22nd March 2013

The clocks went forward again last night, which meant we lost another hour of sleep. Not that it bothered us much, we sailed past Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean at 6 am, but Sue and I snoozed happily through it all and didn’t emerge for breakfast until 9 am.

What we did notice over our coffee and croissants was the sheer number of ships now visible on the horizon. After weeks of oceanic solitude, we suddenly found ourselves in maritime rush hour. To crown it all, two pods of dolphins decided to escort us while we ate, an infinitely better breakfast show than anything on the BBC.

The morning’s entertainment came in the form of Scrabble, and once again, we were left with the German set in the ship’s library. We’d just about mastered the Spanish one, but the Teutonic tiles nearly finished us off. The letter values bore no resemblance to English, the distributions were all wrong, and high-scoring favourites became pathetic two-pointers. Nevertheless, with the bulldog spirit that saw us through the Blitz (and the 1970s power cuts), we soldiered on and finished the game, though I doubt the Germans would have approved of some of our “creative” spellings.

The skies were perfectly blue again today, though the UK was apparently buried under heavy snow. From the deck, we could even spot snowy peaks in southern Spain, a curious sight in such a sunny setting.

Keeping with the wintry theme, Sue went off to watch an ice-carving demonstration, while I took the binoculars and busied myself with a spot of ship-watching. They zipped past at 20 knots, but I pretended I was in command and issued the odd “steady as she goes” to no one in particular, which came perilously close. More dolphins appeared at lunch and again in the afternoon, seemingly determined to keep us company. Later, we attended a talk on disembarkation procedures, mercifully brief and surprisingly simple. Afterwards, we thawed ourselves in the sun to counteract the chill brought on by BBC reports of Britain’s snowpocalypse.

The evening began with the Captain’s Cocktail Party, so we dusted off our glad rags and went along. Several glasses of champagne and a mercifully small grappa later, we floated off to dinner with Glynnis and Ray. The waiters treated us to song and dance routines, there was yet more champagne, and a special cake appeared. Sue nobly declined hers, so I was forced to eat two portions, purely in the name of waste reduction.

Jonathan and his mum reappeared for the evening show in the theatre, Vibrations. It was a lively hour of singers, dancers, flashing lights, and costume changes, so many costume changes I lost count. We particularly enjoyed Pinball Wizard and the ABBA medley, though I suspect the performers will still be in the changing rooms tomorrow morning trying to get their zips undone.

We rounded off the evening with our customary coffee and convivial chat, before retiring to our cabin, where the dolphins, champagne, and German Scrabble all swam together in a slightly surreal memory of the day.