Ports visited; Trondheim, Rorvik.

I didn’t wake until 06.45 hrs – I was shocked. I didn’t wake at all during the night. Those anti-sickness tablets are the way forward.

The ship was already in port having arrived (according to paperwork) at 06.00 hrs, and was not due to leave until 12.00 hrs, this gave us plenty of time to have a wander around.

We went up for breakfast at around 07.45 hrs and had an assortment of cooked breakfast and pastries, coffee, juice …. you name it, it was therefor the eating.

We could see it was really snowy and icy outside and at – 6, was probably cold, so we set about layering ourselves up. Now, there is an art to this and it must be done in a certain way; for instance, no good trying to slip on your spikes last thing as the amount of clothes one has on compromises any ability to bend. No good putting on gloves until zips are done up for dexterity reasons and hats, must be last thing.

We made our way down the gangplank at around 09.00 hrs and decided to head towards the Nidaros Cathedral, the spire of which we had seen from the ship whilst having breakfast. We had both slipped our spikes on over our shoes so were able to stride ahead on the ice quite confidently. Within 15 minutes of leaving the ship however, we both started to feel the cold, especially me – the coldness felt like somebody was nipping my face. We carried on however, Terry had the map and gauged that it would not take long to reach the Cathedral.

The Spikes were great on snow and ice but took a bit of getting used to on pavement which had been cleared. For some reason, Terrys spikes wouldn’t stay under his feet; they sort of twisted so were on the inner sides of his shoes. If anybody had wanted work done on a telegraph pole, he would have been able to get up there like a shot. Of course, this had me in fits of giggles.

We found the Cathedral quite easily and were both really impressed with the substantial architecture as well as the statues and carvings around it, quite stunning. We were both quite freezing by this time however so popped into the Cathedral Tea Room for a coffee: our spikes hitting the floor as we made our way to the counter like a couple of crazy tap dancers.

After a coffee and partial thawing, we left the tea room – on the way out I noticed a sign ‘Please respect our flooring by removing spiked shoes before entry’.

En route back to the ship Terrys spikes again twisted to the insides of his shoes, providing little to no grip at all. He convinced himself that he had put them on the wrong feet as said he said he had noticed an ‘L’ in one of them. When we got back to the ship we determined that the ‘L’ must stand for ‘Large’ as mine had an ‘M’ in them which is neither here nor there and must stand for ‘Medium’. Mine fitted perfectly.

We settled down for the afternoon in a different bar; Terry reading his book and me, reading, crocheting and watching the scenery. I had a glass of wine about 16.00 hrs, at £10 I felt I was getting a bargain. We returned to the cabin around 18.00 hrs to freshen up for dinner. On exit from the bathroom I witnessed Terry again examining his spikes and guess what, he was right, there IS a left and a right foot. I just got it right the first time – lucky me.

Terry went into dinner a happy man.