Sunday 28 August 2005

Afloat


Yes, nice holiday, thank you.
Samuel Johnson said that going to sea is like going to prison with the chance of being drowned, and a hundred years later Dickens wrote that passengers ate in "a hearse with windows”, and that for lunch there might be "a dismal spread of pig’s face, cold ham, salt beef” or perhaps "a smoking mess of hot collops”, and dinner would be “more potatoes and meat” climaxed by "a rather mouldy dessert of apples, grapes and oranges”.

Sea-going is rather more pleasant these days, and very little pig’s face is offered on board.

The person, or possibly the two people, who would like to see 64 holiday photos, mostly of us sitting at tables eating or drinking, will find them HERE.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Call me a masochist, but I did look at all 64! That was written in jest. I enjoyed the pictures of the Forth Rail Bridge and one of my old haunts, the Kenilworth as well as the mists at Vatnahalsen. Looks like you had a pleasant summer!

Tony said...

How kind! That makes THREE who will have looked at them!
I was last at the Edinburgh Festival in 1948 (hitch-hiked up), the year Robert Kemp of the Evening News unknowingly said "Round the fringe of the official Festival drama there seems to be a more private enterprise than before..."
We were there only for a few hours, the day before the Festival proper began; the Fringe was in full swing and we were very fortunate to catch a marvellous play The Watcher. Next year we think we might go up for a few days around the same time; not only is Edinburgh fun during the Fringe, but if you're lucky you can get into the previews of some Festival events, free.