Revenge of the Fifth!

And the anniversary of my move from Devon to St Neots. Nineteen years. By far the longest I have lived in one place, ever. Twelve years in Hendon, six years in Golders Green, five in Leeds, one in Caen, two at St Katherine Docks, two in Limehouse, two in Okehampton, and then, in 2007, up to PE19. I’m aware that these figures do not quite add up to my current age, but a girl has to keep some mystery about her. Happy Cinco de Mayo to Kris, Rich and Selena, whom I met nineteen years ago today!

Right, reminiscences aside, welcome to Motril, our first stop of seven. No, we had never heard of it either. It’s in Spain. According to the interweb, it’s a fairly ordinary, modern town, but with an old ‘feel’, whatever that means! According to the Entertainment Officer who ran the Syndicate Quiz last night (Victoria), it’s a lovely little old town, but there’s not a lot to see or do. It’s basically a staging point for trips to Granada and, more specifically, Alhambra, which is an hour each way by coach from the port. In fact, our tablemates, Roy and Carol, tried the (allegedly 2km) walk into town. They met people walking back who said, (a) it’s further than you think, and (b) don’t bother anyway. So they turned around came back to the ship!

Whilst I have wanted to see Alhambra for as long as I can remember, no one at P&O Cruises nor the internet entrepreneurship is interested in helping people with limited mobility to see it. Unlike Ephesus, where we had choice anxiety when booking a tour, this time it is all walking tours, for a minimum of three hours (maximum 6 or 7), thank you very much. So I have reluctantly concluded that it would be one cultural stop too many on this trip. I simply don’t have enough recovery time available before the next port looms (Palermo on the 8^th), and I don’t want to crash before Ephesus. M.E. is hard enough to pace without adding unnecessary enforced walking. The fact that the tours I did find had prices “starting from £39 a head” that, once clicked upon, announced that they would be £417 per person, did nothing to convince me that I was making a foolish error in skipping it…

This morning’s startlingly early wake-up call was someone HAMMERING something into place on a metal part of a lifeboat. At 8am Ship’s Time. So that’s 7am BST, or 6am GMT to what little I possess by way of a body clock. Why would 8am seem unreasonable? It’s not like we’re on holiday, or retired, or both, and might not appreciate an early start. Oh, no, wait…

 On the plus side, last night, on our way to dinner, we bumped into our cabin steward from when we were last on Aurora – the lovely Angela. This was cool because, not only did she remember us, but she remembered that I didn’t get up early, and that she had arranged with us to clean our cabin in the evenings, rather than the mornings, so I could have a lie-in if I had had a bad night. When she asked how I was, I joked about having to get up for our current steward, Rajesh. She was visibly dismayed that he had said he could not do a similar evening clean. She said she would try and fix it for us, which was very lovely of her, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath. Today, when I saw Rajesh, he informed me that he had decided he can do our cabin in the evening, after all. Fancy that. So, even here, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know!

I wasn’t planning on blogging every day, but today, when I got up, I found had a craving – to type. Which seems odd. I get cravings to speak French every so often, but that’s apparently very common, because it’s a joy to speak. People often tell me they miss speaking it. But I have never encountered a yearning to type before. I wonder if there are other non-food/ drink/ drug urges that people have. That may be an internet rabbit hole for another day. I don’t think it’s to do with my new laptop. It’s very nice, if a little heavier than its predecessor (which was traded in for a discount), and there are a few bits of Windows 11 that are still a learning curve, along with the, now apparently traditional, disappearance of the Hibernate setting. But I don’t think it’s the hardware that’s causing this particular issue, anyway.

Quick terminology query, if I may: we are sitting in the buffet restaurant on board, watching a bulk carrier being loaded with something. We’re not in a container port (for a change!), but we are still in a working, industrial harbour. We don’t know what the product is, but it’s a very slow process, and thick creamy-coloured clouds of whatever it is are blowing away with every move. We were looking at a nearby JCB for scale. It has a bucket scoop on the front and is moving stuff around the quay ready for loading. I called it a bulldozer. Dad calls it a dump truck. But isn’t that a lorry that tips out its contents? Neither sounds right in my head. Any suggestions? We are currently bodging the issue by referring to it simply as a JCB.

The ship moored behind the bulk carrier is labelled Briese Chartering. It was Dad who figured out what was lying along the top. We’ve decided it’s a turbine blade. It has red marks at the end, which was what was confusing Dad. It looks like a very long cartoon missile, truth be told. I explained that the marks are added so that, when it is rotating, the marks appear as solid circles, which prevents birds from flying into them. Although, I’ve only seen black ones, until today. Red makes more sense, I think, from a bird brain ‘danger’ perspective. Assuming they have colour vision. I assume so, otherwise why would berries bother being red to avoid being eaten? Mind you, with the red bits, the spinning turbine will look like the logo for Target stores in the US, so I hope they don’t start aiming for them instead! I have since spotted another four blades stacked on the quayside, behind some buildings and, the standard fare in every port, hundreds of cars. A quick Google has, in fact, revealed that Motril’s main export is 80 metre turbine blades (about 263 feet, in old money); made by a company called Vestas, in case you’re interested. So our guess was correct! And a huzzah for the spiffy wifi connection for saving the day, knowledge-wise.

The wiffy onboard is SO much faster, more reliable and abundant than in the old days, I almost don’t mind paying for it. Almost. I haven’t found a single Notspot so far.  We are fairly sure that P&O Cruises are the only cruise line that still charge for it, nowadays, rather than include it as a loyalty reward. But it is certainly not like when I started this blog, and I had to type it offline in my cabin and then come up to the buffet to upload it, whilst stressing about the timer in the corner of the screen charging by the second.  Now it really is possible to work from here.

Talking of the Fount of All Information and Lies (FAIL, aka the internet ), I accidentally entered my blog address into Google instead of Chrome, and I got an AI overview, which tickled me. Enjoy.

So now you know!

Of course, it is now siesta time, so all movement on the quayside has now ceased, except for a single motor yacht which keeps tootling back and forth past us – are they looking at us, or do they want us to look at them? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.

The water here is more green than turquoise. I can’t really think of a comparator for its somewhat virulent shade. Try visualising it as bright turquoise but with diluted orange squash spilt on top, and then make it opaque instead of transparent. If it was darker, I’d call it teal. The sky is blue with wispy clouds that give a hazy feel to things, at least near the port. Although, having said that, the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains (the real ones, I believe, as opposed to the US copies) are surprisingly clear to see, despite being some considerable distance inland.

I want a margarita. Does alcohol-free tequila exist yet?

Talking of booze, did you know that P&O Cruises now produces its own brand of gins, called Marabelle (beautiful sea – very apt)? Apologies if I’ve mentioned this before, but my memory is not what it was. And that’s without consuming alcohol!

Random waffle ends.