Homecoming Queen
Aboard QE2; Cape Town to Southampton. It's always gratifying to know our presentations go down well with shipboard audiences. They enjoy tales of the hospitality industry in Ron's sessions "Revelations from a life in grand hotels" and "Entertaining royally".
A certain degree of self-reinvention is essential when you do this job long-term. Cruise ships don't always want wine tastings, for example - it's costly when they have to provide the wines for up to 400 tasters.
Eve has just test-driven a series of new talks on what she calls "the alternative Victorians". We end the series with a joint audio-visual presentation on the music hall. Next year, she will add a talk on the Astors of Cliveden, and another on William Randolph Hearst and his "magic castle" in California, while Ron's new presentation features great hotels where history has been made.
The biggest draw, however, is still our quirky quiz "Gastromania!", based on our book of the same name. There's something about cruising that makes people compete. Outside, at shuffleboard, quoits and paddle tennis, it sounds as though the Third World War is imminent as tournaments go into the final heats. Indoors, daily bouts of Trivial Pursuit and bingo are always popular, and Gastromania! brings in the crowds.
The questions are on food, wine and hospitality, and teams will bicker furiously over the translation of al dente or the pronunciation of Dionysus. Ask for the ingredients of a classic dish or a cocktail, and they'll argue obscure additions endlessly to coax an extra half-mark. Not that we mind: the more furious the debate, the more rounds they demand. And the more books we sell!
Vins, vols et voyages We've enjoyed the company of charming French neighbours in the Princess Grill. Marie-Odile Ducrest was chief purser on Air France and her husband, Francis, a senior captain. They live in Provençe, neighbours of Peter Mayle in the Lubéron, where Marie-Odile indulges her passion for wine - by producing it from scratch.
A Burgundian by birth, she went back to school to study oenology before buying the farm, complete with historic vineyard. She planted five hectares with mainly local varieties, and now produces 11,000 bottles a year under her Bastide de Rafinel label, sold to hotels and restaurants throughout France. So passionate is she about the wines of the Lubéron, recently granted appellation contrôlée status, that she has been instrumental in re-establishing the ancient wine guild of the region, La Commensale du Lubéron.
The vineyard is run on biodynamic principles, "as close to organic as we can get". Her proudest achievement is a wine few people get to taste - her "cuvée spéciale", made in minute quantities after years of experimentation. The grapes - Grenache Blanc, Ugni Blanc, Roussanne and Vermentino - are hand-harvested, then deep-frozen until the temperature drops in mid-December. The grapes are defrosted on trays, then crushed and pressed while still cold. The juice rests on the lees, which are stirred to add complexity and richness.
Fermentation is in stainless-steel tanks and the wine is drunk young and fresh. "The taste is formidable," beams Marie-Odile, "so rich and concentrated, all our friends insist there must be Chardonnay in the blend. But, non! It is just this method that draws every drop of extract from this humble c‚page."
Farewell to the Queen It's the time you dread on a cruise. The p-word is on everybody's lips. Sunbathers lie prone on the upper decks, uncovering only those bits that can stand the cold, to eke out the last dregs of watery sunshine as we enter the Bay of Biscay.
Anybody who has been on the ship more than a month knows that, however many spare bags you brought with you, you are now up against Murphy's Law of Packing: new acquisitions into old suitcases won't go.
You haul out the dozen bulging shopping bags stashed at the top of wardrobes and confront the gifts you bought for next Christmas - who on earth were they for? And those souvenirs you haggled over in Asian or African ports, where in your already cramped home are you going to put them? And the wonderful clothes you bought so cheaply - the tailored suits in Hong Kong, the fashion bargains in Sydney and Cape Town…
Thanks to Eve's strict "Dr Atkins Diet" regime, we've managed not to put back any of the 23lb she lost and 7lb I lost before this voyage. But we've grown accustomed… to being asked every lunchtime do we like the menu for dinner, or is there something else we might fancy; to smiling stewards who clean our room, serve our meals, bring our tea; to the formidable secretarial service in the ship's business centre that has enabled us to look after our affairs while at sea.
No bills, no housework, no appointments - a long cruise is a three-month leave of absence from real life. Thank heavens we'll be boarding again on 15 December.
Fancy that…
The most expensive item in the QE2‘s stores is not caviar - 75lb is eaten each week - but saffron, which costs two-and-a-half times more.
The tea bags used each day would last a family of four an entire year.
If all the six-and-a-half-million cigarettes smoked aboard in a year were laid end to end, they would reach from London to Edinburgh.
The ship has 178 waiters in its five restaurants, and 22 wine stewards.
A thousand bottles of Champagne are consumed on the average six-day transatlantic crossing.
The QE2 carries 20 lifeboats, 56 life rafts and 3,316 life jackets - for up to 1,750 passengers and 1,016 crew.
