[A note about motorway driving for any mirror dodgers who complain about tailgating. BMWs have no engines. No, what they have instead are powerful electro-magnets located inside their front bumper, with which they attach themselves to the rear bumper of the car in front in order to get a tow. If you don’t believe me, next time this happens to you, try moving out of the fast lane into one of the two vacant lanes to your left, and see how quickly they disappear from your rear view mirror as they latch on to the car in front of you. People on the M6 toll understand this, and drive wonderfully and considerately at well over 100mph, but then you don’t see any mirror dodging Nissan Micras on the M6 toll.]
Motorway driving can be very dull though, with little to do other than watching your petrol gauge moving, but once off the motorways, the last leg on the A roads to Portsmouth was very pretty. Empty roads again, but everything was white over with frost, and it felt like I was driving through Narnia. My average speed didn’t drop much either, so total time to Portsmouth was about 3.5 hours. Not a police car in sight on the whole journey, because of course they were busy staking out all the towns ready for whatever carnage was in store.
Having got to the port I was a little disappointed that Passport Control consisted of barely more than handing me a green tab to hang from my rear view mirror (god knows where Nissan Micra drivers hang the
m), and then being told to stay in lane 4, the others being reserved for caravans and trucks. There were hardly any vehicles anyway, for reasons which would become apparent, but nevertheless, the car drivers would have an annoying wait behind the caravanners before embarking. This turned out to be a blessing though, because at the other end, they were quite rightly thrown overboard and drowned after we had been allowed off first.It was still only 15:00, and having left the car deck (no return once we had set sail), collecting the cabin keys was completed in minutes, and so off to my room. I had booked a four berth outside room because it was only £10 more than the £360 a two berth cost. This proved very wise as the extra
space meant I would be able to sleep horizontally instead of standing up, but the cabin was otherwise reasonably well equipped. It did have funny plug sockets though, which was odd given the Englishness of the rest of the experience. I got a berth with a window, because: (1) I’m probably a bit claustrophobic, and (2) I had expected to be able to see France for most of the journey. This last bit turned out not to be true, although occasionally mobile phones would flash up a signal bar briefly. I say briefly, because the boat did not provide either WiFi or mobile phone reception; really in this day and age! There was a satellite phone facility on board for a ‘modest charge’ I was unpacked and scouting the ship by 15:30, and this meant I was in the main bar by 15:31. I met up with a few other early birds, and here it became apparent what this ship was all about. I had been treating this first stage of my Toulouse expedition as a 2 night mini cruise, within which I would celebrate the new year. Most of the rest of the boat had explicitly paid for a 3 night mini cruise for the same purpose, and less than half the price, because they had no cars. They would disembark in Bilbao for 4 hours (forcibly), before returning straight back to the UK.
Things had started to look up as far as activities on the boat were concerned. I prepared for the night’s fun by having something from the restaurant, from where I sent my New Year text messages a few hours early, as once we set sail at 17:00, that would be the end of them. I ate a lovely salmon with lemon dill sauce and new potatoes, and I paid for mine, whereas everyone else seemed to have tokens. Hmm… well at least I didn’t end up bickering with the waiter about what is and is not included in the set ‘token’ menu.
Back to the bar then, where I met Cat Weasel (Phil) from Yorkshire, and Jo(se) from Reading, just outside Spain. This was their tenth such cruise, and they loved them. Given what the MC had just told us, it wasn’t hard to see why. The evening’s events would kick off with a stage production of Grease (a bit of a favourite of mine this), followed by a Tom Jones impersonator,
with a Freddie Mercury impersonator to finish. By then the New Year would be just around the corner, and everyone would be in the mood. And so it proved. Everyone was joining in the singing, the staff were all in fancy dress, including the security staff who were pleased to note it hadn’t “kicked off like last year”, and plenty of spare hats and tinsel was provided for those of us who hadn’t any. The stroke of midnight was all a bit anti-climactic really, after the music feast. I guess the obvious thing to note which won’t have been repeated where you were, is that we got sixteen ship’s bells rung (a seafaring tradition they said) which is 8 for the old year and 8 for the new year. More precisely, it is one bell for each half hour interval in the preceding 4 hour watch, and one for each interval in the next. Everything else was as expected, and then sort of faded out over the next hour or two as the drink finally numbed everyone enough to drive them to bed. My best New Year's Eve for quite some time that.
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