Tuesday's choices

Wednesday 15^th May

Dinner last night was a mixed affair. One of the couples we sat with was older and both man and lady were impossible to engage in conversation despite the best efforts of Matt and I and everyone else on the table. They left before pudding to “catch a show”. (They could at least have stayed and ordered puddings which the rest of us could have shared.) The conversation flowed freely amongst the rest of us – one recently retired couple (Jackie and Ian) and another (shock horror!) still working (Janine and John). Janine is going to be 50 next year – she didn't didn't look a day over 38, and I didn't just say that to be nice, she really didn't.

We discovered that John's Aunty and Uncle used to own the pet shop in Hythe (very close to where I grew up). We talked lots and lots – I can't remember what about. We also laughed a lot. It was a really relaxed evening.

After dinner there was no dancing – a night off for our dance hosts. And after our day it was probably good that we were giving our feet a rest too. Our choices for this evening's entertainment were:

• A Phil Collins tribute act – eliminated. Vetoed by Matt
• A comedian (a different one to before) - possible
• “An evening at the races” - eliminated. It sounded a bit complicated
• A vocalist from the ship's theatre company – eliminated. Risky
• The ship's orchestra playing “east listening jazz” - possible
• The syndicate quiz – eliminated. Not likely to be successful in a team of two, especially when that team of two is Matt and I and we know next to nothing about sport and great swathes of popular culture
• A cocktail pianist – eliminated. We'd seen him already, he was excellent but was playing until late so we could always catch him after

We came to a consensus to try the comedian. He was very good and as a bonus the venue was our muster station – the captain had warned us that it would be getting a bit choppy so we would already be in place should we need to evacuate into the lifeboats.