Monday, February 3^rd, 2020

At Sea

My hair has not lost its orange glow, but I am getting used to it, and surprisingly enough no one except for Ruth has commented on it. I’m not sure why.

I enjoyed a wonderful lazy day reading in the Commodore Club, lunching with friends in the Carinthia Lounge, walking around the open decks with Ruth. Ruth managed to go to several talks, all of which were apparently excellent.

Despite my resolve not to join the choir on this segment as it really is too time consuming, somehow I am singing again. It is a short segment so we are only doing 2 songs. Neither patriotic music nor show tunes for our audience’s pleasure this time, but 2 hymns. The first one is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, a rather pleasant and upbeat hymn written by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, the man who brought us my all time favorite piece of patriotic music, Jerusalem.

I’m not sure how appropriate the other one is; Nearer, my God, to Thee. Perhaps the band really was not playing it as the Titanic groaned and sunk into the murky depths, but I still have that association. Andrew, our choir master, reassured us that we would not be required to sing it should the Queen Mary 2 hit an iceberg and sink on this voyage. That’s a relief.

After choir practice I went to listen to that very funny lady, Pam Ayres, who was reading poems from her latest book, Up in the Attic, as well as some classic older poems. She has written a wonderful poem about Queen Mary 2 which describes her take on life on board here. It is great fun.

Tonight was the Virtuoso Voyages cocktail party. Deirdre is the Virtuoso Voyages host, and thus organized the party. It was in G32, probably my least favorite venue on the ship, but it went very well, and several officers as well as the captain were in attendance. Kim is still languishing in hospital in Dubai, but insisting that Deirdre not leave the ship in Sri Lanka to join him.

Dinner was delicious again, and it was fun to hear updates on what everyone had done today. There are so many things to do, definitely something for everyone.

Because of the time difference, the Super Bowl was broadcast on the ship at 4:00 this morning. Two of our tablemates had watched it. One got dressed and went to the Golden Lion to watch the game. The bar wasn’t open, but there was coffee, tea, and juice available, as well as snacks. The other stayed in bed, ordered a few beers and tacos from room service, and watched it on her cabin TV. I like her style.

We had all had a great day at sea.

Some days nothing really memorable happens, and that’s perfectly fine with me. In fact a drama free day makes for a nice change!