Generally, our sea days are very relaxed but this one was a bit different.
Due to a bit of a reshuffle of times for some activities, we had to readjust. It was light just after 6am but it was difficult to sleep longer than 7:15am. Morning trivia was at the ungodly hour of 9:45am. Well, ungodly for us, as we are used to 11am.
Did we win? No.
We headed to the atrium where they were setting up for a market day, complete with games, stalls and then the orchestra playing their Dixieland set. It was a bit chaotic, but we managed a coffee then decided to take part in the three games.
The first was the bean bag toss and you got a raffle ticket for each bag on the target plus extras if you hit the centre. We joined Alex and Teri, Alec and Eileen and had more than one attempt each, gaining a small pile of tickets that went into a draw every half hour. There was also a version of blow football, using a drinking straw and sending as many ping-pong balls down the table and through a small goal as possible in one minute. Each goal was one raffle ticket - but they wouldn’t let me have a second go!
There was also hoopla hosted by Mr Quiet – and I still haven’t heard him speak…
Whilst this was going on, there was the bustling market with some prices reduced from astronomical down to just expensive and outdated tee shirts at $6.99 each.
I won a bottle of bubbly on the second draw, Teri on the third draw and if Eileen had managed to sort her pile of tickets out in time, she would have won the first draw, so a good result for our group.
The jazz was pretty good and it was also good to see the clarinet being played rather than just the sax.
We joined T & A for an uncharacteristically early lunch.
Longer term trivia was a bit better than usual, with I think, 7 points, but without that 5 point bonus, we are destined to lag behind the leaders.
Paula then opted for a visit to the hair salon and I headed for a drawing class, run by dance teacher John Graham. Unfortunately, it was packed and no spare seats in the pizzeria (café Corniche on this ship) so I turned and headed back to the cabin via the casino, where Alec and Eileen invited me to join them for a game of scrabble. I didn’t win that either, not did we win afternoon trivia, but having scored a bottle of bubbly, I couldn’t be greedy.
The captain then advised us that due to a cyclone in the area, we’d deviate from the shortest, straight line course to Dubai and to be aware that there would be showers tomorrow. Sadly, some ignorant people never shut up when these announcements are being made so it is often difficult to hear exactly what is going on.
Having showered and changed for dinner, Paula then settled down to watch the French Open men’s singles final - and was totally absorbed, so I had to go and grovel to a couple of our table mates for our non-attendance at dinner, and then raid the buffet.
As it turned out, the buffet food was just perfect. It was Italian night in the dining room and also in the buffet. I came away with couple of slabs of a very tasty vegetarian lasagne between us, with ricotta cheese and vegetables, plus a mushroom gratin, thin pork Marsala, crumbed escalope of chicken and some really nice battered and deep fried broccoli.
To drown our/her sorrows, (Djokovic lost) we had a hot drink down in the atrium, before I settled down at 11pm to watch the first half of the Canadian GP, live on channel 24.
I promised I’d take a further extract out of the Patter, so this is the programme from midday, Sunday June 7th:
· The market fair as mentioned above.
· Princess pop choir rehearsal with DCD Victoria – (about 100 passengers)
· Enrichment lecture – “Australia’s popular rhymed verse” - with Lyn Hurry
· Afternoon grooves on deck with party band “Fusion”
· Ballroom dance class – Cha Cha
· Duplicate bridge play
· Afternoon movie “Grand Budapest Hotel” in the theatre
· Real life storyteller’s club
· Cruise long trivia
· 500 Card game – unhosted
· Darts tournament
· Improving your posture with good feet – the salon
· Movie out on deck – “Iron Man 3”
· Arts and crafts afternoon session
· Arts@sea – drawing class
· Happy hour – 3pm to 4pm with two drinks for the price of one.
· Skin care solutions - by the salon
· Singles and solos meet for afternoon tea
· Afternoon tea dance
· Afternoon Classical Jazz melodies by the Mezel trio
· Afternoon trivia
· Dr Bob & Bill W meeting
· LGBT get together. (If you don’t know what that is, you wouldn’t be interested, believe me…)
· Pre-recorded ballroom dance music
· Platinum (photo) Studio wine and cheese – touting for portrait sittings
Later, I’ll print a sample evening programme.
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