Travel writing
I enjoy the creativity of travel writing and would like to do more. I’m for hire to travel editors who need copy!
Here are some samples of my work:
A mini-cruise aboard Fred. Olsen’s Boudicca. (Press and Journal October 6, 2011)
We lean over the sun-bleached deck to watch the crew casting off and the tug boats pulling us away from the pier.
On a warm, sunny evening, our ship eases away from Rosyth and heads down the Forth, gliding beneath both bridges towards the North Sea for the night sail to Orkney.
We travel at a queenly pace, befitting a ship named Boudicca. Plenty of time to train the binoculars on the shores of East Lothian, passing the Isle of May, the Bass Rock, North Berwick and its Law. I’m childishly excited to see a part of the country I know well drift by from a different perspective.
I had never considered a cruise holiday before. I had always imagined I wasn’t the cruise type, whatever that is. Perhaps I had imagined a nightmare of thousands of people herded into a tiny space and told when to eat and what to do. Perhaps I had heard too much about norovirus outbreaks. Or perhaps I simply thought it was out of my league, for rich people.
Within ten minutes on deck, my mind is set on a different course. Life on the ocean wave is definitely for me, I decide, as I feel all the stress and cares of my life ashore draining away with every nautical mile north.
What to do next? Stay out on deck until the stars come out, cocktail in hand? Find a quiet place on board to curl up with a book? Fall into conversation with other passengers- they all seem very friendly, they are constantly squirting their hands with sanitiser to avoid spread of infection and they don’t seem intimidatingly rich or anything. Maybe I could drift into the spa for a pampering treatment, or slip into the Jacuzzi? Or perhaps I could simply dine until my waistband bursts and then dance off the calories to music by the ship’s band?
On our four-day mini-cruise, destination Bergen, Norway, there is plenty of time to do all those things and more.
It’s a Fred. Olsen tour, and I’d heard that ‘Freds’ as aficionados call the company, takes great care of its passengers, fostering a friendly atmosphere on board and priding itself on creating a home-from-home feeling.
With a passenger-staff ratio of less than three to one on board Boudicca, you feel that nothing is too much trouble for the 358 smiling, smartly dressed crew, many of whom were Philippino. Indeed I tried to summon up the primadonna within me to think of things I could order to my cabin.
But everything had been thought of in our luxury balcony suite, from the champagne and daily canapés to the fruit basket, bathrobes, slippers and binoculars. The only time we had to summon our cabin stewardess was to report a leaking tap late one night. A temporary fix was carried out while we were at dinner, and next day the entire tap was replaced by two quiet, efficient plumbers. If only we got service like that at home, we lamented.
We were allocated a table and a sitting in one of the restaurants which we were supposed to adhere to throughout. For independent travellers like ourselves, this wasn’t what we particularly wanted- and that was fine with the staff. We do our own thing, availing ourselves of Boudicca’s self-serve café, the Secret Garden at the times we want to eat.
That’s the thing I discovered about cruising. You can do as much or as little as you like. You can participate in deck games, quizzes, port talks, cocktails, entertainments and dancing- or not, as the mood takes you.
You can chat all day to other passengers, you can eat, drink and pamper non-stop, you can leave ship at port- or not. Nobody minds. They know it’s your holiday, and the crew want you to be happy.
Oscar, maître d’ of the Secret Garden told us: ‘We love our job and it makes us happy to see the passengers enjoying themselves.’
The incomparable Oscar has the Secret Garden functioning like a well-oiled machine, with nobody having to wait more than an instant for a table, drinks top-ups, table-clearing.
The buffet is superb, with something for all tastes- meat, chicken , fish in various delicious guises, plenty of salads and an irresistible selection of desserts.
Morning coffee and afternoon tea also take place here, with cups constantly filled by attentive staff and an array of exquisite baking by the ship’s two inspired pastry chefs.
In the other three restaurants, elegant dining includes roast meats, grilled fish, seafood salads, delicate soups and classic desserts. Many are vegetarian, and many are designated with a heart to denote healthy options.
We learn that people can put on almost a pound every day on cruises- but Boudicca’s fine table means that at least the extra pounds come from delicious fare, hand-crafted with care.
And anyway, five laps of the promenading deck equal one mile, so you can bust those calories with some energetic walking.
As we retire with the balcony door open we hear the soothing rush of the waves and see the moon washing the sea with silver. It’s impossibly romantic.
However, chased by Hurricane Katia, the sea roughens to a Force 6 after our stop in Orkney. Some passengers are unwell. We enjoy a formal dinner with the Master and crew that night, and around 50% of the passengers don’t appear.
Sea-sickness is awful, by all accounts, but it’s not something to put you off cruising. There is an injection available from the on-board nurse which stops the misery in its tracks. You follow it up with tablets. A member of our party has the injection that night and she is brand-new next day, swimming in the pool, wallowing in the Jacuzzi and enjoying her food.
It’s grey and wet in Bergen, but this is only to be expected in a city which has 265 rainy days a year. We board a bus and enjoy a two hour tour of the city, packed with fascinating information from a local guide.
Had the weather been better we might have wandered around the town ourselves afterwards, but as it was we returned to the bosom of Boudicca for afternoon tea.
‘That’s the good thing about cruising,’observed my husband. ‘You have your hotel with you all the time.’
It’s a sea-day back to Newcastle- what bliss. A whole day to do nothing but stroll on the deck, breathe the salt air and relax, be pampered, eat, fall asleep in the library.
Buses are laid on to return us from Newcastle to Rosyth. Visiting my father later, he remarks: ‘The cruise has done you good. You are both sparkling.’
Life on the ocean wave- I thoroughly recommend it.
Torridon, Wester Ross (Press and Journal’s See Scotland supplement, September 6, 2008)
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