At sea

Thursday 6th

This was another lazy morning, waking at 10am. David went up to sunbathe while I had fruit for breakfast and did a bit of washing.

We had booked to go to Verandah, the French restaurant, for lunch, along with Dan and Alyona (the dancing professionals). We were ready by 12:45 for our 1pm booking so went to the Queen’s Room to see the end of the dancing lesson. I started to worry when I saw that the fencing lesson was going on. Where were the dancers? Had the programme changed? Would Dan and Alyona not be able to attend after all? I went to the Reception desk to find out, only to discover that the clocks had changed in the night. It was only 11:45! How had we missed that? It was written on the Daily Programme, but normally the waiters remind us at dinner and the room steward leaves a message on the TV set. That didn’t happen this time. We filled in the extra hour on our balcony.

The Verandah was lovely and peaceful and the service was mainly good. However, the food was no better than in the Britannia restaurant. We enjoyed our time together but I would not be in a hurry to do something like it again.

Once again we sat outside enjoying the sun until it was time to get ready for dinner. It was formal night and David had planned to wear his navy suit with the white shirt that I had turned into a ‘dickey’ (by cutting off the sleeves and sides of the shirt), along with a bow tie. It was difficult working out how the bow tie fastened. I decided to remove the white labels on the inside of it, and in the process undid one important seam so that the plastic toggle fell off. I hastily sewed it back together and we did battle again and finally fastened it. I wore my new jewellery from Katakolon. It looked fab on the black top. Even the door waiter commented when I went in to dinner.

After dinner we had another cocktail party to attend. Mary, who I know from two previous cruises, asked us to sit with her as she was all alone in a reserved seat. She was to be awarded the prize for the sailor with the top number of days on the ship, and was rather embarrassed by it all. We had excellent service there and David managed to get three strawberry daiquiris while I had one.

The show was Victoriana themed, and fun to watch. It ended with people waving Union Jacks and singing Land of Hope and Glory. I wonder what those of other nationalities thought of all of this!

We only managed two dances at the ball. David struggled with his ‘dickey’ pulling out of his trousers as he danced. Worse, he was so hot in a shirt that he was soaked through and starting to feel faint. We returned to the room to cool off. He fell asleep before midnight while watching TV. The heat of his clothing must have exhausted him.