And where exactly is this bridge too far, shipmates? Taking tricks on board

AY I ask you a personal question?’ I startled the lady behind me in the queue for the checkout in the cafeteria…

Hermione and I had the opportunity to take a brief break, hopping on to the ferry to France for a couple of days, reviving the Gallic delights of our honeymoon all those years ago. The ship of 2018 is a steadier, sturdier, snazzier and altogether more sophisticated vessel than the one on which we made our escape after the joyful chaos of the wedding reception back in the last century. But the trip from Rosslare on the very south east of Ireland to Cherbourg on the northernmost tip of mainland France still takes the best part of a day to complete.

There are only so many hours of that day a passenger may spend asleep. Only so many hours, he may pace up and down the optimistically named ‘Sun Deck’. Only so many hours he may sit over a cup of coffee. The films on show in the floating cinema on this trip were divided into two categories – first, those we had already seen on terra firma and, second, those we never wanted to see ever, not even as diversion to fill the vacuum of a long journey.

On the voyage to the Continent I had a severe case of ‘are-wethere-yet, are-we-there-yet, are-we-there-yet’ impatience as we chugged over the grey ocean towards port. Sweet-tempered, long suffering Hermione was on the verge of throttling me and, on reflection, she could hardly have been blamed had she tipped me over the railing and into the water somewhere off Jersey. She was still gritting her pearly white teeth as we finally took off in The Jalopy to enjoy our stint of red wines and blue cheeses, of grand chateaux and petits fours.

We returned to Cherbourg to find our waiting ferry docked next to a massive cruise liner, a gleaming vision of two-funnelled, five-star, ten-deck, sea-going indulgence. Hermione was much impressed by this display of maritime swank which made our workaday ship appear scruffy. Her imagination began conjuring up Caribbean beaches, dinners at the captain’s table – and peace filled afternoons without any ‘are-we-there-yet’ nonsense.

‘Think of it, Medders, all that sun and champagne and on board entertainment,’ she sighed wistfully as we queued up on the quay in the shadow of this floating pleasure dome. Hmm, on board entertainment indeed. We were lost for a few moments in our respective reveries, she dreaming of glittering cabarets and muscle-bound aquarobic instructors while I fantasised about sailing from Buenos Aires to Cape Town while playing one marathon session of bridge. Bridge – no better way to fill in time on the move from A to far-off B. The only problem is that, while it takes just two to tango, bridge requires four.

Leisure time is properly organised on these cruise liners. I hear that passengers arrive in their luxurious cabins on day one to find a checklist of activities that may be of interest. Ballroom dancing, tick. Cabinet making, tick. Wife swapping, tick. The crew will collect all the lists and then make arrangements. Scrabble sessions, tick. Whiskey tastings, tick. Amateur astronomy, tick.

But top attraction every time, has to be bridge. Put a few hundred middle-aged to elderly holiday makers together with time to spare on a big boat and the bridge players will surely find each other ticks, or no ticks. Shuffle, cut and deal.

Sadly, the regime is different on the ferries where there is no cabin steward waiting to distribute checklists, and no entertainments officer paid to ensure that paying customer are kept amused. As we rolled on to the Good Ship ‘Brendan Behan’ I pondered that there must be other bridge players aboard. I knew Hermione - who bids a mean false club and finesses like a natural born shark – could be counted on if required. But how to recruit two more to make the four?

It was now too late to order a special tee-shirt emblazoned with club, diamond, heart and spade symbols above the legend ‘Come Play Bridge With Me’. I would have to do what my late mother told me never to do - talk to strangers.

So it was that I turned to the lady behind me at the coffee dispensing machine in the ship’s cafeteria and said: ‘May I ask you a personal question? Do you by any chance play bridge?’