*************** THE IMAGES ***************
There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.
You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************
… today it’s thrown out my sleep rhythm yet again and now I’m not doing even as well asI have been doing just recenly.
No chance of getting out of bed on time today. I had to wait until all three alarms went off before I stirred my stumps.
And I’m glad that I did because the view was splendid. The rising sun, a clear blue sky, and icebergs. Thousands of them. Small sharp growlers and massive mega-monoliths, and all sizes in between.
So enchanting was it that not only did I forget my morning coffee and leave it to go cold, but I forgot my medication too.
At breakfast, I had dozens of people coming up to me to congratulate Strawberry Moose on his outfit and his dancing last night at the Viking Disco.
I tell you – he’s far more popular than I ever have been. My morale has been totally undermined, being upstaged by a moose!
After breakfast (which I took with Heather) I went back to my room and crashed out for an hour or so. During that time I was interrogated by Laszlo (the maitre d’hotel on board ship) as to why I hadn’t done my homework. And so I dashed off some work in rather a hurry and sure enough, I saw him a little later while I was in the company of another girl (and who it was now I really can’t remember) and just as he was about to talk to me about my homework – or rather, the lack thereof – I handed him my papers. It wasn’t without an air of disappointment because I’m sure that I could do better than what I did but I was far too concerned with my new companion than with anything else.
Once I was back in the Land Of The Living we spent the morning photographing icebergs, of which there were more than enough, in Melville Bay, said by some to be the most treacherous waters in the Arctic but we had a good passage. And each time that I said to myself that I had more than enough photographs of icebergs, something even bigger and better would go sailing past.
It was probably the most astonishing spectacle that I have seen – some kind of nautical danse macabre of solid masses of fresh water that fell to earth as rain probably 20,000 years ago and which we as humans are cascading into the sea in the matter of a generation.
Lunch was again taken at The Naughty Table (I really don’t know why I’m so popular with some people – I’m not the kind of company that I would choose were I ever to have the choice) and then this afternoon we had another series of lectures.
The photography was once more something that attracted my attention and I sat right the way through it. I’m not sure why though because there wasn’t an awful lot that I didn’t know. But I ought to be doing something, I suppose.
But I was annoyed completely by one of my fellow group members. Someone went to sit on an empty seat in front of someone else and asked if they might be in the way of this woman, as a gesture of politeness and nothing more. Her response was “you’re right in my way” in such an aggressive tone that it startled some of us.
I’m not sure why she didn’t just sit in the seat in front if she was so concerned about having The Perfect View. “Hmmmm. American …” I mused to myself.
A little later I sat in the corner doing some of my own stuff, looking at someone who was quite obviously totally iceberged-out and I was listening to a couple of staff rehearsing for a concert in a few days time. But I had been slowly noticing my change in mood as I drift into a deep depression and this is usually the signal for a bout of ill-health to come on.
I can read the signs now, I reckon, so I headed off to my room while I was still able to do so and crashed out on the bed. An hour or so later I awoke with a panic attack (which I haven’t had for quite a considerable while) which led immediately to an attack of cramp.
Somehow I had it in my head that I had missed my evening meal so I dashed upstairs to find that my body clock had pushed the time on a couple of hours. Still 90 minutes to the evening meal. I’d had a good sleep but the deep depression was still there and I couldn’t shake it off or snap out of it.
I suppose that it was inevitable that I would sink into the pit at some time during this voyage. I’ve been hovering on the brink for the last 10 days after all.
Back at The Naughty Table for tea. I had a vegetable samosa which was delicious and when I return I’m going to make a few if I can. They were that nice and it’s high time that I set to with a will and expanded my culinary repertoire.
I’ve finally found a lounge where there is a good selection of power points. It’s rather public so it isn’t much good for during the day unfortunately but in the evening it seems to be fine and the view is impressive. Once more, I’ve put Colosseum Live
Not that I was there for too long though. We had a change of time zone last night and moved the clocks back one hour. This evening, we have to do the same again. So once the fatigue started to creep in I decided to call it a day.
No point in waiting to see if there would be any northern lights tonight either. The sky had clouded right over and it was really difficult to see anything at all. Certainly no Arctic twilight either. I did make it onto the bridge though and we are steering course 133° – that’s almost directly south-east.
The kids were still up though. They had been for their hot tub splash and were having fun in the rear lounge. Good luck to them, say I. I stayed for a few minutes and chatted about nothing in particular – I’m usually far too unsociable, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
And so to bed. Not much sleep tonight so I’ve just pulled the alarms back half an hour. I’ll do the other half-an-hour tomorrow night and see how that fits in with everything.
