Monday April 8^th

At Sea

In the early morning we passed through the Strait of Bonifacio separating Corsica and Sardinia. This has been a great cruise for sailing through straits, and we still have the Strait of Gibraltar to transit.

Our friend Graham Jones joined the ship yesterday, and this morning gave his talk on “The World of State Ceremonial Music”. I love his talks, but felt compelled to go to the craft session, where I again ended up unpicking my handiwork. I am beginning to feel that I may never finish this project.

Paul Fellows, the astronomer, gave a talk in the Planetarium on exploring the night sky. It was great to have a live talk about the stars instead of the usual shows that they have in the planetarium. I usually sleep through those. He made things look so easy, and if it is a clear night tonight hopefully we will be able to see the stars in person out on deck.

Choir practice was more chaotic than usual. This time it wasn’t the sopranos constantly talking among themselves, but the models getting ready for the fashion show that was being held in the Queens Room next door. They were all being provided with champagne (we were not) and were getting louder and louder. You simply cannot have 2 planned activities in G32 at the same time. Well, despite the lack of champagne, once we started singing we could easily drown out their noise. Go choir!

After our practice I did watch the fashion show for a few minutes – well you can’t really avoid it. With the interesting design of QM2, you have to walk through the Queens Room if you want to get to and from G32. There is simply no way around it.

I met up with Brian again in the cabin, and checking out our calendar, I realized that we had missed the wine tasting. There really is no point having our calendar up on the wall if we don’t check it from time to time.

As it turns out, due to a miscommunication with the Purser’s Office and World Club people, I had actually been given 3 invitations to the wine tastings. I had chosen to go to the event that most closely coincided with Brian’s invitation. So although I have missed the first two, there is still hope for the last one.

Tonight is another formal night – the Mariner’s Ball. Will I get Brian on to the dance floor is the question? If I can’t, there is always ABBA night in G32 later in the evening – maybe I can get him to attend that. We shall see!

Geoff and Heather joined us for dinner, so our table was full once more. Heather shared photos of her beauty pageant days, and Geoff announced he would be giving another talk on the Titanic. It was a fun meal, with an excellent treacle pudding.

We had to leave dinner early to watch the star gazing get together on deck 13 at 10:00. We bundled up, wearing our winter woolies over our formal gear, and thus looking rather strange, and went to watch Paul Fellows point out the happenings in the sky above us. It was a dark, windy, and cold night, but the stars, planets, and other sundry celestial objects were shining brightly above us, so with the aid of a very strong laser Paul was able to describe what we were seeing in the sky.

Unfortunately although we are somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, we were also in a major flight path, so Paul had to continually point his laser in a different direction as planes made a habit of flying right in front of the stars he was trying to point out to us.

It was all very interesting, but I was beginning to feel like frostbite was coming on, so we headed indoors and went to the show. It was a great show again – a combination of the Cunard singers and dancers and Philip Browne, the wonderful singer.

Alas, we did not get to go to the Queens Room or G32 to dance tonight, but there will be other chances……..