The boat was brilliant.
We had dinner in the restaurant, which was absolutely ace. We had a very nice Philippino waiter who gave Lucy and me a rose each that he had made himself out of paper towels and napkins.
All the staff on the boat seemed to be Philippino, they live on board, probably in some terrifying cavern in the bowels of the ship, and they smiled until their faces must have ached. The roses are lovely, and he had squirted them with some P & O citrus scent, it was heart-achingly kind and dreadful at the same time, a present from the world’s poor.
It was a buffet, so we ate until we could barely roll out of the door, because it was absolutely excellent, I had everything I could fit on my plate, lemon salmon and runny Brie and salads and olives, and then a satisfying combination of all the things we liked from the main buffet, Oliver had sausages and poppadoms, and I had spare ribs and some roasted coconut, and Lucy had spare ribs and chips, and Mark had everything with Yorkshire puddings and gravy, followed by chocolate-and-cream puddings and coffee and a slightly uncomfortable stagger back to our cabin.
We had got all evening then, so we thought we would go to the onboard cinema to watch a film about Everest. This was a very peculiar experience, because of the ship rolling and vibrating all the time, coupled with terrifying scenes of mountain adventures. When we got to the end of it we discovered that none of us had been quite sure what had happened, on account of all the actors being identical men with beards and goggles and snowsuits. We knew that some of them had Not Made It off the mountain, but none of us really knew which, and we debated it for a while before we fell asleep in our tiny Standard Class cabin.
I slept like a log, but Mark woke up to find himself punching his pillow, which he thought was a drunken person who was unkindly poking him in the back, because of the movement of the ship. We had everything possible for breakfast and then, to Oliver’s enormous excitement, we were actually here, actually in real abroad, and driving on the wrong side of the road and all the trees still having beautiful golden leaves, because it is still three weeks ago here.
I hadn’t at all expected the sense of relief I felt when we got to the continent, the feeling of unexpected freedom you have when you are back in a place which interferes with your life far less than the UK does. It was a really peculiar juxtaposition of coming home, everything familiar and known, and being aliens, because this is not our place. Of course Oliver has a French birth certificate, and the right to French citizenship if he likes, which we thought would be a rubbish idea at the moment, at least until they have sorted the Euro out, but he is quite thrilled with the thought, and is enchanted with the idea that this could be his land if he wanted it to be.
Zeebrugge, of course, is in Belgium, so we had to navigate our way through the North of Belgium before we reached France, which was not easy because the Europeans have never got over the war when it comes to road signs, and seem to have designed them all with the express purpose of confusing the Germans. Imagine being in Birmingham, and the road signs saying simply:
London. >
Edinburgh <
Everywhere Else. ^
– and you will get the idea.
Fortunately I unearthed an elderly map of Europe left over from our previous gypsy existence, and we navigated painstakingly along with that. This is not ever simple because the French have the inexplicable practice of putting different road numbers on their signs to the ones on their maps, probably done by a different Departement or something, but we managed it, past fields of hefty Belgian Blue cattle, and then the roadside dotted with familiar names, LeClerc and Castorama, with all their associations of a long-gone adventure.
Being France, of course we had to stop for a lunchtime picnic, although we left off the wine, because of not living here any more, and I rediscovered French women who leave the door open when they use the loo. After that we headed down towards Paris, where we got stuck in the most awful traffic jam, but it didn’t matter in the least, because it was next to Charles de Gaulle, and we could watch the aeroplanes coming in and out, and actually went under the runway as a plane was taxiing out over the top, which was tremendously exciting, we live in the most thrilling world.
Paris certainly turned out to be thrilling. We arrived in rush hour, and found a parking space in what turned out to be the Muslim quarter of town, and police were everywhere, busy strapping riot shields to the front of their vans and massing excitedly for some French excitement. We thought hopefully that it might be a riot, which would have been a bit of an adventure, and wandered about trying to see if anybody would throw some petrol bombs at us, but they didn’t, so we got on the Metro and set off for Notre Dame, to have a look at it before bedtime.
We had just jumped on the Metro and the train set off when our eyes and noses started to sting. There was a dreadful acidic smell, and everybody in the carriage started coughing. Everybody else panicked and dashed down to the far end of the carriage, but Mark forced a window open, and we all stood on the seats and lifted the children up so we could all breathe the outside air.
We decided to get off at the next stop after that, as did everybody else, and shakily made our way up to the surface. We sat down on a handy bench, and some people came up to us and asked us if we would mind being in a film. of course we agreed, and they asked us our opinions about progress, which we cheerfully gave to them, and after they had gone we stopped to listen to a splendid brass band, playing jazz music in the street, so of course we danced, which was ace fun.
We walked the rest of the way to Notre Dame, admired it and suddenly felt completely exhausted, so we got back in the Metro, which fortunately turned out to be free of gas attacks this time, and made our way back to the camper van, which was still surrounded by sirens and flashing blue lights and riot police charging about, although disappointingly still no riot, although of course there is time yet, because we are still here.
We are about to have dinner, and we are going to stay here tonight and tomorrow, when we are off to the Eiffel Tower.
What an exciting holiday we are having.
