Our kids teased us mercilessly when we announced we were going on a cruise. Cruise liners, they said, are nursing homes for fat old people.

“Don’t worry,” my husband said. “They’re just jealous.”

My heart sank when I first saw a gaggle of our sailing companions creaking up the gangway in the port of Rome. The average age appeared the wrong side of 70.

“Never mind,” said my husband. “They won’t all be that old.”

First thing we did after climbing on board was attend the welcome buffet on the back deck. We were starving, naturally, so devoured an infinite variety of fresh meats, seafood and salads followed by pastries. And some little cakey things with cream on while we’re at it, why not?

A couple of hours later the ship was drifting north toward a port near Florence. It was dinner time, so we wandered into the grand dining room to examine the a la carte menu. I settled for salmon entrée followed by a slab of steak and vegetables and a dreamy concoction of cherries, chocolate sauce and ice cream. It would’ve been sacrilege to eat a meal like that without wine.

Collapsing on our bed that night, I wondered if 12 days of this mightn’t make me TFTT (Too Fat to Travel). A crane would be required to hoist me from the ship. I’d be driven embarrassingly to the airport on the frontal prongs of a forklift. In order to squeeze into the plane home I’d need two business class seats, one for each buttock.

Other passengers obviously shared the same fear. One of the informative seminars offered on board was “How to Lose Weight by Eating More”. I made a mental note to attend, but somehow never got there. They always seemed to be timed around lunch or dinner. The message was simple enough anyway.

Most of the other passengers turned out to be pleasant, and some of them reassuringly young. On the bus tour to Florence we befriended a couple of 30 year old gay guys from London.

We discovered a lot about Renaissance art in Florence, but the most important thing we learnt about was the shipboard afternoon teas. The gay guys willingly imparted this sacred knowledge.

Anyone who turned up properly dressed in a certain lounge at the front of the ship around 4pm every day would be served a relentless deluge of cakes and scones by charming waiters in white gloves. A string quartet performed at the afternoon teas, but they weren’t eatable.

As the ship dragged its increasingly weighty cargo off to Corsica, we sampled the second formal restaurant, which was also impressive. The waiters smiled and nodded as we waddled back to our cabins. See you at breakfast, they said.

“Never mind,” my husband said. “We’ll run some of it off in the gym.”

“The ship has a gym?” I said, concealing profound disappointment.

The gym instructor congratulated us for turning up. She said not to worry about the food. We were on holiday, and it would be a shame to deprive ourselves.  She was my kind of gym instructor.

There was only one person on board who everyone hated. He was a tall thin man with buttocks the size of oranges, who galloped several times around the top deck every day. As if that wasn’t ostentatious enough he wore a heart monitor strapped to his chest, and actually worked up a sweat.

The gay guys overheard the thin man saying he hated breakfast. How criminal was that? Breakfast was a symphony of berries and Bircher muesli, unless of course you preferred omlette or scrambled eggs and bacon. Or both.

A curtain of milky haze lifted to reveal the white cliffs of Corsica. Napoleon was teased for being born there, short and fat. Come to think of it Napoleon would’ve loved our cruise, except he would’ve been too competitive at shuffleboard.

If there was a competition for the friendliest island in the world Corsica wouldn’t be in the top 10. It mightn’t even make the top 100, but it has stark, weather beaten charm.

We climbed a million steps to the village of Bonifacio glowering out at the world from its cliff top fortress. Stopping for coffee at a tiny café we asked if they had any bread or pastries. Non, the woman said coldly. A bit rich considering she was standing right in front of a glass case full of cakes.

Perhaps she thought we didn’t need them.