As you might imagine, not being able to walk when you're on a 12-day cruise with 10 ports is not exactly a happy situation.
Frankly, it's been pretty depressing.
It is, possibly (I'm afraid to hope) getting a bit better, thanks to staying off it, ice packs all the time, and anti-inflammatory drugs.
Someone out there is praying for me. Thank you.
However, because of my knee and general lack of mobility, we've cancelled tours in several ports we intended to enjoy. We cancelled our ship-based tours in Guernsey, Cork, Dublin, Glasgow, Inverness and Edinburgh (tomorrow's port). We went on tours in Belfast and Kirkwall, and will be going on our last-day tour, to the Normandy beaches.
There's a method to our madness.
In Guernsey, Dublin and Greenock (the port for Glasgow) we got off the ship and explored the port town, which, in each case turned out to be fun and exciting in different ways than we might have expected to enjoy had we taken the tours we planned.
In Guernsey, we were to do a bicycle tour around the island. Instead we stayed in St. Peter Port and enjoyed a walk around the town, coffee at Costa Coffee, and catching up on blog writing. While we were in the coffee shop, it rained, so we narrowly missed getting wet, something that would surely have not been the case if we'd been on those bikes.
In Dublin, we got a shuttle into the city, which was close-ish to the port, and saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College, then had tea at Bewley's.
In Greenock, we got off, walked around the town, and spent a little money on snacks and other items. It's a town full of thrift stores, so we had fun looking around them, though the only thing we bought there was books – the Royal Princess, while a great ship in many aspects, has a very spare library, so we'll read those books then donate them to the ship.
In Kirkwall, Belfast, and upcoming Normandy, we've taken the ship's tours we planned. Ive already written about Belfast, and my next blog will be about Kirkwall. Stay tuned for Normandy.
That leaves Cork and Inverness. And, you're asking, “What does this have to do with your knee?”
Well, in both those ports, because of my knee and the subsequent cancelling of our tours, we were warm and dry, sitting by a window in the ship while those outside of it – whether on tours or not – were getting POURED on.
Yay for my knee, and us not being out in that getting wet!
I can find the silver lining in ANYTHING.