Cruise Passengers Ashore are a Breed Apart
We went for a coffee in Santa Catalina Square one morning a few weeks ago, when three gin palaces dwarfed the port of Las Palmas. They resemble brutalist blocks of flats of at least 11 storeys high and tip out thousands of day trippers who wander the streets aimlessly or go on the open-topped hop on, hop off buses until it’s time to sail on to the next port. Cruise people can be easily identified because they dress differently from ordinary holiday makers and the indigenous population. This is a city, albeit with a beach, so although there are hundreds of holiday makers at any one time, it has a different vibe, and shorts and tshirts are the uniform for most people. It’s easy to pick out the cruise women in floaty dresses with large hats, or totally unsuitable jumpsuits, and the men in well pressed, but usually too short shorts and Hawaiian shirts, as having docked that morning and then they float off in the evening.
A party of four northerners, two couples no longer young, (although you would not have known that from their dress sense), took the table next to us. The jaded waiter stared at them for a few minutes, no doubt wondering how long it would take them to decide what they wanted and how many times they would change their minds. This was probably his tenth cruise group of the morning. He strolled over unwillingly. The conversation went like this.
‘What are you having, Julie?’
‘I’ll just have an orange juice, Beryl.’
‘Will yer? Oh.’
‘Why, what did you want, Beryl?’
Sighs. ‘I don’t know really’.
One of the men says he’ll have a beer.
‘Thought you would, Ted. You can always be relied on for a cerveza, can’t you?’
‘Cerveza! Very good Julie, picking up the lingo aren’t you?’
The second man decides on a sangria which causes a flutter.
‘That’s daring John, fancy you having a sangria!’
‘When in Rome’, says John airily.
The waiter who has remained aloof until now but now checks that it’s one beer, one orange, one sangria.
‘Oh go on then’, says Beryl, ‘I’ll have a sangria, let’s live a little!’
The waiter escapes before anyone can change their minds, but then Julie’s been thinking, says, ‘I think I might like a sangria’.
‘Instead of an orange, Julie? I’ll tell him’.
Beryl leaps up to change the order, which is a strain on her all-in-one jungle print shorts jumpsuit. She shimmies enthusiastically over to where the waiter had wearily given the order. His colleague has already put an orange juice and a jug of sangria for two on a tray. They exchange a look, say nothing, just sigh heavily and the bar woman removes the orange juice and the jug. He brings a pint over for Ted, with a nod that said ‘I understand, fella. It’s not easy, is it?’
The sangria came and they were delighted, taking selfies of the rapidly emptying glasses from every angle and sending them off to who knows who. Within a minute Beryl’s phone rang and the conversation went like this.
‘Hello Love. (It’s our Cheryl) Where are you love?... Shopping, she’s shopping. I’ll put you on speaker, Love. Your Dad’s here with Auntie Julie and Uncle Ted’.
Cheryl asks them if they’re having a nice time. They all chorus that it’s lovely and they shan’t want to come home.
Beryl asks if Cheryl’s in the shopping centre.
‘Yes, I am ‘cos it’s raining’ says Cheryl.
‘Ooo’, Say Beryl and Julie together. ‘Raining, is it?’
‘Yes’, says a disgruntled Cheryl.
‘We’re having a sangria, Cheryl’. Says Beryl. ‘Well, not your dad’.
‘I’m having a beer’, says Dad.
‘A cerveza!’ Says Beryl. ‘What are you drinking love?’
Just a Vimto, Mum
‘A cheeky Vimto?’ Says Dad wittily.
‘No, just an ordinary one, Dad’.
We left stuffing hankies in our mouths …
There’s also another subspecies of cruise passengers, usually elderly, who arrive wearing bush hats, hiking trousers with a hundred and one pockets and carrying hiking poles to assist their earnest march down the perfectly flat 4km promenade. They have a permanently anxious expression in case a particularly difficult hillock bobs up in front of them unexpectedly. They don’t seem to go into the cafes and restaurants, so perhaps they have survival rations and a coffee percolator in their numerous bulging pockets. As a breed they are difficult to capture on camera without being obvious.
Gran Canaria needs the trade that the cruise ships bring each day. There’s a huge, half-empty shopping centre right next to the cruise ship terminal which has filled a few more shops in the many years we’ve been staying here, but it’s nowhere near full yet. Passengers can be seen in the hypermarket in the centre buying a bottle of water and some sweets, proffering a 100 euro note. The look on the assistant’s face is priceless each time. We would like to enjoy more of the Julie and Beryls if it helps the local economy.
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I’ve read
Orbital by Samatha Harvey. I know it’s won the Booker and other prizes but it was not for me. It’s a short book but it still took me days to get through the odd ten pages at a time. Coincidentally I saw a quote in The Emotion Thesaurus by Ackerman and Puglisi. ‘All successful novels have one thing in common: emotions … Without emotion a character’s personal journey is pointless …Why? Because readers pick up a book to have an emotional experience’. This is the book that broke the rule for me but I know lots of people love it. Interestingly, most I’ve spoken to who loved it listened to it on Audible, a different experience and maybe I should have done that too. Maybe I will one day to see in the spirit of experimentation, or maybe not.
The Dutch Wife by Ellen Keith which won a prize for best new fiction in 2016, is a page turner, mainly because the reader dreads what the next page will bring for the heroine of the book. It’ has two timelines - WW2 Germany and 1970s Argentina (the Dirty war). The Argentina thread was the weaker of the two. I was less invested in that, dire though it was, but the plight of the Dutch wife of the title was gripping. I’ve read lots of WW2 novels but none tackling the subject of brothels in concentration camps, so it was never going to be a walk in the park but even so I recommend it if you’re into WW2 stories.
I’m listening to
The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. Shortlisted for the Booker prize. I’ve still got four hours left to listen to this book, and unfortunately I was listening to it at 0.7 speed without realising it and it was tedious. I’ve speeded it up now and it will be more enjoyable. However it is about the minutiae of one woman’s life, living a very small lonely life in the Dutch countryside, in 1961. Isabel is bitterly resentful of her brother’s girlfriend, Eva, whom he dumps on her as a house guest. Her life is disrupted by Eva and she is suspicious and paranoid about things going missing, until aroused and infatuated. I will finish the book but I can’t say i’m absorbed in it.
I’ve watched
SAS Rogue Heroes BBC1 and Player. six episodes. Second series. Very lively, well written and acted. WW2. The SAS have moved from the desert and posted to go ahead of the invasion of Sicily, then into mainland Italy. Relationships are complex, violence is hideous, and the series compelling.
The Six Triple Eight. Netflix films. This is a great true story of a US Women’s Army Corps unit of colour sent to the UK in WW2 to take on a seemingly impossible task of dealing with a huge backlog of mail for the troops overseas. The story is wonderful; the film is a soggy sentimental mush. Shame, it could have been brilliant with a bit of grit applied!
The Split, Barcelona, BBC Iplayer. Loved this series when it first came out and this latest one centering on Hannah’s wedding in Barcelona is a glorious finale to this story. Bit predictable and schmalzy at the end but it had a real feel good atmosphere all the way through, and the scenery was stunning. Watch it for a good night in.
"A cheeky Vimto?" Hahahahaah - love it x
You described cruise passengers ashore very well. I know the breed quite well from my time in Venice. Maybe it's one of the reasons why I have never gone on a cruise.