2 weeks Ago By By The Newsroom
Well at least you’re on dry land. And your place of employment isn’t rocking from side to side like one of the world’s biggest cruise ships on stormy seas, surrounded by seasick kids and their mums and dads draining every last cent from the all-inclusive drinks package they paid for. Daughter #2 has now done seven weeks on a cruise ship which sails down the East Coast of the US to the Bahamas and back every nine days.
And it has been as enjoyable as it has been varied, with only 15 weeks to go until her tour of duty is over. Advertisement Advertisement Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Lancashire Evening Post, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Take this week, for example, for a 1980s night.
Her job, at 1am, was to run around the deck dressed as a ghost from Pac-Man. Blinky, the red one. While four of her colleagues were Pinky, Inky, Clyde and Pac-Man himself.
Like Pac-Man, a lot of people I knew in the 1990s spent their time off running around dark rooms and devouring pills to the sound of repetitive, hypnotic, electronic music. But Daughter #2 was playing the game IRL, as they say. Strange things happen at sea.
And thanks to the wonders of WhatsApp voice messages and pictures on Instagram , we get an edited highlights package a couple of mornings a week. Seasickness is pretty unpleasant. The only time yours truly experienced it was on the “Vomit Comet” ferry from Heysham to the Isle of Man in 2000, when Daughter #1 was five months old.
Seasick babies are no fun. But, as the Boss pointed out, now I know a little bit what morning sickness is like. Daughter #2 told us she’s getting through it with flat Fanta.
Advertisement Advertisement Back on terra firma, Daughter #1’s two-week trip to paradise (Bali) is over, but not before she sent us what at first glance appeared to be her and her friends’ home-made version of a Jet2 commercial, in a similar style to her Lost Village festival short from a few weeks ago. It lasts around a minute or so and each clip is about a second long, beginning at Manchester Airport Departures and taking in the sights of speedboat rides, luxury villas, moped trips (she was warned, but did she listen?) and a Butch and Sundance-style leap of faith with a buddy off a platform the size of our house into the sea. Thank God we only found out about the moped and the high board daredevil act after the event.
The flight home was long and she slept through most of it, but the jet lag hit her like a ton of wet cement back in rainy Manchester - and then she was back at work the next day like nothing had happened. When you’re in your 50s, like me and the Boss, that could hospitalise you if you’re not careful. When you’re in your early 20s, like Daughter #2, you shake it off like a wet umbrella and get on with your life.
To read more Who’s The Daddy click here.
