Its not often I turn down a cruise… to be honest I am singularly the worlds worst person at saying no. I set my stall out at the beginning of every working year.

“Thats it I’m working two weeks on two weeks off all year” and then my agent says.. “what about this its only 2 days “ or “we shouldn’t really be burning any bridges”

Then I think about how hard I have had to work to get myself into this position and how incredibly privileged I am to be doing it at all and inevitably I relent.
But this time I had said no. And i was really upset about it.
I was asked to perform on the inaugural voyage of a brand new state of the art cruise ship. All of the head office would be there… anyone who’s anyone. I was to my knowledge the only female in the inaugural cruise guest entertainer line up and I had said no. Why? Well I had been away for 45 days prior to this and initially the offer for the job had coincided with 3 days during which steve was away from home anyway so I had accepted. But when the dates were changed to later that week and the realisation of yet more time away from Steve rose steeply in my mind, I made the decision to turn the offer down. As much as I knew it was a great opportunity for my career, it was not a great opportunity for my marriage. Any relationship is tough under the best of circumstances and it has taken Steve and I years to try and work out the formula for relative success. We can cope with being apart but for how long was reasonable? At what point do you have to put your life before your job?
The situation arose whilst I was still away across the atlantic on the beautiful Celebrity Constellation.
I spoke to steve

“You don’t seem yourself.” He said. “Is there something wrong?”

“I turned down the inaugural voyage today” I moaned. “They changed the dates and I absolutely cannot bear for us to spend anymore time apart after what we have just done throughout this winter”

“I agree” He added. “What are the new dates?”

I told him.

“If I can move some things around and get some help with my teaching commitments why don’t I come with you? Jayne this is a really big opportunity for you. We said we were going to take a mini break together in April and whilst I know this isn’t a holiday for you its quality time together isn’t it?”

“You would do that for me?” I asked “Seriously? At this time of year?”

“Yes Jayne. I will sacrifice a weekend of standing on a freezing cold driving range to come on a state of the art brand new cruise ship with you in Spain. It will be tough, but I will do that for you”

I smiled. How had he managed to make me feel like he was doing me a favour? His cheeky, seraphic smile emerged across his freckled face. That inimitable guise that meant no one could reasonably ever be mad at him.I reneged on my frustration at once again being conned by the ginger ninja and I allowed myself to become excited about the prospect of our trip together. This would be an adventure.

Before joining the Ship in Spain we would need to overnight there as no flights would get us into the port on time to catch the ship on the day of embarkation. So we headed out a day early to Bilbao. I had been here before as a port of call some years previous. It has a Guggenheim museum that I had made the mistake of going to with some other crew members who did not in anyway have an appreciation for modern art. It was one of the reasons I was so eager to go to MoMA when I was in New York (see previous blog) as my trip to the Guggenheim had been cut short by my party moaning they wanted to leave and that it was ‘boring’.
Other than that I had very little experience of Bilbao and to be honest pretty low expectations.

We were fortunate enough to be staying in a hotel right in the centre of the city. Silken Indautxu Hotel on the Plaza Bombero was a good hotel with friendly and helpful staff but most importantly was walking distance from what appeared to be the Centre of the bar and restaurant district. After a broken conversation with the taxi driver and some advice from reception of the hotel we decided to quickly change and head out down the hill and just see what happened.
Steve is jammier than a jar of preserve at the best of times but for some unbeknownst reason to me when we travel together he always seems to have the super cool experiences in ports that I don’t when I’m on my own. More often than not my futile attempts to find something to do on these hotel overnights result in me eating a kebab in my hotel room watching re runs yet steve always seems to land on his feet in this respect.
Bilbao was no exception. It was unlike any other Spanish town I had stayed overnight in before. Most of the others were predominantly tourist resorts and usually I had been there in the mid week but this was Saturday night and all the locals were out in force. And by all, I mean just that. Families, couples, groups of older people in their smartest attire, students in huddles hanging out in the streets or sitting cross-legged on the pavement sharing giant bags of snacks. This really was a universal experience and we were pleasantly surprised. Though neither Steve nor I have any Spanish to speak of we could recognise things from the menu and ended up with two large beers and an enormous plate of Iberico Ham and Manchego cheese, a slice of Tortilla Espanol (a Potato Spanish Omelette) with as much crusty bread as we could eat for less than €20.
Steve waited outside the first bar at an upturned barrel posing as a table for me to bring out the goodies. As I presented him with the food he said

“We’ll never eat all that!!!” as he dropped the first curling winding slice of ham into his mouth. His eyes widened as he chewed, “mmmmm-ed” and swallowed..

…”Maybe we will” he laughed.

The street we had stumbled on was a pedestrianised side street and adults stood and conversed loudly and enthusiastically whilst their children sat happily in prams or played with other children in their midst. There was no music.. none at all just the increasing buzz of people collecting each others stories and sharing the news of the week.
After a really good go at finishing our tapas we moved on, peering in the windows of the bars we passed.
“Come on…” said Steve “this is only the first street. We should go and see what else is going on”
As we rounded the corner it became apparent that the street we had previously visited was but a warm up for what lay ahead of us. The evening was balmy and pleasant and as the sun gave up over the horizon people were teaming in the streets with glasses of wine and small plates of food.

“We are going to eat and drink our way around this town tonight Jayne” steve protested.

“I concur” I said and we smiled and headed in to the thick of the crowd.

The first bar we entered was called “Cork”. The bottles of wine were all displayed on the shelves with their prices written on the side in white pen. There was a notice board with drinks suggestions but I think the general gist was just to point at what you wanted. I liked the concept as it was incredibly helpful considering my lack of the local lingo.
I attempted to order and the bar tender immediately realised we were English.

“May I make a suggestion?” he said. “try something local. These wines are only produced in a region very close to here and you will usually only find them in Bilbao. One of the vineyards is very close to the town”

He handed me a botte and I looked at it, pretending to know what I was talking about and nodded in agreement. I like my wines as many of you who have travelled with me will attest and I thoroughly love to learn more about what I do and don’t enjoy. This however was a compete shot in the dark for me. I wasn’t too worried though. At €1.60 a glass it wasn’t going to break the bank if I didn’t enjoy it. Steve chose a red and I a white and we were more than pleasantly surprised. We shared the glasses and bravely attempted an octopus skewer seemingly soaked in olive oil. It didn’t offend me and I didn’t love it… but I’d tried it. So we moved on.
As we followed the street we observed the locals. They were pretty much all drinking wine. All in the exact same style glasses regardless of the place so each bar we went to we asked for one white and one red and repeated the routine. We were lucky enough to find ourselves in a bar called Zintzoa on the corner of Calle Licenciado Posa (this main street we were traversing) in which we had a slice of the best Spanish omelette we had ever tasted. I could see the cogs turning in Steve’s mind. The conversation quickly progressed from “I wonder how he made this, we must try when we get home” to “I think we should open a tapas bar near us called Little Bilbao” I nodded placatingly.

We were thoroughly enjoying our night and a 90 degree left turn onto another side street found us in a region of bars which seemed to sell more seafood. This made us happy as a lot of the tapas so far that night had involved some kind of bread too yummy to refuse and we felt ourselves starting to expand internally. A plateful of small shrimp and a wet wipe later we were again on our way. I realised at this point why it was that Steve was having so much fun. It wasn’t so much the great food and wine, the incredibly reasonable price of the night out (we spent less than €50 between us all night) or even my sterling and witty company. It was the fact that we were moving on every ten mins and Steve didn’t have a chance to get bored.
Even though we were quite probably the only non local people in the area that night and our attempts at speaking Spanish were ridiculous at best, we were welcomed most warmly everywhere we went and felt like we’d discovered some kind of secret food and wine haven that no one had heard about.
Though we were unsure whether or not we had got lucky with the fact it was a Saturday or it could maybe even have been a public holiday, Steve and I promised we would most definitely return to Bilbao for a more extended visit. There was a lot more we wanted to see and do… I doubt I’ll get him to the Guggenheim though.

As we were packing at home to come away on this trip Steve announced he was only taking hand luggage. I scowled. Steve regularly leaves it to the last minute to pack and rarely a trip goes by where we don’t spend hours running around shopping for the things he has forgotten.
“I’m not packing any trainers (sneakers) I’m going to buy some new ones whilst I’m away” he announced. “I need a new pair anyway”

“Theres no sports store in Terminal 3 at Manchester airport that I know of and I’ve never been to Terminal 1 at Heathrow.”
“Don’t worry it’ll be fine” He said. I just ignored him and carried on packing. My experience denotes the inevitable outcome and stressing about it makes no odds.

There was no sports store at Terminal 3 in Manchester
There was no sports store at Terminal 1 at Heathrow.
On arrival in Bilbao I offered him a shopping trip and he said no we’ll leave it till tomorrow .
‘Tomorrow’ was Sunday and everything was closed.

So every morning on the ship Steve went to the buffet in his shorts and dress shoes.

I stayed in bed ;-                                                                                                                                   )       Some of the fabulous local wines we tried at “Cork”                                                                                                                                                                    Outside “Zintzoa”

  This is the street where most of the action took place

 after a few local wines i couldn’t feel my face.. this was like a shredded ham and cheese on a baguette kind of affair. thoroughly yummy though.