Day 74 - The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men. Gang aft agley. An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain.

Well, not quite as bad as that, but bad enough thanks Robbie.

Paula went to bed feeling just a little bit off colour, but at 12:50am, she made a sudden dash to the bathroom.  Yes, that dreaded noro virus had hit – and hard, very hard.  No point in going into the gory details but some time later she needed me to ring for the Doc.  I rang the 911 number and was told the medical centre would ring back.  They  didn’t, meanwhile I was very worried as Paula really was so ill.  I rang again and this time, I managed to speak to a Doctor.  He advised that as we had with us (fortunately in hand luggage as the main suitcase had gone) Imodium, that she should take two and also asked if we had any sea sickness pills, (we had, Avomine) to take one, but if no improvement in an hour, to ring back…

In an hour, there was no improvement so I rang back.  William came about 3am and gave Paula an injection in the shoulder.  Afterwards, she was still in the bathroom and let’s just say that the layout of the bathroom is conveniently small, so the clean-up hit  squad weren’t required.  Still feeling very weak and dizzy, I managed to get her to bed and I stayed up for another hour whilst she slept, just in case.  I managed to complete 4 tough Codeword puzzles…

Fortunately, the injection seemed to work OK and we’d been told by the Doc that as we’d notified them of the problem, it would affect our disembarkation (planned for 8:30am) and the front desk would call us for an ‘isolated disembarkation’, or words to that effect.  I wasn’t confined to the cabin but obviously Paula was.

So at 8am, I fetched a mug of water and lemon (each!) and Paula reluctantly got up and dressed.  About 8:45, I rang the front desk and they said we could head for Alfredo’s on deck 6 and we’d be disembarked at 9:30am.

For those in a similar situation in the future (and I hope you are not!) we stayed there until after one guy was despatched in a wheelchair.  He normally walked with a stick, but he probably made a good call.  We then were led out the short way from deck five (everyone else was going off at a higher level) and she stopped us in baggage claim and we had to wait whilst she fetched our single suitcase.  She then bid us farewell and we joined the crush to get out of the terminal building.

Fortunately, the queue for the taxi was non-existent so we hopped straight in and although it isn’t a long trip, it is too far to walk to the Enterprise depot, which is just outside dock gate 8.  Pity we didn’t berth at City Dock as it was only a 100m walk.  A six pound taxi fare.

I then patiently joined a queue of about 5 others whilst Paula sat outside.  Processing was slow, not helped by one couple who had booked an automatic, but they only had a manual, which they couldn’t drive, then a justifiably irate American family (of 4) who walked back in, saying they had booked a people mover and they couldn’t get their 10 suitcases into the vehicle.  This just slowed our processing even more then just as he was starting on my documentation, 4 Brummies walked in and were plying the overworked guy with a series of questions regarding a Transit van.  I politely asked them to just hang on whilst he finished my stuff as we’d been waiting a fair while.  They reluctantly backed off and as he was doing my documentation, a customer returned a Vauxhall Astra 2 litre diesel – which we accepted, as he was more than happy with it. 

So, we piled in and the boot was much smaller than the previous Octavia, but not a problem.

Paula was still hanging on, but very, very tired and we’d already decided it would be foolhardy to stay with brother Dave and Sue in Nottingham, as we didn’t want them infected.

Our plan was to head north anyway and if at any time, Paula wanted us to stop, we would.

August 1^st has to be one of the busiest days on the road in the UK because of the holiday traffic in all directions, so progress at times was much slower than normal.  I think we lost almost an hour overall.

Paula slept most of the way to the halfway point, by which time I certainly needed sustenance, so we stopped as usual at the Cherwill Services just off the M40/A43.  The first person I saw walking out was the wheelchair guy, though not fast enough to acknowledge him!

Paula managed a tea and I a coffee and a panini and we resumed.  Paula slept all the way again and we pulled into a Premier Inn, on the outskirts of Nottingham (A610).  Fortunately they had a room and once again,  Paula hit the sack – and there she stayed, with just another cuppa to keep her going.

I sneaked out for a chilli in the Beefeater Restaurant next door and they must have broken the record for service.   My drink and meal were on the table in less than 5 minutes!

An early bed then but a bit of television before crashing out.

So, the cruise didn’t exactly end on a positive note, but all things considered, at least it didn’t affect the cruise itself.  We were just so relieved that we weren’t heading for a flight to LA.

Check out tomorrow, can be as late as 12 noon, so once again, we’ll just have to see.

Almost a week in Nottingham now with Noah’s 5^th birthday party tomorrow.  Somehow, I don’t think Paula will be there.