The clocks went back again whilst we slept so we are once again on the same time zone as the UK (GMT+1 - British Summer Time). Mark was up early and took some ship pics for the blog, as it was quiet and to avoid including people in photos. Pam was awake when Mark returned so we went for breakfast in the Britannia restaurant. When you go in the restaurant you report to the head waiter on the reception desk and they allocate you a table based on your request (e.g. table for 2 etc..). We were given a table and taken there by a waiter only to find someone sitting there - they had obviously just wandered in and sat down randomly. Very apologetic, the waiter asked us where we wanted to sit and we chose a nearby, window table. No doubt, this caused a knock on effect but it was not our fault.
After breakfast Mark wrote and read and Pam attended a lecture by Gloria Barnett. This was another marine talk but this time it was about animal behaviour and how they can hide from predators, protect other marine life and she even spoke about a cleaning station under the sea where creatures go to have their bodies and teeth cleaned by other creatures. It reminded Pam of the animated film Shark Tale and the car wash scene. She also spoke about the human impact on our marine life and how we have made the waters more acidic, killing off the colours of the coral, and how we need to improve to get our waters back to the way they were. She also explaining that drilling for oil under the water can cause animals ears to burst and that is why you see beached whales and dolphins. She ended with a final video of a group of children singing a song about saving the planet. It was put together with animals in trouble (fishing lines and plastic - thinking it’s food). A very interesting lecture.
Pam met Mark who was with Andrew in the Pavillon pool area playing table tennis - his back is in surprisingly good shape after yesterday’s paddle tennis competition.
As we are here, and yesterday we covered the nearby sports area, this can be our ship tour area for today.
Outside the pavilion pool, on deck 12, is the walkway to the sports deck we covered yesterday. However, if you walk towards the back of the ship you reach the boardwalk cafe and kennels area.
After winning table tennis, we both attended the lecture by Dave Wright on Lawrence of Arabia. Another fabulous talk with a couple bits we can share. Peter O’Toole was much, much taller than the man himself. Lawrence and the British Empire agreed to an independent Arabia in order to gain Arabian support against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. They, with France, reneged on this agreement and Arabia in two (between France and Britain) at the end of the war and the troubles we have had ever since have been mostly due to this Sykes Pico pact that was signed.
Lunch and the afternoon flew by in the Carinthia Lounge where we ate burgers and hot dogs with chips and, much later, cakes with afternoon tea whilst playing all manner of board games with Janet and Andrew. We played Rummikub, Ticket to Ride and New York City Zoo and basically lost an afternoon by chatting, eating and playing games with friends.
Tonight is Gala night again with the them masquerade so we got out our masks once more and put on our glad rags. We went to dinner at the Britannia restaurant and sat next to 2 South African gentlemen, who were travelling to europe. They also explained that they did not always get a choice of what cruise ship to choose as very few sail to or from South Africa. They had never been on Queen Mary before and found it quite old fashioned but did seem to like MSC.
For dinner we both had pork belly for starter followed by soup and then sole with vegetables and ice cream for dessert.
We went to the evening show which was a gentleman called Shimi Goodman, he was amazing. A classically trained Tenor originally from Israel who moved to the UK and decided to pursue a career in musical theatre which he did for 15 years. He has been in many shows including Bombay dreams for Andrew Lloyd Webber and was in the original cast of Dirty dancing to name a few. If you ever get a chance to see him, grab it. He doesn’t just perform songs, he lives them and interacts with the audience. He sang a few of Mark’s favourite male musical songs: Music of the night; oh what a circus; If I were a rich man. He sang songs from opera too including oh sole meo and Mark whispered to Pam - it’s the Just One Cornetto song again. Every opera singer does this, and other singers do it too, so we have heard it at least 4 times over the past 100 days. However, Shimi had a twist, halfway through the song he shouted out “join in with me” but he then sang the words “Just one Cornetto” and many of us continued with “give it to me. Delicious ice cream” etc… “Yes”, he said, “there are a lot of Brits in tonight who remember that”. He then reverted back to the original.
We moved onto the Queens room for the Masquerade Ball. We were joined by Janet and her friend Ann, and chatted, listened to music and watched the ballroom dancers for a while. The place was splendidly decorated again.
We ended the evening, as per usual, up in the Carinthia lounge for the late night trivia quiz with Diane, Andrew and Raju. We lost on a tiebreaker by one year. Those are the breaks.
We retired to our cabin and rang our girls and Hugo back home. Not that long now and we shall see them again in the flesh.
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