Wednesday April 10^th

At Sea

Yay, I am almost finished with my craft project, so I started on a new one today, thinking that I can finish it during the crossing. It’s such a great feeling to know that we still have another 10 days to go until they throw us off the ship. I am so not ready to leave just yet.

The excitement of the day is the Country Fayre. This is not to be confused with a County Fair which we have back home. There will not be any competitions for the best looking zucchini, or cute goats to pet, not even a rodeo, but there will be a second hand Rose stall, tombola, guess the number of sweets in the jar, chop the carrot, and other fun things to do.

The idea of the Fayre is to raise money for the World Cruise charities, and it gives passengers from the world cruise a chance to unload items of clothing or souvenirs they have bought along the way, and now no longer desire. We do not come in to that category; I love all of our purchases, and things we brought with us. Yes, having started with full suitcases it will be a challenge getting everything to fit into our bags, but that happens every cruise, and I am up for that challenge.

Captain Hashmi opened the Fayre, and the scrum for bargains at the second hand Rose stall began. We decided we valued our lives, and went to check out the other stalls. There was a lot to do, and we had fun. You could have your photo taken with Zoe and one of the other dancers in their beautiful, but revealing, orange feathered costumes, buy artwork from the painting group (I noted that we crafty ladies were not selling any of our handiwork), buy juice and cakes, make a request from the DJ, and there was an auction of interesting maritime memorabilia, some of which was donated by our sometime table mate, Geoff.

However, in my mind only, the highlight of the Fayre was that the crowds got to listen to a taster of what they will be hearing in our concert on the 12^th. The choir performed 2 of our songs (the best ones in my opinion) to the delight of the Fayre goers.

We could not linger at the Fayre as I was not going to miss the wine tasting this time. As usual there were 4 wines to taste, 2 white and 2 red. I had hoped they would have Spanish or Portuguese wines, or an opportunity to taste some port. They did not; they had 4 different Argentinean wines. This would have been great for a South American cruise, but not what I was expecting off the coast of Spain, heading for Portugal. Anyway the white wines were actually quite good, and Brian approved of the reds so it wasn’t a waste of time. And surprisingly enough all 4 wines are available on board, and are reasonably priced.

Then we could not linger sampling the bread and cheese that was on offer, as we had to dash to hear our friend Graham Jones’ talk on Trooping the Color. We had heard it before, but being huge fans of all military music, we wanted to hear it again. It was an excellent talk, and very well attended considering all the other activities going on around the ship.

Next on our agenda was watching us sail through the Strait of Gibraltar. By that time there was a gale blowing out on deck, and several of the decks were closed off, however we did manage to position ourselves so we had good views of Gibraltar and the African coastline. So close to Africa, and yet so far.

While in the strait we slowed down, and I though that was because we were in some kind of no wake zone, like sailing into Venice or passing through the channel between the lake and the river near to where we live. Later we found out that we had slowed down for whales! I never thought that we would see whales in this part of the world. Well, not that we saw them, but it was good to know they were out there anyway.

It was getting windier and windier so we retreated to the safety of our cabin to watch the shoreline go by. My phone dinged – welcome to Morocco! Who would have guessed that our cell phone plan covers Morocco too!

We had pre dinner drinks with Graham and Susan in the Commodore Club, and caught up with what they had been up to since we last saw them in London in November. Graham has been very busy traveling the world giving his talks, and avoiding the British winter.

Luckily Andrew was playing the piano in the Commodore Club, and it was very relaxing. They have different musicians every night, which is OK, but some are very loud and it is difficult to carry on a coherent conversation. I would love for there just to be a pianist every night, like Carlo on Queen Victoria.

During dinner the captain made an announcement. It is usually not good when he interrupts dinner, and this was no exception. He said there was an urgent need for blood, and asked anyone on board with O positive blood, and a blood donor card to go to the medical center immediately. A gentleman on the table next to us hurriedly left the room. I hope he was able to help out. I wonder if most people travel with their blood donor cards with them.

The pub quiz tonight was on Queen Mary 2. We thought we would have a good chance of winning, so the 6 of us from our table finished dinner early in order to get a good table in the Golden Lion.

Most of the questions were straightforward, but some were quite obscure and needed much thought. Like, do you know when Mary’s first visit to Argentina was? 2006. We were confident that we had done well, but when the answers were discussed, the quizmaster’s answer to what does RMS Queen Mary 2 stand for was Royal Mail Service, and he said that Royal Mail Ship was incorrect. We were not happy. There was also a discussion about the color of Cunard ships’ funnels. I disagreed that they are red as they are not true red, but Cunard red, which has some orange in it. Well the bottom line was that we didn’t win when we really should have. Still half the fun is actually participating in the quiz, and being with friends, so I was not too unhappy. Although the prize was a rather nice looking bottle of South African wine.

When we returned to the cabin after the quiz, there was an envelope with our names on it waiting for us. Inside was an invitation, and below the Cunard crest were those golden words, Captain Hashmi invites…… Yay, it had finally arrived, our invitation to dine at the Captain’s table!!!!!! But then I read further – there were the names of several of the senior officers – and so yes, it was the invitation to the senior officer’s cocktail party. Oh well, no luck for the last formal night of this segment, but we do still have the crossing ahead. Maybe maybe the invitation will come next week…….