Posh loyalty lunch today. We are supposed to get an officer. We got an idiot. We eventually gave up trying to get him to explain what the hell he actually did after the following exchanges.

Your badge says Food and Beverages Services Manager, so do we talk to you about the smoked salmon issue (apparently the chefs do not know the difference between the kind of smoked salmon you put on a bagel and Alaskan whole smoked salmon, which is thick and flakey and has a much stronger flavour and is not suitable for bagels)? No, I deal with Public Health.

So, when the water went off yesterday lunchtime on Deck 12, it was you that should have told people to go to their cabins to use the toilets, to enable them to flush and wash their hands, and prevent the spread of infection in the restaurants and public toilets. No, I deal with Public Health in the kitchens only.

So, you were responsible for ensuring that, when the water went off yesterday, the waiters and chefs were able to access water to wash their hands, then? No, I didn’t know the water went off.

As the next words would have been swear words (along the lines of “So what the f*!& DO you actually do?!), I just gave up talking to him. He’s clearly a useless idiot with nothing to contribute. We pretty much talked around him for the rest of the lunch. Added to which, he was either very deaf or just decided to ignore mum throughout, because she was sat next to him and he never once even looked at her, let alone spoke to her, even when she was speaking directly to him.

The food was nice. And the other two ladies at the table were fairly good company. He was a waste of space, which bearing in mind time in his company is supposed to be our reward and give us insight into life on board, was a little irritating. Heigh ho. Whatever.

Then I had a lie down/siesta and then went for my massage (mum’s treat for hurting my back pushing her up the hill in Fuerteventura!). Full body massage for an hour and a half. Bliss. My back is much better. Not 100%, but definitely better than it was.

Then dinner, which was quite adequate, food-wise.

It has been quite rough today, and it is not going to improve. Lisbon was cancelled by announcement at 6pm. We need to get ahead of Storm Eleanor before it gets to our bit of the Atlantic. So we are pegging it and rolling quite a lot. Yesterday we were pitching. The one thing we don’t want is both at once!

During dinner, dad and I noticed that, every so often, the vibrations reduced significantly, and we figured out that what was happening is that the swell is so large that one of the screws (propeller shafts) is actually coming clean out of the water, so there is no resistance when it turns in the air. Luckily, most others do not seem to have cottoned on!

The captain warned that we are heading towards waves of 11 metres or so (measured from the top of a peak to the bottom of a trough). The prom deck is only 12 metres from sea level. This is Not Good. Things could get very interesting soon.

Word of warning: apparently I have been describing the sea colours all wrong. I will shortly amend this. Have your mea culpa now, while it’s still at the forefront of my mind.