Unfortunately it was. My phone chimed it’s ‘get up’ message at 3am, followed immediately by Scamp’s. The day had begun.
We loaded the car and drove to the airport, arriving with plenty of time to spare. Parked, dumped the cases and were through into security in no time at all. As usual my carry-on bag was searched for explosive substances in my Kindle. I’d walked through the scanner wearing my watch and didn’t get caught, but my Kindle was searched for explosives! Go figure.
Breakfast at Frankie & Bennie’s was a roll ’n’ sausage for me and two slices of toast for Scamp. Paid their usual exorbitant price and waited to find our gate. It came up right on time, and we joined the queue to board. Again no problem, we got seated and waited for the other passengers to board. Two really noisy and badly behaved Aberdonian weans were somewhere behind us. One called Skye and the other called Harris. Harris? What sort of name is that? Has he/she got a cousin called ‘Millport’? Dad and Granddad were deep in conversation, speaking fluent Seagull, “Gauk, Gauk, Gauk”. If you’ve listened to Aberdonians speaking, that’s what it sounds like. Granddad knew everything about everything and had been everywhere and was telling everyone all about it, but as Scamp says, “That’s what Granddads do.”
For the last week I’ve been really tense, going through all the possible things that could go wrong that I hadn’t planned for. Would some eejit block me at home by parking in front of me overnight? There were roadworks on the way to the airport during the night and warnings of lane closures. Would that mean we’d have to follow diversions to avoid them? I’d never used this new parking company, would something go wrong at the last minute and my parking would be cancelled then I’d need to … One of the few things I hadn’t accounted for was a casualty on board. The plane pulled on to the runway and trundled down past the ‘hold short’ line then continued off the slip and back to the stand. A woman passenger had felt ill and needed medical help. First Aid trained Firefighters came on board, assessed the situation and decided to play it safe and call for an ambulance. Then they had to wait until the passenger’s cases were removed from the hold, then, with the casualty in the ambulance they left, presumably to go to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. We needed to wait a while more before we were allowed by Flight Controllers to be cleared for taxiing and take off. All in all it was an hour’s delay, but the poor woman and her companion had just lost a holiday.
Arrived at Malta airport and entered the P&O machine. It must be the most efficiently organised system of passenger transport in the world, run in part by cheerful pensioners. Brilliant work.
We were allocated our cabin a week or so ago and today we got to enter it for the first time. It’s just a normal cruise cabin with a big wide and deep balcony. The folk above us can see into part of our cabin, but we can overlook the folk below us, so that’s fair. 😉
Food first. We went to what we’ve always called “Smash and Grab”. The Self Service restaurant. Feeling better we wandered round the deck, got lost, found ourselves, met our cabin steward and wandered round again. IT WAS HOT! 🥵. Found a splash pool near the sharp end of the ship and managed a few strokes crossing and recrossing the tiny little pool. Had our first ‘Holiday Beer’. Went to dinner in the Oriental Restaurant. Met a couple from Newcastle at our table. Discussed Bakeoff the Professionals and posh watches with them.
We wanted to see the sail away, but it was getting later and later and there were still folk wandering in from transfer buses from the airport. Eventually about an two hours late we watched from our balcony as the ship moved silently from its moorings and headed into the Mediterranean and onward to Dubrovnik.
PoD is a picture taken from our plane crossing the Alps at 37,000 ft with Mont Blanc below us.
Tomorrow is a Sea Day. There’s rarely anything to see on a sea day and nothing to do. That’s what folk will tell you. It’s not true. A sea day is what you make it.