Quoits Anyone ?

The centre of any passenger ship society has to be the dinner table.

Over the years, the starched formality of crisp white "bum-freezered" officer uniforms has softened to a formal informality.

It has now been downgraded from Formality Level 10 to a 6.

If this was an American ship, I'm sure that it would be portrayed in colours as security levels are in the U.S.A

It could be downgraded from a red to a more subtle, orange.

The thing with "passy" ships is that you are marooned on a table with strangers for the entire voyage.

It really is a test of social survival.

Considering that dinner lasts for anything up to 2 hours, as courses come and go, thats a big chunk of anyones life.

On the first night out from the U.K, you get the initial surprise.

You either arrive at your allocated table in the dining room to find a solitary, empty chair, surrounded by a circle of expectant faces or, if you get in first, you choose your seat and have the faces arrive around you.

As I was eating with the passengers, my table was a complete surprise. The chair next to me, was removed by the waiter.

A middle aged lady and her husband arrived. She was wheelchair bound and unable to speak or cut her own food up.

They were accompanied by another couple from a different part of the U.K, who all meet up once a year to cruise together. They originally met on another ship and now maintain the tradition.

The lady in a wheelchair has a machine to help her communicate. She types in what she wants to say and the machine speaks the sentence for her. Unfortunately, nobody can hear her over the din of inane smalltalk, the clattering of knives and forks and the sound of dentures chomping.

"Looks can be deceiving".

I'm ashamed to say that I'm fallible and often forget to obey that well-worn idiom.

Another one is "to err is human".

As I write this, we have been at sea for 5 days and I've discovered a very special lady and her devoted husband.

Stricken by a severe stroke, a perfectly able and intelligent woman is now constrained by her own body of short circuits.

I've heard it said that people only see the wheelchair and not the person in it. How very true.

Their seemingly normal looking companions have proven to be initially pleasant, but internally flawed. Increasingly so, as the voyage deepens.

Some ten hours of dinner talk later, the seething bed of psychological baggage is starting to rise from the depths of the beautiful couple. Obsessions about looks, money, status, all rise to the top.

The wit and bravery of the lady without a voice and her down to earth and hard working husband totally eclipse the beauties, like shining beacons on a sea of white linen.

Her humour which is shown on her LCD display for my eyes only, is rapier-like and keeps me calm and composed, in the social battlefield of lunge and riposte.

Ah well, its early days.