Slept like a log last night, I did – must have been all the excitement and tapas. Rab had a very disturbed night – she’s convinced it was the tapas. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
Not much to report about today; nothing happened, really. I tried to reach Jo with a couple of text messages about tomorrow in Gibraltar without success, so sent her a message on FaceBook which she received and gave me an alternative number to contact her. We exchanged texts successfully and aim to meet at noon tomorrow outside the British Home Stores shop. She assures us that you can’t miss it – and Richard the cruise director agrees. So we are aiming to get off early and head for the cable car that takes you up to the top of the Rock so we can see the apes. That’ll be followed by a shopping expedition in the one and only shopping street and a nice lunch with an old pal – seems like a good plan.
We were very late for breakfast, having slept in later than we have for years – what a difference it makes not having anxious hounds waiting for their morning walk. Even though they are very good about any nagging, you know they’re just there and occasionally if you listen carefully you’ll hear the faintest whine from the pup. We’re looking forward to trading late sleep-ins for that little sound. Anyhow, we went up to the bistro for breakfast, came through to the Captain’s Club to make sure we got our seat – there is only one plug that we have found so far that is close enough to the wi-fi zone to give me at least an even chance of connecting to the Internet. I must say it does make me appreciate the stability of our connections at home. It is so annoying to lose connections in the middle of a download. I must have five or six hundred e-mails piled up waiting to get in my In Box but have given up trying to download them – or to answer the ones I have downloaded. That’ll all have to wait until we get home - seems strange to think that we’ll be home by this time next week. At times it seems as if it is months since we had a shower that we could move about in and Copenhagen is a dim memory. At others it seems only yesterday that we set off on this journey.
We spent a lot of time chatting to Chris and Coralee who have had a very interesting life and have travelled to many countries, but after lunch we collapsed in our comfortable beds and snoozed the afternoon away. Hope we can sleep tonight. I had planned to load this and the Barcelona piece today but Chris’ stopped by and that put paid to that idea.
Rab says my pieces are too long to hold any interest for readers. But that comment misses the point. This blog is the published version of the diary I keep for my pleasure in years to come, to refresh my memory of the days we have enjoyed. If I rabbit on at times, I won’t mind. But since there is nothing more to say today, I’ll call it quits.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Claps of thunder, bolts of lightning, buckets of rain – that was the welcome we had to Gibraltar this morning, with no sign whatsoever of the chunk of rock that is so important still to Britain. It was hidden in the mist and clouds and that led to a review of our plan of a cable car ride and shopping before meeting Jo our pal from the old days who now lives in Spain.
Going out on deck, it seemed unlikely that the day would clear up, even if the massive storm blew over. Of course I had no idea from which direction Gibraltar weather came but that really didn’t matter. There was rain and low clouds 360 degrees around the ship. We decided to give it an hour and review the situation again – the same delay the tour people announced a couple of minutes later, while cancelling the tour to watch the dolphins. I also got a text off to Jo telling her about the weather and the fact that the ship was leaving two hours earlier than I had told her in case she wanted to call off her trip. She replied that they were on their way although she told us when we met that they had almost turned back when they ran into the storm as it headed off to Spain.
We canned the idea of going up The Rock by cable car when we left the ship at nine(ish) because although the heavy rain had stopped and given way to the occasional shower, there was heavy cloud covering the top of the island and it didn’t really seem worthwhile going up there. We have, after all, seen the inside of clouds before and Rab had even met the Barbary Apes on her previous visit and I’ve seen a few monkeys and apes in my time.
So that left us with the shopping and we caught a taxi into town. It was within a walking distance but for £1.50 a head we though we’d spare our feet. The entrance to the town is through a massive arched doorway, unadorned and not very attractive which gave way to a paved square of rather unattractive looking shops. There were very few people about and it struck us that this could be St Helena on a slightly larger scale. People have commented before that very few of the British Colonies and Dominions have the panache of the French, Spanish and Italian settlements and this seems to be true, although Bermuda may be an exception. We walked up the main street, past the British Home Store BHS where we were to meet Jo and Chris, but there was not much of interest to see.
Most of the shops were closed – it was Saturday morning, so maybe that was the reason; it was only 9.45 – maybe it was too early; whatever the reason, the wet and the lack of signs of life did not immediately endear us to Gib. There weren’t even many memorials or statutes around and one commemorating the First World War had been damaged, with the soldier’s bayonet broken off his rifle. He looks as if he’s trying to see where it has gone.
Rab was just about to go into Marks and Spencers to see if she could get some cosmetics she needed when we got a text from Jo saying that they had arrived, a little earlier than planned. Since it seemed unlikely that there were any really interesting shops in the part of town we hadn’t seen and since there was no prospect of the cloud lifting, we said we’d meet up with her in about half an hour and started heading back down town. Rab was quite startled a couple of blocks down the road when Jo ambushed her, grabbing her and giving her a big hug.
It was good to see her again and to meet Chris, a friend who was visiting from England. Jo and I worked together in South Africa about 38 years ago and we have kept in touch over the years, if only because our birthdays are a week apart and that has given us an excuse to track each other down to send good wishes. We have met up from time to time; as far as we could calculate, the last time was when we were living in Kalk Bay about ten or twelve years ago. We see each other from time to time on Skype, but it was tremendous being physically together.
There was a lot of ground to cover – poor Chris must have been a bit bored – and after about an hour and cup of cappuccino, we paused the verbal exchange and checked the weather again. No change, so we moved down hill closer to the busses and found a pub where we had a couple of beers and more chat.
Finally it was time to head back to the ship for us – to the supermarket for Jo. Who knows if or when we’ll meet again? Based on previous experience, it could be anywhere from Iceland to Antarctica.
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