The Journey

The alarm went off at 4:50. With some reluctance I levered myself out of the perfectly Dave shaped hole I'd made in our wonderful memory foam mattress. Janet was in excited and chatty mood. I don't really do excited about going on holiday. On a good day I can manage mild anticipation but never before noon.

I don't do chatty at any time. I listened with a mixture of admiration and horror as she added the taxi driver to our Christmas card list and then collected enough information for a couple of decent biographies whilst we waited for the coach.

The coach looked very swish although the carpeted ceiling was a bit odd. A stray note on a drawing and a carelessly placed arrow and it can easily happen. Like designers everywhere the coach builder had decided to pretend it was intentional and to brazen it out by carpeting the seats as well. If the seats were made of memory foam they had Alzheimer's and could only remember when they were very young slabs of plastic. Sleep was out of the question. Avoiding the loss of a leg by circulation failure and gangrene was a far more important objective.

From our seats at the back of the coach we could see the usual sea of grey hair with pink bits but this lot seemed a bit less decrepit than normal. Not so many ordinary people trying to look posh and more posh people trying to look ordinary. Some people were reading the Guardian - not in that sneaky 'I'm a bit ashamed of my liberal tendencies' way you get on P&O cruises but more full frontal and proud.

We are of course only doing the first two weeks of a 40 day cruise across the Atlantic and down the eastern seaboard of America. It's a bit out of the ordinary and so might attract some out of the ordinary people. Janet should have the chance to chat to some really interesting characters. I think I'm beginning to feel mild anticipation.

Dave.
Saturday evening.