Independence of the Seas

Yay I sailed the Seven Seas and survived, ok I'm exaggerating again I know as it wasn't seven seas more like two and a bit I think. I don't really know, as I don't know whether the Bay of Biscay is a whole sea or what, but what I do know is it can be very dodgy out there and I'm back!

I'm sitting here swaying a bit still... weird as when I stand I feel like I'm leaning into a slope... and I'm also sitting here sporting the worst haircut ever. Honestly I look like those women at the end of World War 2 who had fraternised with the other side and had their hair hacked off. Only difference being is they got to have sex and I paid hard earned cash instead for the privilege of looking like a rat has been gnawing at my hair!

I do however recommend cruising, they are so prepared for disabled people with any problems. Half an hour if that to check in and be on board the most amazing ship that I've ever seen and everything in your cabin ready and away you go. And I am a real panickier, but it was so smoothly done.

I did I'm ashamed to say have a couple of meltdown moments. Firstly letting go. Where I had less oxygen to take away with me then hoped, we decided that I should stay in my chair as much as possible and let my friends push me around and fetch and carry. A perfectly sensible idea, but after a couple of days I felt that I was not pulling my weight and that no one would want to go away again with me as I was hard work. After all they had paid all that money for a holiday too and they were having to push me everywhere and run about for me. This first meltdown was after a second bad night of sleeping.
I was petrified that Ann wouldn't be able to sleep with the noise of the concentrator.
This was an empty worry, as I have never met anyone that as soon as they put their head down, that they start snoring in a deep sleep. That can't actually be normal, but that's another story. But me being me every time she stopped snoring I thought she was laying there wide awake wishing that the machine would shut up.
So I got tearful through being tired and not being able to earn my keep so to speak.

A very kind and sensible Derek sat and talked me thorough the fact is wasn't that I was being bad tempered (which I thought I was and the girls are probably agreeing with me if reading this), but he said that I was feeling tearful because I was frustrated I was not in control of my own life anymore. He told me that we were all there because we all liked holidaying together and they wanted to help me otherwise they wouldn't be there and would have left me on top deck by now. So what if I needed the loo again or I had forgotten my sweatshirt, friends help each other. When put like that... snap out of it Debbie.

Still having a sea of crutches and backsides at your eye level is more than a bit daunting at times and yes I did put the brake on when Julie was pushing me, causing her to nearly land on my lap. But she had just run over a ladies foot five minutes earlier and the old boy in front of me was getting dangerously near and oe of the many slaps round the back of my head warned me not to pull that stunt again! Yes I did panic when I felt too crowded in, but I would have felt like that even out of a wheelchair to be honest.

The second meltdown was when we were in Vigo, Spain. We had had a really good walk about and I had got used to hearing Julie sounding like she was going to have an asthma attack behind me. Then she would get to where we were going and lit up another fag bless her!
We then came back to the ship to see a queue a mile long to get thorough customs back to the two ships that were in dock and plus two steep slopes to conquer.
We had decided that if we had a gap in front of us, it would make getting up the slopes easier. This time it was Ann's turn even though I did offer to get out and push myself.
Out from the crowd comes a strong knight not in shining armour, but a baseball cap, who offered to push me up the first slope... brilliant we thought... err wrong. The man turned into a complete idiot who kidnapped me and run up both slopes yelling 'get out the way, wheelchair coming thorough' and knocked people who were queuing quietly out of his way.
I was mortified. I screamed at him to stop, which seemed to excite him and make him run faster and when I got to the top, it was a toss up to either thump the shite out of him or crying... I chose the latter.
I wanted to ask him in what universe was it ok to basically to use someone as a human battering ram to get to the front of a queue. Instead I snarled at him thorough gritted teeth 'don't ever touch my chair again'. Ann came puffing and panting up the slope behind him and took charge of my chair again, apologising profusely to everyone.
A very kind American lady told me not to worry, that she was sure the old man behind her would grow another leg and be able to walk again, that was of course once he was able to get up from his coma on the floor... no she didn't say that, but she did say that everyone gathered that he wasn't actually with me by my screams!

Right that's the meltdown moments over and now I can tell you how wonderful it was to sit in the sunshine in a hot jacuzzi over looking the sapphire blue sea and pinching myself, because I never thought that I'd ever get abroad again with my friends.
Giggling your heads off after getting addicted to frozen Mojitos and blessing whoever invented cocktail hour.
Or Julie deciding it was a brilliant idea to push me around the top deck in a force 6gale. It will be bracing she said and it was, especially when we got to the other end of the ship and the doors to the lifts were locked because of the strong winds and we had to do the journey back down the whole length of the ship again. Bless her she looked like Buster Keaton in the film where he was straining to walk in a gale. All I could hear was her wheezing behind me. Ann was trying to chase her cigarettes and lighter as they had blown out of her pockets as her cardigan blew over her head. Her seapass was the casualty as that was blown overboard as her cigarettes were far more important than getting into our room! No one could speak at the time as all our faces were pulled back with the G-force!
Luckily we managed to get back in through the doors we started from and then I had to administer my oxygen to Julie who was slumped against a wall turning blue! That was before she owned up that at one time, the wind had actually blown me out of her grip... I would have withheld my oxygen if I had known that!

The only single man that I actually spoke to was with his mother and he seemed quite chatty. Met him and his mother in the Jacuzzi and then a couple of times more. I thought what a caring man, he can't be all that bad... and then I saw him dance. Oh my goodness. Am I really so picky that there was no way that I could ever be interested in a man that looked like someone having an epileptic fit while doing Morris dancing?! I guess I must so, because after all, I'm the catch of the century... not!

We had an amazing trip around Lanzarote or however you spell it, which proved that I was a wimp. There's no way I would live on an island that blew up that many times. I would have been in a little boat paddling for all I was worth. We got burnt in Gran Canaria and even now when I take off my t-shirt, there's a shower of dry skin... yuk. Still at least I didn't look like Madge lookalike from the tv programme Benidorm who was sitting topless on the beach. I think I may be scarred for life after that sight. Darling, the pickled walnut look ain't this seasons look believe me.

I'm proud to say that I clapped like a silly girl when Captain Thao was lowered down on a floating bridge to address us all one night. And yes I am proud to say that I moved my chair deliberately, so the fat arsed female who stood in front of me at the parade, caught her ankles on the chair a couple of times...Ooops!

Well Julie, Derek and Ann (Oh and Captain Thao) thank you for the best holiday ever. And yes Ann, I still blame you for annoying the hairdresser so much with your 'don't cut too much off' and tears that she took it out on my hair afterwards! At one point we thought the two security guards we saw going in the saloon, were there to forcefully remove you from the chair where you were trying to gather your hair back up even though you looked gorgeous. I guess mine will grow in few years.

Till the next one

Lots of love Debbie x