At Sea

The sea days are a great chance to catch up on things, if only there were not so many other more interesting offers around.  I mean, shall I put in a load of washing or shall I go to the craft class?  Shall we go to the port lecture?  Read?  Do the quiz?

Eat?

We began the day with our 7 laps of the deck before the temperatures rose and gave us an excuse to escape that one.  After a delicious breakfast – the birchermuesli is good, especially with a bowl of blueberries – we pottered about the ship, collecting details about tomorrow’s stop in Singapore and chatting with friends.

First Trivia quiz of the day resulted in a tie-break, which we lost.  So, no points today.  However, we will remember that in 1971, it was the news of Jim Morrison’s death which was delayed by six days and not that of Elvis!  (Sorry, Jane, we really should have listened to you)

We were not planning on having lunch today, but then we remembered

Today was sushi day.  We couldn’t resist.  After all, what’s wrong with a few morsels of fish…and we might well need that brain food!

After lunch, it was the Art Class, when we were practising Chinese Brush Painting, ready to tackle the decoration of a fan in some day’s time.  We were advised that, unless we completed these preliminary steps, we would not be able to progress to the real thing as there were only a limited number of fans.  No pressure then!

We were shown how to achieve effects using differing brush pressure, including leaves and flowers.

Having decided that my leaves looked very fish-like, perhaps my fan will have a less botanical theme than the others!

I worked on the fishes and was beginning to get a more consistent result by the end of the class.

Tea time trivia.  Once again, we didn’t listen, did we Jane?  We crossed out Thomas Edison in favour of Henry Ford…and yes, Edison was the correct answer.  No matter.  We had no idea what a noologist studied and neither did we know that a snail’s reproductive organs are in its head.  So, no points again but a good deal of fun and chatter, not to mention a cup of tea and a “floating island” (meringue in vanilla custard….yum)

Tonight we’ll forego the Captain’s welcome drinks in favour of dinner a deux in Signatures, the Cordon Bleu restaurant.  It’s now about 6pm, time to get showered and changed, ready for dinner.  Our butler Abhi just brought us a plate of prawn canapes and there’s an unopened bottle of champagne in the fridge. 

The evening starts here…