Wednesday 15th May, Continued
We woke up this morning to slightly
choppy conditions – actual wind = fresh gale, apparent wind =
strong gale. We therefore eased back on breakfast: toast with yeast
extract for me and porridge for Matt. It was too cold to sit out on
deck (I had even put socks on today) but we had a walk around the
prom deck and watched the crashing waves. The power of the sea really
is immense.
I went to the library before lunch
today (as well as going to the £7.99 “sale” where I got a lovely
fuchsia pashmina). Usefully there was a book about the wildlife of
the Mediterranean. It doesn't feature any humming birds but I managed
to deduce that what we had seen in Gibraltar was probably a humming bird hawkmoth. Additionally, one of the
lizards wasn't a lizard at all but a Moorish gecko.
After lunch (nice but not notable apart
from the giant feta samosa that I'm hoping to recreate some time and
that some of the people we sat with were raving about last night's
Phil Collins tribute and that some other people who were were sitting
with get a new caravan every year – so they're the people who keep
the caravan salesmen employed) we positioned ourselves on the sun
loungers by the covered pool. The sun was coming out a bit now so it
was pleasantly warm but easy enough to find a slightly shaded spot to
avoid the need for sunscreen application. We spent an hour or so
reading – both of us are on target to finish books today – and
then headed off to the chocoholics buffet. I was bad influence here –
Matt claims he would happily missed it. But the queue to get into the
restaurant was massive. I like chocolate, but not that much. Matt
loves chocolate but has somehow started showing a new display of
will. So instead of going to the buffet we wandered around a bit.
My thighs were aching from yesterday's hike so we cheekily used the
lifts (or elevators as Matt has mysteriously taken to calling them).
Everyone in the lifts seems to be very subdued and Matt has taken to
holding forcefully cheerful conversations with them. As we wandered
around we happened upon the “galley walk through”. They open up
the kitchens so you can have a peak behind the scenes (not the full
behind the scenes tour which I was not about to fork out £75 for –
that's a lot of tea-towels).
It was staggering just how big an
operation it is – over 13000 meals a day for the passengers and
crew. And the amount of food that is consumed is huge – disgusting
almost. In particular I have contributed to the 3.5 tons/tonnes (I'm
not sure whether imperial or metric!) of cheese and 4000 litres of
ice-cream that are consumed in a typical fortnight. But not at all to
the 40 tons/tonnes of meat, or the 7200 cans plus 4908 litres
(draught) of beer. Lentils and beans to not feature on their list of
consumption but I have probably had more than an average quota of the
80 tons/tonnes of fresh fruit and veg.
They'd done some watermelon carvings to
decorate the galley as we walked through which I was really
quite taken with. And lo and behold the galley walk through
ended up at the chocoholics buffet – no queue at all. It was
impressive to see it all but I was quite restrained and had a small
piece of swiss roll and a slice of black forest gateau (I actually
would love to go to the Black Forest to eat this type of cake in
situ) – delicious. Matt
continued with his newly discovered will power, didn't take a plate
and had just the chocolate lattice from the top of my gateau.
