try to publish a missive at the very beginning of an adventure and then, during the sortie but, frankly, we are already on day 2 and I have only just got the internet to work! So, where are we this time? Well, Captain Clarke and I have embarked (literally) on a cruise around the Norwegian Fjords. This is not something we have done before and, if I’m totally honest, not something I was looking forward to. You see, many years ago, (I am immediately reminded of the old Round The Horne radio sketch with Betty Marsden and her response to almost any slightly naughty question, “many, many, times!”, though in this case it is “many, many, years”! – we shall return to Round the Horne, it is inevitable!), Captain Clarke took a trip to the beautiful island of Mallorca. We had previously lived there but we were returning for a visit and decided to take the car.

It is not that unusual to take a car and use the ferry from Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca but, having lived there and had the challenges of living off the ‘paro’ for six months of the year (‘Paro’ is a sort of equivalent to what was the dole in those days, but is a fixed amount that almost everyone gets during the winter when there are no tourists about. Almost the entire population of the north of the island queues up for around 7 hours to be told which bit of paper is missing from the papers they present, then get’s said piece of paper, queues for another 7 hours and, if lucky, the ‘paro’ application is successful and the officers don’t even bother read the important papers that you’ve spent two days collating and stamp your card to allow you to collect ‘paro’ at the bank. You then go to the bank every two weeks for them to tell you that your stamp isn’t right, or that you are a day early – even though you know everything is in order – before they finally consent, as a personal favour to you, to issue you with a cheque so that you can pay it straight into your bank account with the same bank! Bizarre, but that’s Spanish culture for you!), we knew how to live on a budget! Anyway, I digress. At that time, we still knew how to live thriftily and we found a boat that went from Vila Nova I Geltru, which is just down the coast from Barcelona, directly to Alcudia in the north of the island near to Puerto Pollensa where we had lived. It was far cheaper than the ferry from Barcelona and mainly carried freight and freight vehicles but were able to book it. We drove onto the ferry in good spirits parked the car and went off in search of a nice meal and something to imbibe.

It transpired that the only ‘restaurant’ on board was for lorry drivers only and that there was no bar. There were no cabins, so we lay across seating on the main deck. As we left Vila Nova I Geltru, the sea started to get a little lumpy. By the time we had been out about an hour it was more than lumpy, it was positively fiercely uncomfortable. By two hours into the journey, even the crew were lying on the floor. They had already been and informed us that our car had been chained to the deck to stop it from being thrown around and that weather conditions were not looking any better for the foreseeable future. On that point, they were right! We spent the next 12 hours on a huge car ferry being tossed around like a cork in a whirlpool. To say we didn’t enjoy it is an understatement! The return journey was quite the opposite. It was unreservedly a cargo ship. There was nowhere for us to go inside the ship at all. We spent the entire 14 hour return trip sitting on two plastic garden chairs on the deck of the ship, next to our car, in 35 degree heat with no shade and just the fumes from the funnels to keep us amused! So, you may understand, I am not over keen on ships and I was not looking forward to this trip! (The shipping company we sailed with on that fateful journey subsequently went bust because they got fined so heavily for breaches of safety standards! I can’t say I’m sorry.)

So, here we are, 24 hours into our cruise to the Norwegian Fjords. We boarded the ship yesterday at about 2.30pm and, by the time we departed, Captain Clarke had settled in well! Although a little nervous, we found our cabin and it is very well equipped. We have a window, which will be great when we can something other than sea, the bed is comfortable, we have a small but comfortable sitting area, the shower room is very clean and spacious enough. What has impressed me most so far is my dietary requirements (no, not wine for breakfast – although I’ve been looking for a good breakfast wine for years! – champagne for lunch and whiskey for dinner! Although …). Before we even boarded the ship (I have to be very careful not to call it a boat because Captain Clarke gets very angry if I call it a boat!) we were met by a team who deal with those with special dietary needs. They explained that they would present me with the menu for the next day in the main restaurant to that I could choose what I wanted and they would prepare it for me with consideration to my dietary needs.

I must say at this point that I am not a fussy eater! I discovered in the last 12 months that I am very highly lactose intolerant, fructose intolerant and allergic to hens eggs. This followed a period of several years of quite serious illness that nobody seemed able to diagnose until I ended up in A&E one night with near kidney failure and the renal doctor realised what was causing it and came and explained. Now, following a diet which basically cuts out lactose and allows a very small amount of fructose and using duck eggs instead of hens eggs, my health has restored. However, this does make it slightly awkward to go out anywhere. Almost everything has lactose in it and there are very few sweet things without fructose. So diet was a worry boarding the ship. It needn’t have been. I did have to choose my dinner for the first evening very quickly so that the order could be sent to the chef, but I chose a very simple meal that I knew had no lactose in it and it was fine.

In our cabin I found an invitation to meat the Executive Chef and his Sous Chef this morning to discuss my dietary requirements. About 15 of us were there and he explained that they knew about each one of our special dietary needs and that we should not restrict ourselves to ‘gluten free’ or ‘lactose free’ or ‘vegan or vegetarian’ but we could choose whatever we wanted from the menu and they would adapt the recipe, if necessary, to ensure that it met our dietary needs. An unbelievable level of customer service!! As those of us with dietary needs choose our meal for the following evening a day in advance, I already know what I am having and, although I chose it without knowing what I know now about the adaptation to suit special dietary needs, I am very much looking forward to it. The food on board, so far, has been to an exceptionally high standard and those of you who know me will know that I do set the bar quite high!

Tonight is our first ‘formal night’. Ladies are encouraged to dress up and men to wear either dinner suits or a darker lounge suit. We will meet the Captain just before dinner and then enjoy a ‘formal’ meal. I should explain at this juncture that the reason we are here is because Captain Clarke’s parents recently celebrated their 70th (yes, seventieth!) wedding anniversary and they have paid for pretty much everything that the cruise entails. They have paid for the cruise, they paid for the upgraded drinks package (phew! We can almost drink what we like and it’s free!), they have organised excursions and they have been more than generous with everything, so you might imagine that, even with my feelings about the cruise, I am keen to try and enjoy it, if nothing else to thank them. They did know about my feelings about cruising before they even booked it but I promised I would try and enjoy it and, to be fair, so far, I am!

So, back to the ‘formal’ night. When I found out we had to wear a dinner suit or lounge suit, I did my nut! “I’m supposed to on holiday, not trussed up like a penguin!” Or words similar were used. We eventually agreed that a lounge suit would be perfectly acceptable, so that was reluctantly agreed. They will read this missive after this evening, so they don’t know that we will actually both be turning up in full dinner suits with bow tie, cummerbund, the lot! We hope they’ll be pleased that we actually made the effort after all. This, of course, brings me back to Round the Horne. Those of a particular age may remember two rather camp characters in Round the Horne called Julian and Sandy. I am sitting here laughing to myself even now when I think about them. They used a language which is said to originate from Romanies and also it was a sort of subterfuge language for the theatre. It’s origins are hotly debated but it is pretty much agreed it began in the 19th century!

Palari was eventually adopted by gay culture in the 1950s and was a way to say something quite publicly without anyone knowing what you meant. Captain Clarke is very good at Palari, I less so, but those Round the Horne sketches used it … in spades! “Varda the bona riah on the bona HP” (Varda means look at, riah means hair, bona means good and HP is short for homme palone which is palari for a man – “look at the the great hair on that good looking man”) or “Varda that cottage I’ll bet you get a lot of trade in there! Yes, but you have to be careful or you’ll pick up a kerterver cartzo.” Too much and to difficult to try and explain but Julian and Sandy used it all the time. Tonight I am very much reminded of one of my favourite Julian and Sandy sketches when they went … cruising. They were describing the time when they had been on a world cruise (Kenneth Horne would always be asking the questions) and Sandy reveals that Julian was blown overboard in a storm (so may innuendos in the actual sketch that it would take too long here!) and so Kenneth Horne asks, “Oh dear, did you manage to drag yourself up?”, the quick response is, “Oh no dear, we wore casuals!”. So there you go dear reader, tonight Captain Clarke are going to the formal dinner on our first ever cruise and just for his parents, we’ll be dragging ourselves up!! There will be more. I don’t’ know when but I promise there will. But, for how … we’re off crusin’!!