Good Friday, April 10th 2009 – Back to the Womb

46°22'N, 24°16'W, 1000 miles gone, 2000 to go (give or take a bit).

 

I half-woke several times in the night, being rocked gently in a circular motion, as though the ship was moving in a corkscrew path, and gravity was trying to keep me where I was.  In the depths of the night I decided I was back in the womb, thus fulfilling a basic desire we all have from time-to-time.  Needless to say, I slept like a baby.  At breakfast, one of my companions confessed to having had to get the Doctor and some sea-sick pills.  It's all in the mind, isn't it?  I spared her this enlightenment: or rather, I spared myself; it would not have gone down well.  The Captain described the night as "Boisterous".

The ship moves constantly.  It was a black-tie affair last night: as I weaved along the corridor, I imagined myself a latter-day Bertie Wooster, sqiffy as a newt.

The Captain seemed very pleased to see me, and insisted on a photograph as a record of the occasion.  I shall sign it if he asks me.  I took the opportunity to enlighten him as to the stolen nature of the ship's name: the Queen Mary II was a Clyde pleasure steamer of my childhood, now seeing out its terminal years as an up-market pub in the shadow of Waterloo bridge.  I pointed out to him that there was actually a painting in one of the lifts of the QEII under test on the Clyde, with the real QMII in the foreground, its name clearly visible on its bow.  His admiration of this erudition expressed itself in awe-struck silence.  I rammed home my advantage: "What will Lloyds have to say about it?" I demanded.  He recovered his corporate image in a flash: "Which Lloyds?" was his riposte, rather neatly hoisting me by my own petard.

The ship rocked (or rather corkscrewed) on through the night.  The columns in the discotheque are padded: the evening was a bizarre cross between dancing and rugby practice.  I woke up with an extra phone number, and a some unexplained bruises.  The phone number: I met a lady from Delaware.  "I'm going to Glasgow, Delaware", I informed her, grandly (it was after dinner).  "I live in Glasgow, Delaware", she told me.  Everyone was trumping me tonight.  But she even trumped herself:  "and", she added, "I used to live in Glasgow Pennsylvania".  I have recruited her for an advance scouting mission, to find me a local historian.