Angry, uncomfortable and bored.

26 June 2017

The Norrona en route to Denmark.

I'm pissed off, angry, disgruntled, fed up, bored, lonely, homesick and tired of all these foreigners.

It shouldn't be like this because the morning started well. I woke late feeling refreshed and went for a shower. I undress and begin to run the shower, but there is no shower head - just a single jet of water. I get partially dressed again and move to the other one. It has a shower head but the heat control is broken and even after leaving it to run long enough to get my feet wet, I can't get it warm enough. Dry feet, put shoes, pants and t shirt on and stamp up and down the corridors looking for another male shower - Ah, there's one, thank goodness. It's locked. There is not a single male shower available on the couchette deck.

Sod it. I wash as best I can and decide to blow £16 on the full breakfast buffet. An hour later I'm cursing myself for having eaten too much. Greedy pig. I even saved a Danish pastry to eat later.

Ah well, I'll go and enjoy the sunshine on deck. It's a bright sunny morning with a stiff breeze and the gannets and fulmars are gliding along-side the ship, coasting above the white tops with effortless grace, ever in search of a meal. The Great Skuas too are doing the same sort of thing, but they are bulky and brown and lacking in grace. I'm looking at a string of islands and we are passing close enough to see details - smooth green on the tops and black cliffs cut into jagged shapes. It's the Shetland Islands and they're British!

What? How could I possibly feel homesickness at the sight of a place I've never been to and know little about.  It's an even stranger reaction from someone who would like to see the now Disunited Kingdom broken up. I don't wave a flag for the British state, but when someone asks me what my country is I say "Britain". I can't say "Wales" because Wales isn't a country and even if it were, part of me has to remain English.

When I've had enough of the cold wind I sit down to check on the email on my phone. I bought £20 worth of data last night - 20 megabites. I've checked a few emails, read a couple of news articles and I get a message saying "You've used all your data, but don't worry you can buy an add-on." How can I possibly have used all the data? Somehow I'm being ripped off, but the wifi here is so slow and expensive that I have no means of finding out what's happening. I have a contract for 500 megabites of data per month and in both the last months it ran out on the first day. Could it be "background use?" I go through the phone turning off all the "bloatware" I can find. What is all this crap and why is it legal? It's an Android phone so I'm being ripped off by one of two massively wealthy organisations: Google or the unpronounceable EE. They will probably tell me it's my fault.

It's 12:30 Faroes time, which is also GMT. Normally I would be hungry now and ready for a frugal lunch, but I don't feel at all hungry after my late breakfast. Unfortunately my lunch is already paid for, and the set lunch is a dreary meat and 2 veg type of things which I wouldn't fancy anyway. Perhaps I can get it credited to the evening meal. The supper would still cost an arm, but I might save the leg.

Done. Full marks to the young staff here. A couple of toes of the saved leg go on coffee 39DKK - that's £4.60. Is it a total rip-off or the result of our Brexit-devalued currency.

Bah Humbug!