Afloat, and moving rather a lot....

Annual ramblings below: see last entry for November

Well, though we did awaken to the familiar view of the Western Docks, we were moving by 06:15, and were treated to fine views of the Isle of Wight that we wouldn’t have had if we’d left on schedule after dark.  Once we were out of the lee of the island, the sea was quite rough, and given also a strong wind, we’ve had a pretty lively ride for the initial 36 hours at sea: the barf bags are discreetly deployed in the lift landings.  But in a big tub like this, you scarcely feel the movement, and we were in no danger of parting with our meals.  Apart from the swell and the wind, the weather has been fine.  Not balcony weather, though, since the ship was at times putting up a lot of spray.

I have to say that the catering seems a little less expert than in the past.  Up in the Lido, of course, the self-service format means that stuff lies around for a while, and that can’t help.  This does not mean, alas, that we have stinted ourselves.  

The ship’s programme offers lots of entertainment on days at sea.  On Monday we went to three quizzes (and won two), I went to a lecture about the origins of GCHQ and we heard a pretty good piano recital.  Meanwhile, I finished reading a Peter James thriller, and Martyn is well into a biography of Julie Andrews.  

Tuesday was pretty dull and damp, though the swell was slightly less.  But it was still a day for sitting reading rather than striding out round the promenade deck.  Martyn snoozed for a while in the afternoon, and I popped upstairs for a sandwich.  Matthew McCombie, whose piano recital we’d enjoyed on Monday, was sitting on his own, so I barged in and we had a good chat for 10 minutes or so.  Nice fellow: good to know he’s on board for the rest of the cruise.

We did a couple of quizzes as usual, but didn’t win anything.  It was a dinner jacket night, and it was a comfort to find that we can still get into them comfortably.  It may be a different story ten days hence...  We went to the show in the evening: Jacqui Scott doing numbers from West End musicals: not really my thing, particularly when so over-amplified.  The bass guitar practically drowned out everything else.  

We notched up another couple of stickers at the Wednesday morning quiz.  The hostess is a cheerful young Welsh woman, and she has pretty well given up on the arcane Welsh topics, thank goodness.  Wednesday is our last full day at sea for a while.  Quite happy about that: although there’s a lot to do on board, I do start to get cabin fever after 48 hours or so.  Can’t imagine what it must have felt like to travel to India or Australia by sea!