Apr 12th - Sea Day 2

Yesterday was a dossy day and today was the opposite. Today is the 100th day of our holiday. It seems to have flown by. If you have read 100 of these then well done. You deserve a sticker! We know, you want the wine!

Mark was up early on the balcony reading and then went, on his own, to the Britannia restaurant for a breakfast of cornflakes and Eggs Benedict - he hasn’t found the latter served elsewhere onboard. He arrived back to the room to find Pam awake but left her to go to the 10am lecture in Illuminations by Stephen Payne. It was on the Cunard ships Lusitania and Mauritania. It was a good, informative talk and there wasn’t a spare seat in the room.

Pam met Mark after his lecture and then stayed in Illuminations for her talk about Sir Bernard Spilsbury, by Diane Janes. Sir Bernard was a very well known pathologist but also a controversial one. His education took many more years than it should have to become a doctor as his father paid for his education and Bernard was not very intelligent. He was known for his manner of giving evidence in court, his charm and the testimonies he made up with no physical evidence to prove it but was always believed because of who he was. He completed hundreds of post-mortems and kept very bad notes for each one. He died a lonely man by suicide because his life was his work and he started to lose work after 2 strokes and to younger men. He also was not close with his wife and 4 children. Her next lecture is on one of Spilsbury’s cases.

Whilst Pam was in her lecture, Mark entered the paddle tennis competition. He and his partner made it all the way to the final and lost, on a tie break, to the favourites. He is going to be very stiff later. He needs to remember he is no spring chicken anymore.

Mark picked Pam up from her lecture and we entered the roulette competition and this time Mark made it to the final but not Pam. Like Pam before him, he came 3rd in the final so no $200 for him either. Mark then showered off his paddle tennis exertions and we played cards and had lunch in the Carinthia lounge with their tapas dishes. Here’s Mark’s.

Lots of fish morsels and a Jaffa cake eclair

Whilst Mark was losing in the Roulette final, Pam joined Andrew and David for the quick hit music quiz about animals. They got 25 out of 40 but did not win the prized stamp. Earth Angel by the Penguins and the song by a flock of seagulls were two culprits for their downfall.

Mark joined them afterwards and we played board games and sequence with Andrew until it was time for the two boys to go upstairs and try to retain their shuffleboard title. They split us up, the rotters, and we both lost our opening match. Mark blamed his awful performance on paddle tennis stiffness.

Whilst we are up here we will cover this section of deck 13 (and the small deck 14) as the ship tour segment.

The open deck showing one of the two shuffleboard rinks. Paddle tennis court is on the left and the golf net is on the right.

Close up of the place where Mark suffered heartbreak and probably backache

Behind the shuffleboard area are stairs and a walkway to the front of the ship

This part of the ship, on Deck 14, goes above the bridge which you can see sticking out below

When you get to the end there are steps down to the lookout area

This is a covered, bow shaped corridor, at the front of the ship

We spent the rest of the afternoon resting in our cabin or should we say Mark napped and Pam showered and read. Our evenings are fairly repetitive now. We had dinner in the Britannia restaurant (Pam had Oxtail soup; lamb shank, mashed potatoes and veg; caramelised pear tart. Mark had onion soup, duck breast and veg and 2 desserts). We also seem to be increasing the number of petit fours we have with our after dinner coffee/tea though Mark is stashing some of his gold wrapped mint ones in a drawer in his cabin as an emergency supply.

We then did the theatre show, which was was the comedian Mark Palmer, originally from South Africa but now lives in the UK. Some parts were good but most was a repeat of jokes heard from other comedians so all in all, pretty average. We ended, as usual, back in the Carinthia lounge listening to the excellent Ocean Drive duo, plus the Blake the pianist, whilst drinking coffees and mocktails and nibbling crisps until it was time for the late night trivia quiz with our regular team mates. We got 10 out of 20 so are getting worse.