A different kind of holiday

I can’t believe it’s been five years since I started sharing my stories on here! Time flies, so much water under the bridge, and all that jazz.

Today is the eve of my long service leave, a six week holiday planned to celebrate my mid-Century milestone which is now cancelled.

Thanks to Covid-19, instead of heading off on a big jet plane, spending time in the city that never sleeps, and cruising from New York to Rome, I will now be having a very different kind of holiday, at home.

Along with tackling a number of jobs around the house that are way overdue, keeping my husband company while he works from home, and taking advantage of online workouts thanks to my gym membership, I’m hoping to revive some hobbies, especially music, gardening, baking, knitting and of course writing which is why I am back here.

According to the astrologer I follow, April is my month for home, so who knows, maybe this was the plan for my leave all along?

Making memories at sea

The first day home after our tenth cruise holiday feels like a good time to reflect on the positive experiences we have had on board while adding to our cruise and travel memories.

Our first cruise was a spontaneous decision, something different to acknowledge and celebrate a birthday milestone. Pushing aside negative stories about cruises being full of old people, seasickness and boredom we boarded Dawn Princess in Fremantle with eyes wide open and no idea what we would encounter.

Ten cruises later the ‘cruise bug’ we caught on the Dawn shows no signs of easing. It’s the friendships we’ve made, amazing places we’ve been to and the horizons we still yearn to seek that make a cruise holiday the ultimate experience for me.

So many opportunities on board to meet people from all over the world and share life and travel stories, passengers and crew included.

Along with this, the bonus that you only have to unpack once, that every day is different and the opportunities to see and experience so many of the world’s wonders are the biggest drawcards for me.

The ‘bucket list ticks’ to date include The Lost City of Petra, Komodo Island, Tahiti, Easter Island, the Suez Canal, the Azores and more!

The on board traditions including the opportunity to ‘dress to impress’, towel animals and Baked Alaska and of course those spectacular sea sunsets are also winners for me.

Every ship and cruise line also varies, and there have been some that have seemed worse than others, but after a while they all blur together into wonderful ‘wanderlust memories’ that mean more to me than anything money can buy.

Discussions and planning has already started for the next journey.

Keen to join me?

Sorry MSC, you’ve lost me

The signs were there even before we left home; we had to repeatedly ask for our cruise paperwork and assumed the delay was the fault of the travel agency, but approaching the end of our time on board it is clear the issue lies with MSC.

The ship itself is stunning and we’ve received great service on board. It’s how MSC manage the passengers that simply isn’t working for me.

Like insisting on manual completion of immigration paperwork before we embarked in Santos. After waiting for two hours with our already completed paperwork in hand.

And waiting until the night before we arrive at each stop to confirm tour departure times and locations. Which we now know are an indication only because all tour groups are allowed to find their way off the ship at the same time, along with passengers with their own plans for the day. There are more than 4000 passengers on board. With two exits.

Today for example, our meeting time was 8.15 in the theatre but it was 10am before our bus from the port to Bruges to explore actually departed.

Which meant less time off the ship to explore, monster queues at the end of the day and yet another delay to our scheduled departure time.

Maybe this sort of organisation works well with container shipping, but definitely not for passengers.

Our final stop is Kiel where we are due to arrive at 8am, and discussions about who to cruise with next have already begun in earnest. Based on our experience on this journey, getting off is not going to be smooth sailing and next time we embark it will definitely not be with MSC.

Desculpe, I do not understand

Seven days left of our first MSC cruise and we’ve just arrived in Lisbon on a cool wet day. Thankful for the restful sleep despite our cabin creak, and also for the tour we have booked which will give us respite from the rain.

Also thankful for the Portuguese language lessons I’ve been attending on board, even if only so I know how to apologise to the majority of our fellow passengers when they speak to me or ask questions in Portuguese.

Since boarding in Santos we have found ourselves in the minority, our party of four adding to another forty English speaking passengers on board where the majority are Brazilians.

Given the cruise accommodates more than 4000 passengers, as a representative of the less than one percent I am especially grateful for the brief English announcements that are then repeated in the numerous other languages represented on board. And for the bilingual tour guides we have had on our recent excursions.

Times like this I’m wishing I had paid more attention and put more effort into learning a second language.

Another one for the bucket list. In the meantime, desculpe.

Blink and you’ll miss it

Blink, blink. HOSPITAL. SILENCE.

So begins a poem by Bruce Dawe written in the 1950s and studied by me in the 80s, a story of one man’s life, from birth until being buried.  The poem itself is a satirical look at modern society and its materialism, but for me it’s the idea of documenting what happens between the blink blink statements that really resonates.

Back at the start of this month I had the best of intentions to be here more. Here as in documenting my life journey and lessons for myself and anyone else who may be interested. Here as in being mindful and stopping to appreciate what I have instead of dwelling on what I don’t.

And now it is almost the end of January and I’ve been too busy doing to stop and document. Doing something different like flying to another country on the first day of the New Year to celebrate my birthday (Georgetown Penang, highly recommended). Doing more with my body including returning to the gym and making exercise part of my day instead of an afterthought, and finding a healthy balance between being more mindful about what I eat and drink to get myself back on track along with socialising and celebrating with friends and family.

In just over two months it will be the final countdown to our 10th cruise, which we will be flying to the other side of the world to join, and I can see the time between then and now just flying by in the same way that the past month has done.

In just under two years is another milestone birthday, a date already on the horizon with preliminary planning and discussions of if/how/where/when to celebrate/commisserate.

Not that I am complaining of course, life is a gift and all that. Just sometimes I need to remind myself of how much I have done with my life between the blinks and be more mindful of how much time I have left.

Blink, blink. CEMETERY. Silence.

 

Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

As well as having a heavenly scent, the flowers on this plant in my garden also have a story to tell.

I chose and planted it when we returned from our first ever cruise on Dawn Princess from Fremantle to Sydney in March 2010. The cruise we boarded on the day of an infamous hail storm, when my now-husband proposed and we met our wonderful cruise buddies.

What is amazing about this plant is that every year around this time it puts on the most wonderful tricolour floral display; the flowers range in colour from purple to mauve to white, depending how old they are. Hence its nickname of Yesterday Today Tomorrow.

Yesterday I was a young mother with long hair and lean limbs, living and loving every moment of every day of my life with my ‘babies’. Today my hair is still long but my limbs are no longer lean, and my children are young adults living and loving every day in their own way. Tomorrow they will hopefully be blessed with children of their own and they will recall their yesterday with me and remember to make the most of their today.

Yesterday I never imagined the today I would be living, full of love and life and tomorrow plans, with so many wonderful friendships and journeys and memories.

Today I am OK and Tomorrow I will be too.

Sometimes all I need is to stop and admire these flowers to remind myself of that.

You never know what you’ve got til it’s gone

Earlier this week I called my general practice to make an appointment with the GP I’ve been seeing regularly over the years.

She counseled me through various ailments and issues, from insomnia to a hysterectomy she’s been there.

What a shock it was to hear that she’s ‘no longer with us.’ As in she died, dead, brain hemorrhage. Two weeks ago. My counsel and my confidante. Gone.

Maybe it’s the only child syndrome. Or the fact I have taken a very long time to really truly open my heart to anyone and admit I have needs and wants and human frailties that others seem to have no problem with revealing to me.

It hit me for six.

So today I met with her replacement, in her room, helping fill in the blanks. Feeling like all I want to do is curl up into a ball for a hundred years because all my issues and frailties seem so insignificant.

The moral of my story?

Still working on that to be honest.

One Small Step for a Woman

It’s funny how sometimes life seems to go full circle, well for me it does.

On a previous post about the start of our amazing Arcadia cruise I shared how the young girl seated next to me on the flight was about to embark on the Camino de Santiago.

At that time I had never heard of it but fast forward two years and all of sudden it is where a number of female friends are planning to go or are already there.

It certainly sounds like an amazing experience, but why is it something that women seem be especially drawn to?

Lack of sleep, lost toenails and chafing aside, there are plenty of places closer to home where a similar experience is offered, although not with the religious ‘undertones’ of the Camino.

Is it because we women still haven’t found what we’re looking for?
Or dare I ask is it only something that single women are seeking?

I have this thing with cushions

As I’ve been known to say in response to someone stating the obvious, “no shit Sherlock!”

I mean, what’s not to like?

They’re portable, they can change the style, mood and feel of a room, and I also recommend purchasing them on holidays as the ultimate souvenir.

Case in point, the one day we had to expore Muscat, Oman, on the Arcadia cruise I was in heaven exploring the Souk full of exotic scents and sights. Hubby rolled his eyes when I showed him my souvenir purchase, ANOTHER cushion cover.

My current count is twenty on display throughout my home. Seven in the lounge, including three I knitted a few years ago when I was working my way through the small projects in a learn-to-knit book, so obviously sentimental favourites. Five in the family room, four in the master bedroom, three in the spare room, one on a chair in the study and four ‘spares’.

My family and close friends are obviously onto me, a cushion with cats on it and others in my favourite shade of ‘seafoam’ have been among my highest prized gifts.

Visitors rarely appreciate the time and effort involved with their artful display, and recent houses sitters completely removed all from the family room so they could make themselves at home. Hubby’s the least amused, especially when he has to remove my artful arrangement from the bed before retiring every night.

For anyone who’s interested I’m going start a pictorial documentation of my collection on Instagram with the hashtag #ihavethisthingwithcushions

If you see any on your travels please think of me and at the very least take a photo to add to my collection.

Seven Year Itch

dav

I celebrated a milestone on Wednesday, seven years ago my now husband proposed, on our first night on board our first ever cruise.

Fast forward seven years, nine cruises, a handful of new friendships and a lifetime of memories and I can honestly say I’m done.

No it’s not my marriage that’s giving me itchy feet, hand over heart my love for the wonderful man I am privileged to have as my life partner is exponentially stronger than I ever thought possible.

It’s cruising from Australia with Australians I’m done with.

There’s still so much of the world, including Australia, I want to explore but for now there’s no ship on the horizon I plan to board from or return to Australia.

Maybe it’s because we’ve done so much in such a short period of time, or that the serenity of traveling by sea has been tarnished because of and by our laidback larrikan reputation that was unfortunately evident and reinforced on our recent Australia based cruises.

Don’t get me wrong, cruising on the Ovation of the Seas is a truly amazing experience and highly recommended. The ship itself is absolutely awesome, and apart from some teething problems, the crew did their best to ensure our experience on board was entertaining and positive.

For me it’s just a shame that Australia based cruises now include the bonus of bearing witness to the Aussie attitude of ‘I’ve paid my money, I can do what I like.’

“So what if it’s formal night? You can’t stop me walking around the ship or sitting in the front row of the theatre in my boardies and thongs!”

“I’ve paid for the drinks package so I’m going to drink my body weight in alcohol every day, that’s what I call value for money!”

“And my kids love cruising too! They can run amok throughout the hallways, stairs, lifts and especially in the pool, and heaven help the idiot who tries to pull them into line!”

Sorry, that’s just not my idea of a good time, so for now it’s somewhere over the horizon I plan to explore, starting and ending on a far distant shore.