Thursday 5 March 2009

Day Fifty Four: A very quiet day at sea

What can I say about today other than it has been totally relaxing with a lot of time spent doing almost nothing? We got up late following our long meal at Gary Rhodes last night and while I was at breakfast Hilary decided to skip that and go to the laundry room – brave girl. Following my toast and grapefruit routine I went off in search of her and found her sitting outside on the aft deck of deck 9 talking to the very tall thin lady that we have often seen walking around the decks since Southampton. They were in deep conversation so I had obviously missed quite a lot of the conversation but it was apparent that Hilary had finished washing our essentials and was waiting for the drier to complete its cycle and rather than sit inside listening to a load of biddies moaning she had walked the few steps to go out onto the open deck. It’s actually quite nice back there provided that you can find a seat in the shade for you can look down on the lower deck 8 where there is a children’s play area, a swimming pool and hot tub as well as the deck quoits court. The tall thin lady and her partner John are well seasoned travellers and have even put their names down for the Aurora Grand Voyage in 2010 although they have not made a commitment to that yet (I’m not sure how you do that). She is also a very keen digital photographer and has a laptop with her, a desktop at home and another laptop at their summer holiday home – I am very envious. Apparently John does the video and she does the stills, an arrangement that Hilary and I share although I do like taking stills with the video camera as well.

With the washing dry it was time to drop it off at the cabin and head for the great outdoors again to find one of the elusive loungers, with only 1600 passengers on board (200 less than when we set out) we thought that these would be easier to find but this wasn’t the case – at least not those in the shade and close to the pool. So we climbed down the decks (we are still not doing the lifts unless we are desperately tired) until we got to the shady side of the Promenade Deck where loungers and chairs are plentiful. We settled in with the crossword and the Sudoku, the codewords and our reading books and enjoyed the sea air while we watched pairs of trawlers going up and down trying to find some fish. As and aside to this we learned today that one of the problems with the tendering yesterday that managed to put one tender completely out of action was because it had run into a net and got itself completely tangled up. Maybe it tried to take a short cut between some trawlers doing pair fishing. We couldn’t resist the two waiters pushing the ice cream trolley around the deck so we succumbed to their sales patter and I had a dark chocolate Magnum while Hilary settled for a Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. We did successfully complete the crossword but as is my wont lately I screwed up the Sudoku towards the very end, I like to write all the possible combinations in the squares and they are too small for my eyes and my thick pencil – I will have to find another method…. Three hours later, and after several eye closing sessions, not sleep mind you, we decided to go back to the cabin so that Hilary could write up some more notes for the scrapbook and also that we could sort out the scrapbook photographs for the next section and while she did that I must confess that the eyelids did get a bit heavy and my Patricia Cornwell novel became far less interesting than sleep. However we did accomplish all the things that we set out to do and as soon as the photographers open at 5.00pm we will be down there to get some more 3 x 2 pictures made up. We also need to pick up the two pictures missing from the last session and arrange for them to be paid for, they think us quite strange actually and one of them admitted that in all the time that he has been doing photography on ships no one has ever asked for small pictures before. See we are unique!

OK that is it for my first stint and I will pass you over to Hilary before she falls asleep on the bed, tonight it is another Headliners concert but at least this time it is not a formal night so I might even wear one of my new silk shirts.

Tiz I. It is a semi formal night and I am going to wear the mandarin silk top I bought in Hong Kong. It is a creamy coffee colour and I am amazed that Jess found a shop with such items big enough for me. Jess is such a good shopper! The tall lady is very nice. I have admired her dress sense and collection of formal dresses for a while now. It was really interesting to talk to her. She likes to sew and makes a lot of her own dresses. She is extremely slim and stands at 6 feet tall without shoes. In fact, she weighs less than 9 stone! I wish! Anyway, tonight she is going to wear a dress that she has sewn since she bought the fabric in Pango Pango. I asked her if she had brought her sewing machine onboard but she said no she had hand-made this dress. See I meet some really interesting people while I avoid the launderette. Tomorrow we go to the elephant sanctuary in Thailand – the tour is not until the afternoon so we can have an unhurried morning – unless the photographers have lost the prints they promised me then I will have to go through the lot to find them! I am going to take the scrapbook down to show them so they can see why I need the smaller prints – they like to print huge pictures which are useless to man and beast as they don’t fit into any normal photo album that I have ever seen! Marlene I loved your message – of course you should be doing your Reiki – we should be using our talents, and one of yours is Reiki! I am so glad that you had a good time in Plympton – it’s as good as a holiday isn’t it? Sam, how did the concert go, I have never heard of the singer, what is he like? Now we are getting closer to home – is there anything that anyone wants us to bring back – speak now or it will be too late. Well it is 5.pm and I have to get down to the photographer (they are open now but have not been all day) before I get ready for dinner. So take care everyone, God bless.

Not much to add except that we have just begun to come to terms with the fact that in 3 meals time we will be losing Richard and Keiko who leave us in Singapore. We have no interest in having two new people join our table so we started making enquiries today to see if we can all move to a table for six. It just so happens that there appears to be one near us that has been empty for a couple of days and we are hoping to move to that one, we will wait and see if the manager who allocates the seating will accommodate us. That’s it for now, I have tried to add some of the photos from Vietnam but yesterday I had great difficulty in getting them to upload. If you get this blog with no pictures don’t blame me just blame P & O’s crap satellite internet. Love to all.

4 comments:

Pat said...

Hi
Just a quick note tolet you know that whilst you are looking for loungers in the shade we woke up to 2 inches of snow. It is now sunny with blue sky but chilly and the snow has nearly gone. We also have a ginger cat (not ours) sitting on the dooestep warming himself in the sun.
Have a lovely time with the elephants.
Love Pat

samw7 said...

Hi There
Your ship days sound so lovely and relaxing and it seems that you have had good weather for the vast amount of the cruise. Weather here is 83 degrees and sunny, truly our best time of the year.Last night my neighbor and I went to hear a talk by a local money manager regarding the economy. He seems to think that we are bottoming out now and that by early 2010 we should start to see a slight upturn. He also said that this is the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression and was truly triggered by greed and lack of regulation. Thanks George W! Other than that not too much going on. Starting to get back into the swing of working but not finding much motivation.

Love to you both, Sam

Hayley said...

Hello,

Have checked the website out for the elephants and i'm happy :) I'm sure you've got it all under control i guess i am a bit of a control freak when it comes to these things. It looks like a magical place and you should have a really wonderful day! Tip: take bug spray it look very green!

Say hello to the elephants for me. Aunty if you get a quiet moment tap into your intuitive side and ask the elephants if they have a message for you. They are very wise and very much connected to the earth in that semi wild state. you might be surprised at what you hear back! Best time is when you are feeding them a banana or stick of sugar cane.

Have an awesome day, i'm not jealous at all!

Hayles xxxx

Marlene and Tara said...

Hello there! I love your photographs. It all reminds me so much of the trip I did all those years ago. I am going to have to take a holiday to look at all your photos, video and scrapbook.

I have been working a lot this week to earn some extra pennies. They are beginning to realise my talents and are getting me doing all sorts - no extra pay of course!

My mum has just bought a pink Dell laptop - at 80! I think that's pretty cool, not only only that but I have just been speaking to her on facebook!

Now - for what you can bring me back ... I was told at the weekend that I should be receiving a "friend" within the next 18 months to take me into old age and...that he will be younger than me! Therefore, if you could bring me back one of those, I would be very happy!!

Seriously, just bring you back with all your wonderful stories. Lots of love and kisses xxx