We got up at 8.30am and went to breakfast in the buffet where Mark was desperate for home comforts that he had beans on toast. Pam had breakfast and went to the crime talk called the Haye on Wye Tragedy. The case was about a gentleman called Herbert Armstrong. It was such a sad story. Herbert was a very well respected solicitor in the town and, with his wife, had a very comfortable life. His wife struggled with her mental health when he was away during the First World War so on his return she was admitted to a sanitarium for a while. She was also taking lots of herbal medication that her doctor knew nothing about. It was said that when she died it was probably because of the herbal medicine she had been taking combined with the medicines from her GP. In the meantime, a fellow solicitor from a lower background went into partnership across the road from Herbert but was not as well liked. On the day his wife was released from the sanitarium, Herbert had purchased weed killer with arsenic in it. After her death he tried to make friends with Oswald Martin, this new solicitor but things did not go well. Oswald’s father in law was a chemist and accused Herbert of poisoning his son and Herbert was taken to court accused of this poisoning (which was never proved) and also, the killing his wife - both charges mentioned on the same day but not separately. He was convicted of murder, on flimsy evidence and the testimony of a dodgy GP and Oswald’s father in law. An innocent man was hanged.
Meanwhile, Mark was first on the promenade deck reading, in a steamer chair. Then, he swam in the deck 6 pool and relaxed in the hot tub. The deck 7 promenade deck, with it’s steamer chairs, are very popular so we will make that our ship tour area today.
Here are some pictures of the sides of the ship - you saw the aft yesterday.
Remember, unlike many ships, the QM2 has it’s buffet on the deck 7 promenade deck so walking laps round here is hard with the food so close.
The forward part of the promenade deck has an extra area you can go into - this is not part of the 3 laps = 1 mile equation.
After her talk, Pam headed up to the Carinthia lounge for a Cappuccino and bumped into Andrew and nattered. She spoke to one of his grandchildren, back home, who was very sweet.
Mark crossed paths with Pam as he went off to his lecture on the original Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth II. These Cunard talks are by the designer of QM2 and are held in Illuminations which is too small as not enough seats for him.
After the talk Mark tried to squeeze in fish and chips, whilst watching football, in the Golden Lion pub. The service was appalling and he was last for the RSC acting workshop in the Queens room. He sat at the back and watched as they discussed Shakespeare’s text and the rhythm of his text.
As he missed the beginning he decided to join Pam, Andrew and David for the 2pm Music Trivia quiz - Pam had gone there from the chef’s galley where she had had burger and chips for lunch. The quiz theme was places (e.g. songs like Sweet Home Alamba or one by Chicago. Sounds Easy? It wasn’t though we got 32 out of 44 which was not enough for a win but we were close.
The others dispersed and we played Rummikub for a little while then headed back to our room for showers and to get ready for dinner. We went to the main dining room (Britannia restaurant) and were sat next to a couple from Yorkshire. They have a daughter, son in law and 2 grandchildren in Australia and flew over to spend time with them before joining this ship to cruise back home. They had stayed in Geelong so we compared pictures there - we took similar photos. Tourists are the same the world over!
After dinner we headed to the theatre. This evening was a variety show.The first half was a “Sting“
tribute by the Royal Court Theatre Company and was pretty good though only 15mins long. The second half was a lady called ShellyAnn from Wales whom we missed when she performed a few days ago. She had an amazing voice but seemed to talk too much between songs. She also mentions that in 2019 she won a TV series called All Together Now. Mark’s verdict was he was glad he missed the first show.
After the show we headed to the casino to have a small flutter on the roulette for about 40minutes. We used up our consolation prize roulette tournament vouchers (which Pam expertly turned into $16) then headed to G32 for the silent disco. It was an amazing success. They had held on whilst in Cape Town, with only a few takers for obvious reasons. We were so happy for DJ Lily who was worried if anyone would show up or would be even interested. We had promised Lily our support as we have got close to her during many of the music quizzes. It turned out that around 100 of us were very interested and sang and danced to our heart’s content. This apparently caused so much noise that some of the other members of the entertainment team turned up too to witness the surprise turnout. This was apparently only the 2nd time they had held this and our cruise director, Neil even took pictures of the dancing from an upstairs balcony to show the success - we think they had just purchased the gear and loaded it on in Cape Town. We would like to think that we contributed to the success as we suggested about 5 songs, throughout the night, that got everyone going. Songs like Come on Eileen, YMCA, Radio Gaga etc… Everyone did not want to stop after 2 hours. Some even chanted for it to continue but it had to stop as the resident band “Habit To” were in the venue ready to play. It must have been awful for them not being wanted.
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