Don't Mention the C Word...

Water and I have never been the best of friends. 

Don’t get me wrong - I like a nice relaxing bath or a bracing shower, I love a quick swim in the sea to cool down (rarely in the UK) and I have been known to cycle masochistically through relentless rain and thunderstorms without too much complaint, but put me on a boat or a ferry and I’m afraid I become that awful fellow passenger who goes green, groans loudly and races to the toilets to throw up. 

To be fair, I have had some pretty awful experiences which have led me to start hyperventilating and shaking my head vehemently as soon as the word ‘cruise’ is uttered - usually by somebody who has just returned from one - and is anxious to describe every glorious meal (to someone who could probably just about keep down a couple of rich tea biscuits without reaching for a carrier bag). ‘You don’t feel like you’re on a boat,’ they say, before telling me about the time the tables slid across the deck, the swimming pool was like a boiling cauldron and one of the ship’s entertainers skidded on a slopped trifle and spent the rest of the cruise trying to dance on one leg. 

I could deal with a broken bone.  Hopefully that would get me stretchered off in Madeira, and let me laze about recuperating before being flown home.  No, what I can’t cope with is the nausea that comes over me in a huge wave (which is pretty appropriate really) whenever I even think about being on a boat.  

I’m aware there is a psychological aspect to this, but one which I can no longer control. At present I’m on a train, a mode of transport I find quite enjoyable provided I have a seat, a coffee and a book. However, having started to write this blog post I can feel the familiar sickness creeping down from my head to my stomach and up to my throat again. 

Each year when the kids were little we travelled to France for a camping holiday. And each year I was happy to be crushed in a small hatchback with three hot and irritable children, a cool box in my back, my feet in a washing up bowl, and a husband who hated driving and spent the whole time, head down, hands gripping the wheel, only opening his mouth to receive a bite of a warm tuna sandwich or to shout ‘Stop kicking my seat!’ at whichever child had the misfortune to be behind him.  I could cope with that. What I couldn’t abide was the sickly dread that built up as we approached the ferry terminal.  

Once on the ferry and having extricated the five of us from the stinking car, the children made their way excitedly to the restaurant. As far as I remember we never actually bought any food but we did sit at a table and open the foil wrapped picnic we were supposed to be saving till we were halfway through France.  I can still conjure up the smells of sweaty cheese, hard boiled eggs and the ubiquitous tinned tuna which was enjoying a revival in the Reidy household circa 1987.  That culinary combination would have been bad enough but permeating the whole area was the strong smell of diesel, cigarette smoke (and on one journey a deadly combination of cigar and pipe!) and somebody’s overpowering Estée Lauder that had just been purchased at the duty free. I love perfume but please don’t come within 100 yards of me if you’re wafting your way across the high seas.

Each year I suffered the indignity of the ferry toilets, clinging to the seat, head over the bowl and feet sliding on a stinking floor, while the rest of the family ate their way through the picnic and played on the fruit machines.  They didn’t miss me a bit.  Returning to the car as Calais came into view meant holding my breath as long as possible to avoid inhaling the petrol fumes from hundreds of cars, and trying to tell the children off without opening my mouth.  Only when we were finally away from the terminal with a couple of hours under our belts, tootling through the French countryside could I feel myself beginning to recover enough to argue about the route. These were the days well before SatNav, I would have a huge road map open on my lap, all in French, and a husband who hadn’t got a clue where he was going.  This was still an improvement on my time in the ferry toilets.

One year my mum suggested taking two ‘Sea Legs’  before I set off.  She swore by them and had fed them to us before every car journey when we were younger.  She couldn’t understand that the spoonful of jam they were hidden in was probably what made us feel more sick than the travelling.  I decided I’d nothing to lose.  Little did I know.  As soon as we set off I began to feel drunk, and immediately fell into an uneasy sleep, which didn’t please the driver, whose sense of direction was as bad in England as it was in France.  By the time I lumbered onto the ferry I couldn’t walk in a straight line - and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  I remember very little of the whole journey except that I still felt sick, but through a drunken, dozy haze.  

These days I thank my lucky stars that we no longer need to catch a ferry but can cross the water by flying several miles above it.  Now all I have to do is avoid anybody who has just been on a cruise and is desperate to convert me. 

Please don’t mention the C word…..

Please don’t mention the C word by Jill Reidy

I know, I know

It was fabulous

The food was delicious

Lobster, special pate with brandy raisins

And that creamy mousse

Oh and octopus, imagine... 

Please…..

Saw some fantastic sights

The pyramids

Amazing

Took the tours

Drove a jeep over bumpy roads

Ooooft!

Laughed at the comedian

He was hilarious

A bit blue… 

Marvelled at the dancing

Even the one who’d slipped on the trifle

When the ship hit a storm

And the table tipped

No, please…ugh!

Made some lovely friends

Frank and Janice 

John and Jane

Oh and even Darren and Gareth

Sat at the Captain’s table

Groaning with food

Noooooo!

Wore that new sequinned top 

You know, from Debenham’s 

Bargain in the sale 

With the classic black trousers

Ruined by the consommé when the ship lurched

Arrrgh!

Hair done by Bernice

It looked gorgeous

For three days 

Without a comb touching it

Every morning

Milky coffee

Yukkk!

Every night

Pina Colada

Strawberry daiquiri

Whatever you wanted

No no no!

And the pool

The day of the hurricane warning

Waves, high as a house

Couldn't stand up

SO funny, water everywhere

Bleurgh bleurgh bleurgh!

Oh you’d love it

I wouldn’t 

You would, honestly,

The food…..

No…!

Pass the sea legs while I lie on the floor 

Close my eyes

And forget what you’ve told me

Please just go on your cruise 

But please, please, please don't mention the C word.

Thanks for reading, Jill  

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Sailing - All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor

‘The big ships sail on the Alley Alley O, the Alley Alley O…’

That nursery rhyme always takes me back to the film version of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey. The first time I watched it, I was supposed to be in bed. My mother had shooed me off to my room once, on the grounds that it was on too late and not suitable for my eleven year old self. She went back downstairs to our pub and I sneaked back to the living room doorway to watch the film with one ear listening out for her possible return. I was spellbound by Jo and her sailor boyfriend, Jimmy. Whatever it was that my mother thought I shouldn’t see went way over my head. And we used to live near Salford.

My father took up sailing in his retirement. He had a small cabin cruiser on the Lancaster Canal and after a couple of years he upgraded to a larger, better built vessel. It was like a ship inside, all highly polished and varnished dark oak with brass fittings, like a miniature galleon.  He won awards for the best maintained wooden boat. Most summer weekends were spent sailing with my step-mother and in good weather they often took longer trips. They went to boat rallies and joined the Lancaster Canal Boat Club. I attended a couple of dinner dances. Events always ended with everyone singing along loudly to Rod Stewart’s ‘Sailing’, with arms waving. It could get emotional. Dad enjoyed his years with his boat and the club. He climbed the ranks to President of the LCBC, a post he held at the time of his death.  I only visited them on the boat very occasionally. I became queasy after another boat once sailed by and gently rocked us a tiny bit. Clearly, I’m not a sailor.

My husband was a proper sailor.  He left home to study at Nautical College in Hull then sailed with the Merchant Navy to faraway places. He loved his life and would have continued but physical injury put an end to his career. Eventually, it was back to college to train for something else, then in the future, he met me. Every cloud…

Together, we have taken a few short boat trips, Dover to Calais, the south coast of Jersey, Tenby to Caldey Island and St Helier to St Malo. Mostly, I have been fine. The St Malo to St Helier return trip was bad for me. Last year we island-hopped the Outer Hebrides travelling on ferries and we didn’t have any problems. This year we’re doing something similar, but the ferry trip is about four hours. I hope I can cope. I’m sure the destination will be worth it.

My father loved his boat and sailing on the Lancaster Canal, but he visited other waterways as well. He spent holidays on the Norfolk Broads, the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, the Caledonian Canal and other places in other boats. Sailing became his ‘thing’, but despite growing his sea-legs, a trip on the Fleetwood ferry to the Isle of Man made him sea-sick, something that gave us, his family, great amusement.

 

Two special men, both sailors.

I have watched A Taste of Honey many times, sang the song and cried.

 

I found this John Masefield poem.

 

Sea Fever

 

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.

 

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

 

I must go down to the sea again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover

And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

 

 

John Masefield, 1878-1967

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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