Thursday 17 May 2012

All At Sea


Lisbon hums. That scene in Independence Day when the alien spaceships arrive above the skyscrapers? Sailing under Lisbon’s Tagus Bridge on an nineteen-deck luxury cruise liner is like that: very loud and uncomfortably close. Trains and cars rumble overhead; their underbellies visible through the metal grid roadway of the second longest suspension bridge in Europe. After Lisbon, it’s going to take us two days to sail home and I can’t wait

We arranged the cruise last year, before anyone mentioned redundancy, and from the moment it was booked I started to lose sleep, worrying about Dylan falling overboard or going missing in a foreign country. One of the first things that happens after we sail out of Southampton is Holly loses her security pass. This is not a good start. Our evening meal arrangements mean we have to leave Dylan in his cot while we go to the restaurant, and I'm not prepared to do this if there's a chance someone else has access to our cabin. My paranoia grows exponentially when I realise that Dylan's security pass is also missing. We search every corner of the room and then Holly has an idea. She hands Dylan one of those mock credit cards that come with new purses to see what happens, and he does exactly what he's seen us do: he runs to the door and sticks it in the slot. Unfortunately, he can't reach the slot beneath the doorhandle, so he sticks it in the metal grate at the bottom of the door. Pass-posting: from the look on Dylan's face, you'd think it's the best game ever.

The following morning, after a rough night in the Bay of Biscay, he throws up all over me.

We have a few days at sea before we reach Spain, so I teach Dylan how to blow raspberries on peoples’ arms and sing ‘woo-hoo’ in the style of KT Tunstall. He loves the boat and everyone onboard seems to love him. Unlike the other toddlers, who are mostly carried or kept in buggies, Dylan runs everywhere and is always at least five feet in front of us. He calls the lifts, climbs the stairs, greets the other passengers and high fives the waiters. In the afternoons he flits between the many swimming pools and dives head first into a jacuzzi. Even the captain knows his name.


It's raining in Malaga and we give our umbrella to the mums so their hair doesn't get wet. Then we give our map to an old guy who's lost not far from the ship. Dylan sleeps under the waterproof canopy of his buggy while Holly and I splash through puddles and soak up the scenery.

Corfu is ridiculously hot and the kerbs are a foot-high nightmare for pushchairs. We march across the town to the old fort where there is space for Dylan to run around, before finding a café and sharing an ice cream. This, we realise, is going to be the template for the rest of our stops.

The Croatian island of Korcula is picturesque and unspoiled, with fantastic views across the Adriatic Sea. It’s also one big, stepped hill. Venice is lots of little, stepped bridges with thousands of tourists competing for every inch of land. We find a deserted café, which opens up into a deserted hotel, which leads to a beautiful and secluded Venetian garden, where we drink prosecco while Dylan rearranges the chairs

In Dubrovnik’s old town, a girl photographs Dylan’s smile for an art project. In Messina there’s very little to do on a Sunday afternoon. In Cádiz, we entrust Dylan to the mums and go sherry tasting in Jerez. We end up sharing a table with a lovely couple who tell us all about their precocious nine year old grandson. When we mention our two year old, they say ‘Oh we know Dylan…'

Which brings us back to Lisbon. We leave the boat and a guy tries to sell me sunglasses. Another guy tries to sell me an eight ball of drugs. I’m an unemployed, thirty-six year old father pushing his sleeping son in a buggy—I have to wonder how good his customer segmentation is. Maybe it's spot on.



On the boat, Dylan urinates all over my Bruce Springsteen t-shirt (while I’m wearing it) so I teach him to wash his hair with baked bean juice. Every night, after he goes to bed, Holly and I hide in the bathroom until he falls asleep. Then we go to the Metropolis bar where I drink White Russians, vodka martinis or dry sherry, depending on whether I’m the Big Lebowski, James Bond or Frasier. After our evening meal, we creep back into our room and listen to Dylan talking in his sleep.

Finally, it’s time to sail home for the start of my term as the stay-at-home parent. The sea is calm like silk, and dolphins jump in pairs while the sun drowns in the horizon. The service on the cruise has been impeccable and we’ve had a lot of fun, but we've never stopped being parents. Parenting, I'm learning, is a job as much as it is a privilege, and you're always on duty. I’ve literally aged a year.

On our second to last night Dylan comes down with the fever. We leave the restaurant early and find him crying in his cot. And there's a note outside our door warning us that one of Dylan's friends from the Toy Box has been diagnosed with Chicken Pox.