So much for all my good intentions to take life at a gentler pace in 2025! The last six weeks have been a rollercoaster ride. In last month’s blog I mentioned how I had to put the re-writing of ‘Shadow of the Sphinx’ aside to sort out my presentations for my Baltic Cruise in December. Giving a talk is much like writing a novel – lots of last-minute tinkering with the script! Having spent two days finessing what I wanted to say, I managed to lose the latest version of my file which caused something of a panic.
The cruise line hadn’t specified how many talks they wanted speakers to present but I reckoned with six ‘at sea’ days, it made sense to prepare five talks plus a spare. We left from Portsmouth which meant it would be two days sailing until we reached our first port of Warnemunde in the Baltic, so my plan was to speak about Jane Austen and Charles Dickens followed by the Rise of Nordic Noir once we were heading to Riga. Our last port of call was Copenhagen which meant a talk on Hans Christian Andersen was a must. That left my great inspiration – Agatha Christie – as my last talk as we sailed back through British waters.
Things are never set in stone on a cruise – bad weather might result in a missed port or one of the speakers might not make it at the last minute. I arrived on board to discover that there were four speakers, and we all had to cut one of our five prepared talks. I’m not sure how many of my audience would have even heard of writers such as Henning Mankell or Stieg Larsson, so I made a quick decision to cut the Nordic Noir presentation. We’d already left Copenhagen when the Cruise Director told me a slot had become available on the last sea day. It may not have been in the right place geographically speaking, but at least my Nordic Noir talk was historically in the correct place. We started in Regency times with Austen, on to the Victorian greats – Dickens and Andersen, the mid-20th century with Christie and ended with the late-20th and early-21st century with Mankell and Larsson. My talks seemed to go down well, and I sold lots of books – always a good sign.
The ship itself couldn’t have been more festive with Christmas trees, garlands and baubles on every available surface. The bakery department had excelled themselves with gingerbread houses and icing and marzipan figures dotted throughout the public areas. My favourite was the gingerbread village. It looked amazing with its changing coloured lights and the train running round the track, but best of all was the smell. The waft of ginger and spices permeated the whole area. The production team even gave us a panto – Cinderella. It makes me smile just to think about it now.
The cruise itself was very enjoyable. Most towns had a Christmas market, which though not up to the standard of the German ones, were fun to look round. My favourite was in Lubeck west of Warnemunde where we were also treated to a private concert and were given hot spiced wine and one of the local sweet delicacies of the area.
We went on some great tours. In Helsinki we visited a traditional Finnish lakeside home, a 45-minute journey north of the port. The wooden house had been occupied by our widowed hostess’s in-laws for several generations, each one adding on new rooms to accommodate the growing family. She told us about her life and customs and served us with traditional Finnish refreshments.
Our guide in Copenhagen was a wonderful lady called Annmari who took us on a tour of all the places in the city associated with Hans Christian Andersen sharing her passion for the great writer. She took us first to the statue of The Little Mermaid and told us Andersen’s story then on to the houses he lived in Nyhavn, the Royal Theatre where he spent much of his time, the house of his patron, Jonas Collin who took Andersen into his home and saw to his education not long after his arrival in Amsterdam. Finally, we went to see the statue of Andersen opposite the Tivoli Theatre.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and may the new year bring you everything you hope for.
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