Ferry Nuff

Travelling steerage from St Malo to Portsmouth

Back in Old Blighty for Christmas. The overnight ferry was absolutely fine, no matter what the whining old boomer keyboard warriors on Facebook passenger forums would have you believe. Molly is very happy she can share our cabin instead of being banged up in the van.

Plenty of material for Maurice.

Scenario no 1: We are wandering along the corridors looking for our cabin and passed a couple opening their cabin door with the key card they’d just been issued, to be greeted with a shout from inside. We were able to see a half-naked man and a woman looking very startled. We passed slowly so we could overhear…. Apparently, the couple inside were on a mini-cruise and had occupied that cabin since the previous evening; the invaders had been mistakenly given access to their cabin. We weren’t able to linger long enough to see how it was resolved. Maurice has his own ideas.

M: You know, don’t you? Pineapples and all that?

Me: Please don’t. I saw that man half naked and already feel a bit queasy.

The other beautiful moment was in the breakfast queue, behind a French retired couple, watching their response to the full English breakfast offering. This was: Scrambled eggs in one solid lump in the pan; glistening bacon; tinned tomatoes; baked beans; shrivelled sausages; hash browns; limp triangles of white toast.

M: Bloody lovely if you ask me.

Their reaction was restrained, subtle, a barely perceptible stiffenening of the back, and she murmurs to him: ‘Tu veux ca?’ and his instant response, a shudder and a tiny shake of the head.

There are moments when I see us British through foreign eyes and feel a huge sigh escaping from deep in my soul.

It is the beginning of a few weeks here, and I’ve already had a nice chat in Sainsbury’s (shops open on Sundays!) with a lady called`Brenda, demonstrating posh Italian fizzy drinks, and who, it turns out, worked in the basement of Allders of Croydon at roughly the same time as me.

I don’t doubt I will collect material. Maurice is already very loud, not coping too well with the driving habits or fashion trends. He is also taking issue with my most recent short story where I out him.

M: Yeah, beacuse it’s crap.

Me: Now don’t be like that. It needs a bit of work, is all.

M: It needs a fucking point, more like.

Ladies and Gents, the atchetypal Innnner Critic.