The final word?

Home again, naturally

As we slowly progressed with our return back to the UK yesterday, there was an all-pervading gloom of mist and murk hanging in the air. There seemed to be no definition between sky and sea, just a grey vastness. Ahhhh, welcome back home. Throughout our trip, I’ve found it sometimes hard to concentrate on reading as I’ve also wanted to just watch the sea and be mesmerised by the enormity of it and also because I’ve wanted to watch out for marine life. 

Needless to say, there have been a number of thoughts for future adventures, not just to avoid another UK winter, but for the rest of this year. It’s been some years since we did a European road trip. Normally we simply drive from the UK down to Portugal taking the quickest route and getting to the sun asap. However, we’ve been invited to a party in Spain (as you do!) and never wishing to miss out on a good bash, are now making plans for a relaxed European road trip. Unusually, Portugal doesn’t feature on this next trip. Horrors!

So some downsides to this trip from a vanity point of view. My hands now look like 90 year old’s hands. They have been absolutely wrecked from the constant use of hand sanitiser. It doesn’t matter how much I use hand lotion as well, the hand sanitiser has won that particular battle. Looking on the bright side though, no Delhi belly, COVID, or nasty diseases in our cabin. Likewise, my face is wrecked too (well, more than normal), not because of too much sun. No, I protect myself extremely well on that front. It’s been the volume of make-up remover used. Normally I get through a couple of bottles throughout the year because I might make up once a week to go out. Over the last 65 days, I’ve got through two bottles of the stuff because it’s been date night pretty much every night. I’m also not in a massive hurry to eat out right now, having eaten out for 60 of our 65-day tour. I recognise my drink and exercise discipline has gone entirely out of the window during this tour too. Though on the bright side, my food intake has been pretty much as normal. I’ve not gone wild on that front. 

Mrs Evans. Who the hell is she? Nope, I don’t know who she is either, but from about day 30 that has been my name when we’ve gone into the restaurant. Why, I hear you cry? Indeed, it took me a while to work it out too and it’s clearly my own fault. Joining the queue for the restaurant became a “blue” job. While I was putting the finishing touches to my makeup (AKA catapulting the concrete on), I’d ask Nick to get us in the queue as I was nearing getting ready. Not unsurprisingly the lovely staff would greet us by name. As everyone has their own cruise card and their own name on it, the staff “assumption” was that we shared the same name. Normally someone would get their head ripped off if they called me Mrs Evans, but the staff on the cruise have been a delight and for once, I have behaved impeccably. So, me being me thought I’d beat the system and changed the “blue” job to a “pink” job and I booked us into the queue. There were a couple of times we were called Mr and Mrs Hadley, but the deed had already been done and one of the crew has an amazing gift. It takes her about a week to memorise everyone’s name on board. I had missed the boat on getting my identity back for the rest of the trip. 

There was a lovely atmosphere on the ship last night. It was evident a lot of people had made friends. There was a general positive buzz. Once we were as packed as we could be and prepped for the evening ahead, we headed off one last time to Anderson’s. I “needed” a pink pop to finish off our trip. A bit of reflection time was needed also. I think someone was in generous mode, as it wasn’t the usual 125ml measure. Not that I was complaining. Dinner was a fish extravaganza for me. Prawn cocktail for starts (something they have always got right) and a trio of fish. The salmon was cooked to a shrivel, but the tiger prawns and haddock were good. As always, not a chance we could venture into the puds section. We didn’t fancy a night out at any of the theatres, so headed back to our cabin for our final time change to get us onto UK time. We packed our final little suitcase. All our others were taken away early yesterday evening. This meant that we would have as little as possible to tote around after leaving our cabin at 8am and disembarking the ship at 9.30am today. 

Supplies, supplies!

We hadn’t even left the ship and the port was a hive of industry, replacing the tonnage of spuds, eggs, onions, wine, beer etc that we had consumed. As we vacated our room at 8 this morning, there was a mad flurry of activity to turn the ship around for its 2-week cruise to Norway which was setting off at 5.30pm.

A very big happy birthday to my sister Abi. I know Abi has been keeping in touch with our escapades via our blog and we’ve been in email contact throughout which has been lovely. Have a great day Abs.

Massive thanks to Nick and Sue for picking us up from Southampton this morning. Not having to leave the car in an open-air car park to get waterlogged and dirty has been a real benefit. Also keeping a regular check-up on our pad has been brilliant too.

This adventure has been an absolutely epic experience. We’ve loved writing our daily blogs and it’s been super sharing it with you and having your comments.