Monday's black and white

Tuesday May 14th

It was black and white night last night. Which means there are a lot of people wearing black for whom it doesn't really suit, and a lot of people wearing white for whom it doesn't particularly suit (I have learnt this from my very chic friend Charlotte). Neither colour goes well with the lobster skin colour which is the look that a lot of people were going for after a day in the sunshine (obviously without sufficient factor 30); but you've got to be especially wary of men in white tuxedos.

We had dinner with a lovely middle-aged couple called Trevor and Patty (I got excited initially when I thought it was the people left behind in Cartagena) and a difficult-to-age lady travelling on her own. She was almost the opposite of Susan from the night before. I imagine that this lady (who shall remain nameless) got “rich” (she cruises a lot and has that “considerably richer than you” air about her) from an acrimonious divorce. She was very bitter towards a lot of people. She left the table early as she had to get back to the casino. Which left us to have much easier conversation with Trevor and Patty.

Hythe Pier

Patty is a big fan of online group deals and they had recently spent a night in a hotel in the New Forest. As coincidence would have it they had visited Hythe – just a mile or so from where I grew up. She had loved it and was thrilled that my mum is currently the lady mayoress of the parish. I gave them a bit of insider information (where they can park for free) and I think they plan to return to visit the pier and take the ferry and maybe go to the market. I hope the market's still going.

The meal was notable for two things in particular:

Pina Colada Soup

• Soup: There is always a choice of two (between starter and main, it's not compulsory) and today's choices were roasted plum tomato or chilled pina colada. I can eat tomato soup anywhere so went for the pina colada. It was interesting and not at all unpleasant but I'm not sure it's something that I'll be trying to recreate.
• Cheese: A cruise is potentially hazardous for a cheese lover such as myself.

  

  Cheese and biscuits

  You can have cheese and biscuits every evening of you want but I've tried to limit this to formal nights only. They bring out a board with lots of choice and it's just too difficult to pick one or two so I invariably went for a bit of everything. The waiter piled my plate high with biscuits too. The goat's cheese was fantastic, as was the stilton (served with a spoon from a whole stilton about a foot in diameter).

As if that wasn't enough, the lady who had dashed off to the casino had given me her shortbread biscuit. She didn't like shortbread. If you don't like shortbread what biscuit do you like?

As of last night I have worn every pair of shoes that I brought on holiday with me. All 12 pairs.

Saturday's hen

The weekend got off to a good start - I was actually running on time. We were due to head up to Windsor for our friend Becky's hen party. We was me, Vicki (designated driver) and Shelley who we collected from the train station on route. It was a remarkably quick trip up the M3 (for those heading south it was more like a car park). We were not going to my 1st choice of Berkshire attraction (I'm desperate to go to a certain Scandinavian brick based theme park), but to a posh hotel / spa which would be a new experience for me.

We had a good initial catch up in the car. One of my fellows was rather worried about her bikini line, but I doubted that we would be looking. Continuing with the on-time theme we were only the second group to arrive and made ourselves comfortable in the bar chatting to Becky's mum, Mary, and sister, Sarah.

It was drinks all round once everyone had arrived. Most people wisely went for a soft drink. This was wise because:

• it was a super hot day (according to my husband Windsor was the hottest place in the country) 
• the alcohol was super expensive (think over £7 for a standard gin and tonic)

Most people was everyone except Shelley, who is a fan of half a lager. I got one of my five a day in with a sparkling apple juice.

There were 15 of us all together, and Jean-Paul the restaurant manager appeared to be in charge of making sure we were fed. Despite my best efforts to entice him otherwise Jean-Paul was not interested in speaking French to me (he was actually French; he even had some rather Gallic ear hair). 

After lunch (a melted smoked cheese and tomato baguette with too much tomato) we prepared for the spa. There was a bit of a palaver to do with acquiring our dressing gowns (or robes if you're embracing the posh thing) and slippers, but we soon settled into the spa, helped by a glass of champagne. I am not a fan of sauna or steam room or bubbly boily pot at the best of times, let alone on the hottest day of the year in the hottest place in the country. Instead I did a couple of lengths and enjoyed cooling off in the pool before it was time for my mini-pedicure.

It really was mini (file and polish would have been more accurate), but I really enjoyed chatting to the lady who did it. She has recently gone back to college to train as a beautician, after spending over a decade on the stage and screen. She was the lead in a lesser known Andrew Lloyd Webber show for 2 years, and subsequently to that had spent 10 years presenting on television shopping channels. Apparently it is very difficult to be enthusiastic about a kaftan for an hour. I think I came off better than my friend who's mini-pedicure experience (begin your own sci-fi style soundtrack here) seemed more akin to an alien abduction.

Then, after a little time in the relaxation room, it was time to get ready for the evening phase of the hen party. It wasn't unrelaxing but I find it basically impossible to relax whenever that is designated as what you should be doing (random relaxation is much more effective). But there were some fun rocking chairs and a read some interesting stuff about Gibraltar while my nail polish dried.

The instruction that we had from Sarah was to get glammed up, not an activity I am terribly familiar with, although I had recently had some practice on a cruise. With the help of my super chic friend Charlotte, I chose to wear a one shoulder deep fuchsia dress. I even ironed it. Taking advantage of the occasion (rather than any style advantage) I donned my new gold high heels (with toeless tights of course to show off my new deep fuchsia toe nails).

The heat was making me very thirsty so before we headed down to eat I swigged a bottle of fizzy orange juice (possibly another one of my 5 a day). I skipped a pre-eating drink (except for a small glass of champagne that I think was given to us in the mistaken belief that we were wedding guests), but did try a little bit of my friend Helen's gin and tonic. I am usually a gin and tonic fan but this one tasted of face cleaner. Sarah had made us up some lovely hen-party party bags:

• earrings (she even swapped out mine for some with screws rather than hooks)
• bubbles (everyone loves bubbles)
• heart straws (very tasteful compared to previous hen-party straws that I have experienced)
• a badge (even more tasteful)
• decorative sweets (which was very useful as I forgot to pack any jewellery) 

Jean-Paul had arranged for us to have tea outside (dinner on the terrace if you're embracing the posh thing); it may or may not have been cooler than it was inside. But we all just about managed our way through a delicious 3 courses. And we even managed to wangle some bonus vanilla ice-cream to go with the chocolate fondant pudding.

After letting our food and wine go down a bit we bundled into taxis to get to the town centre. The destination was a cocktail bar. The details (for now) are restricted to the hens. Suffice to say a good time was had by all. Can’t wait until the wedding.

Tuesday's dining

Tuesday, May 7^th 2013: continued

To make up for our extreme laziness earlier in the day we did a vigorous 20 minute swim before getting ready for dinner. It was getting quite late now and it was strange being in the pool with the early buffeteers heading past in their formal night regalia.

One of the things I like about cruising is the possibility of getting dressed up. I love wearing dresses but rarely do so at home (maybe I should do more) but here I can wear one every night. And tonight I was planning on wearing my wedding dress. It’s not a supremely wedding-y wedding dress and since I had the bottom of it trimmed off it passes as a lovely ball gown. The challenge now was going to be fitting into it since I am at least 5kg heavier than I was on my wedding day plus with all the swimming I’ve been doing my back has got kind of muscly. It would definitely be wise to wear it towards the start of our holiday rather than saving it for the end.

I had to enter the dress head first (I used to be able to go feet first) but with assistance from Matt I was fastened in. Assistance is probably the wrong word as Matt did all of the fastening.

Alstromeria?

We had another great table at tonight. Jackie (travelling with her cousin Jill) was able to identify my up-until-now-unidentifiable flower as an Alstromeria. Debbie (travelling with her husband Simon who had celebrated his 50^th birthday last year) was celebrating her 50^th birthday whist on board – she looked amazing. They were some of the younger people who we met. Raymond (travelling with his delightful wife Rosa) looked like the eponymous captain from a brand of fish fingers. He had no social graces – which I loved. There was little pansying around with small talk as Raymond presented the topics available for conversation as religion, politics or sex. It turned out that he was highly into astrology (albeit in a highly amateur way) and when he asked what I thought about this I was duly tactful and said that I had an open mind; which he said was “very good, for a chemist.” I recounted the occasion that I was on a radio phone-in horoscope slot. We also had quite an in-depth discussion about the literature/film interface. So we didn’t talk about religion, politics or sex after all but it was a very engrossing evening.

More dancing tonight. I don’t know if it was the dress that I was wearing that made me feel particularly elegant but it seemed to go better. We even managed to navigate the oval dance floor for a bit of quickstep (one of my favourite dances to watch but least favourite to do as I always feel a bit like a galloping horse).

After 3 full days at sea (which have been immensely restful) I am finally feeling confident finding my way around the ship. My initial confusion was not helped by the facts that

1. there is no deck 13
2. all the decks have a number and a letter name
3. some of the decks’ letter names progress alphabetically but not all of them are included in this system (e.g. lido, sports, promenade)

But through repeated wanderings this has now passed. So much so that I was quickly able to direct us out of the smoking gauntlet on our pre-bed promenade on the promenade deck (or deck 7 if you prefer) - even in high heels.