Pollywogs and Shellbacks Afloat

You can view a free online evalution copy of issue 8 of the magazine – just click here.

Category:	Travel
Author:	Patricia Carlton
Publisher:	Plankton Books
Price:	£8.99
ISBN:	0-955116-30-9
Pages:	224
Reviewed in issue:	2

This is a quality paperback with an attractive cover, good binding and clear print. It takes the reader on a two-week cruise, across the Bay of Biscay and around the Mediterranean, on the P&O Cruise ship Aurora. A short trip up the Nile is thrown in for good measure. Just about everything to do with life on board has been covered, from embarkation to disembarkation.

Patricia writes with humour, recounting the luxury of having one’s own butler pampering to one’s every need, and even serving breakfast in bed. There are lavish descriptions of sumptuous meals served twenty-four hours a day in the various restaurants on board... and how breakfast runs into lunch when hours are lost by travelling around the globe. Then there are the characters one meets on board, and the celebrities who entertain. So many people to exchange stories with.

Travelogues of days spent ashore are generous and richly shared... Gibraltar and North Africa, Cannes and Nice, Florence and Rome, Ajaccio on the Island of Crete, and on the way home, a visit to Barcelona. The only thing that rankled was the constant reference to her husband as ‘Himself’. An occasional ‘my husband’ or ‘Greg’, which is his name, would have diluted the repetition!

This was an enjoyable read, whether one cruises or not.

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