Cruise Day 9 - At Sea.

I thought it was Gibraltar today, but we have one day at sea before we reach the next, and final, port. Checking the newsletter for possible activities today: tennis; circus skills; a talk about tired legs and swollen feet (that’ll be mobbed); learn to waltz; bingo; Countdown. Countdown is back! Yay!

At breakfast we chat to a young couple and their kids (and suppress the urge to say, ‘They should be in school, you know.’) Apparently the kids are entertained and looked after all day. The mum feels a bit guilty about this, but the kids are desperate to finish eating so they can get away to their clubs and clearly love every minute of it. They even get dressed up and go out to dinner together and have their own newsletter with daily events, which I’m fairly sure is a bit more exciting than swollen legs, bingo and Countdown.

We go up to sunbathe again, but it’s very busy today with everyone being on board. We still manage to find a couple of spare loungers and settle in for the morning/afternoon.

After tea it’s Countdown – yay – and we have finally found the quickest and easiest route to the room where it’s held. The same people as usual are playing, mainly still untanned apart from me and Mum. We get the feeling they’ve just been sitting in their cabins for the past four days, waiting. The woman who usually wins is beaten by her arch rival (guy who constantly questions her words and at one point called her a cheat). She whispers through gritted teeth to her husband, ‘He beat me. I can’t believe he beat me. I lost.’ She may need counselling. I’d advise the guy who won to hide for a while.

Mum decides to go to the salon to have her hair done. £29 for a wash and dry. £29. Seriously. I have a look at the rest of the Spa prices: £119 for a massage; £219 for a 24 karat gold facial (eh, I’m not sure I want my face coated in gold, but at that price it had better be what they mean); £29 for a Fire and Ice pedicure (they're giving things funny names to justify the price); £39 for a ‘deep bikini’ waxing – I suppose that’s danger money. Yeah, we won’t be using the Spa, thanks.

It’s a formal night tonight – a themed Black & White night. Once again, this is easy for the men – tuxedo. Bit more of an effort for us, but we get ready and decide to try the formal photographs again: Seeing the results, I look pregnant and Mum declares herself ‘all twisted’, so we don’t buy this lot either.

We’re a bit later for dinner and John and Richard are relieved to see us arrive – partly because they thought something else had happened to us, partly because they’ve signed up for the Texas Hold-Em tournament at 10 pm and time is getting on, so they’d like to order. They’ve come up with all sorts of scenarios for burros, my favourite being burro chariot races – they’ve even worked out technical problems relating to relative size and how to take corners etc. It’s good that they’ve been busy. We decide it would be traditional for Bob Dylan to ride a burro in a chariot race that he’s never heard of.

They go off to play poker, we finish our coffee and, having noticed tonight’s theatre act is someone called Colin ‘Fingers’ Henry, we go to the quiz. Looking across at the casino, we see John standing next to the poker table; out already and it only started about five minutes ago. He shrugs, smiles and waves.

The quiz is all about James Bond tonight – we don’t do very well at all. When it's over, the duo Fifth Element play. I haven’t been able to stay and watch them since John and Richard pointed out that they look like Thunderbirds. It’s true – the guy playing piano definitely seems to have strings attached to his hands … up and down, up and down … and the girl does the same with the microphone. It’s too weird to handle, so we decide to feed a puggy another £20, then go and listen to some jazz piano, which is very good.

It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’ve made Mum promise not to make any fuss, especially having witnessed the waiters singing happy birthday to other unsuspecting victims. She assures me she hasn’t done anything at all. Good. She hasn’t planned anything, has she? No, really – she hasn’t.

She decides to listen to her MP3 player to get to sleep. After about 45 seconds, she’s gone.

4 am: ‘I could be wrong, but I think it’s raining.’

'It's the ship - honest.'

In a few hours time I will be 49. Being referred to as ‘that young girl’ could make me stay on this ship forever. If I stay here long enough, I may even win Countdown one day. You have to dream big.