A room of two's own

I don’t believe I have described our stateroom. My apologies. It is a gross omission given the amount of time we spend in it.

It is a good-sized room, about the size of the bedsit I first lived in in London so many years ago. We have two twin beds, Goldilocks beds (not too soft, not too firm), with soft white linens. There are voluminous pillows, and a small bedside table each, both with drawers that require mental fortitude and physical strength to wrench them open. The mechanism to keep them closed seems to have been built for travelling in hurricane conditions and ginormous waves.

To the side of the outside bed there is a thin, floor to ceiling plastic partition, on the other side of which is a desk with a deep windowsill and a view out to the verandah and out to sea. I have claimed it as my writing desk and there is no surprise why I get more writing down at night than in the day, with the expanse of glistening open water right there to distract me.

To the right of the desk are bookshelves and more almost-impossible –to-open drawers and a bar fridge, where we keep our tonic water. Then double doors leading to our star attraction, the verandah. It is large enough for a small, round café table and two chairs, but also two armchairs with separate footrests. They are all made with plastic wicker, but we pretend bamboo was involved.

Back indoors, another small cabinet and long sofa, which can we opened out into another bed, if any of you wish to join us for a night or two. There is a small armchair for two more to curl up in (if they are very, very, small), and a glass-topped oval table. Another desk-like piece, but the stool, large mirror, side lighting and make-up mirror betrays its true intention. There is more than enough room to walk between the beds and this area, which is where we store our fruit, ice bucket, wine and gin.

Exiting the room, there is a corridor with three closets, enough hangers, and a little safe for valuables. There are also three bright orange life jackets to remind us this is no ordinary hotel room with an ocean view. Our bathroom has a long, thin soaker tub with jets louder than the five engines of the ship. We also have a small shower stall, a loo and two sinks. Our mirror-fronted medicine cabinets will protect everything held within them, no matter how fierce the force exerted on them to open.

As for décor, the walls are ochre (that’s for you Martin), the seating is sort of red wine coloured (non-vintage), dark red, and purple. The art is not bad, surprisingly. There are lots of lighting combinations depending on what mood you wish, all of which I seem to activate while trying to turn them off at night.

We have a television that emits BBC world and other stations we avoid, as well as a DVD player. We still have flowers perky enough to display from our lovely bouquet courtesy of my Dad. A box of Purdy’s chocolates and our requisite before-dinner drinks. Magazines, books and kindle. A towel folded into the animal of the day (crab today, elephant yesterday, something amoeba-like the day before).

It is a very, very fine room and we are so fond of it.