Monday's energy savings

Monday, May 6^th 2013: continued

After yesterday morning’s oversleeping I made sure that I turned up my phone to full volume before going to bed. I awoke feeling pleasingly refreshed (maybe the separate beds?) so was surprised that the alarm hadn’t gone off. I was even more surprised to find that it was gone 10 o’clock. Evidently the alarm doesn’t sound if the phone is turned off.

Calorie saving of the day 1: skip breakfast. I persuaded Matt that as it could be less than 2 hours until lunch (we had already spent some time faffing) we could swim, shower and then eat. We headed to the largest of the ship’s 4 pools; it was overcast this morning and this pool has the benefit of being undercover in such conditions (like a convertible car). I did a 20 minute swim but not very vigorously (no risk of being mistaken for a channel swimmer) as I had my “beach” bikini on and was rather concerned about the security of various parts of my anatomy in it. I did however enjoy doing some forward somersaults (without any loss of anatomy).

Calorie saving of the day 2: opt for the lighter options. Which I enjoyed for starter and main at lunchtime. Followed by treacle sponge and ice-cream. We had signed up for a “soda” package (20 drinks for the price of 16 or something like that) and had spent quite some time deliberating as to whether to add 20 branded soft whipped ice-creams for an extra £7.50. While this seemed like a bargain (and I do like a bargain), 20 branded soft whipped ice-creams would be quite a lot to get through. It was not clear whether these branded soft whipped ice-creams would come with chocolate flakes and while I love ice-cream this branded soft whipped type is not my favourite and I figured that there would be good ice-cream opportunities available at the port stops. As it turns out there are also good ice-cream opportunities available every lunch time and dinner time. It is always a pudding option (seemingly different flavours on every occasion in addition to the standard vanilla) and, even better, it is possible to exchange whatever dessert condiment is allocated (e.g. custard for the treacle sponge) for an ice-cream “side”. You can even have ice-cream as well as the allocated dessert condiment. It was a good call to opt out of the branded soft whipped ice-cream.

Over lunch I practised my small talk. Today’s subjects included the various ways of travelling to Southampton (in particular from Edinburgh) and Scottish (and other bits of the UK) independence, which I suppose might really be classed as political debate rather than small talk. Although you couldn’t really class it as debate as everyone joining in had the same opinion.

Calorie saving of the day 3: avoid the afternoon tea buffet. We had spent most of the afternoon in the convertible area by the pool, reading and playing my favourite fruit based word game. A 4 o’clock hoards of people started walking through this area. It was a few hours since we’d eaten and we were getting a bit peckish. So I suggested to Matt that we pack up our stuff and get afternoon tea (rather than go for the poolside pizzeria). We had always intended to go to the restaurant for this, as it is a civilised thing to do that doesn’t happen in day-to-day life (well not in ours anyway), plus there would be several flights of stairs to navigate which would be good exercise. In order to get to the waiter service restaurant we had to walk through the buffet area. This was clearly where the hordes were heading and now settling with their plates piled high with cakes, rolls, scones, samosas and curry. Yes, samosas and curry: since when afternoon tea has featured these I do not know. In the restaurant I was much more restrained – it is somehow ore difficult to over-eat when other people give you food rather than you putting it on your plate yourself from a seemingly unending supply. The only disruption to the aforementioned civility was when I failed to differentiate between the butter and the cream on my mini-toasted tea cake. Retrospectively the difference was obvious since the butter was in those little gold wrapping papers.

Then we re-settled by the pool. I wanted to paint the mini-fruit tart that Matt and I had just shared. I am not particularly good at painting and I particularly not good if I am trying to do it from memory. So I braved venturing into the buffet to see if I could pick up a tart to model for me. Unfortunately I was too late – afternoon tea had been cleared to make way for the Enid Blyton character themed tea. I didn’t think that the under 5s would have appreciated me taking one of their jam tarts to help me with my art so I would have to rely on my powers of recall. Whether you would identify my creation as a fruit tart is doubtful, but it’s colourful at least.  

Painting a fruit tart

Sunday's relaxation

Monday, May 6^th 2013

We’d opted for freedom dining, which meant that for evening meals we could turn up when we wanted and then sit with different people each night who had turned up at the same time. This has the drawback that you don’t get to know anyone else really well; but this is, in my opinion, vastly outweighed by the benefit that you don’t run the risk of being stuck with the same people each night yet have the chance to meet lots of interesting people. (On our previous cruise we had been very lucky with our fixed dining table but the freedom dining seemed like a much better option overall.) Yesterday lunchtime (when you also turn up when you want and sit with whoever turns up at the same time) demonstrated why you might not want to sit with the same people all the time. We were sat with 3 older couples. That in itself was not a problem (there are plenty of delightful older couples). It was their nature that was troubling:

1) Mr and Mrs A. Mrs A seemed a bit grumpy and barely uttered a word. Mr A was one of those men who insist on imparting their “wisdom” to you, which I don’t mind too much if it’s interesting wisdom. But Mr A’s wasn’t as he inisted on regaling to us i) details of the (numerous) cruises that he and Mrs A have been on before ii) an (excessive) discourse on the Panama Canal. I don’t even know where the Panama Canal is, which I’m sure would have been some better wisdom to acquire.

2) Mr and Mrs B who seemed very friendly but as they were sat opposite us on quite a large table it seemed somehow socially inappropriate to bellow across to them.

3) Mr and Mrs C who seemed nice enough but despite varied conversation starters from Matt and myself just weren’t very chatty. They became animated during an exchange with Mr A about the benefits of high end supermarkets’ ready meals. At which point Mr A asked me if I cook. Since Matt and I had been having a private conversation about sun protection I initially responded about the perils that Matt faces from ultra-violet radiation. Until Mr A made it clear that he meant the kitchen type of cooking and not the skin type. Apparently his daughter-in-law never cooks  - he seemed to be quite cross about this. I felt very smug in replying that I cook frequently and even on busy nights we don’t have ready meals (from high end or low end supermarkets). Unless of course you include homemade reheat.

Sunday afternoon passed highly uneventfully. After taking a turn on the promenade deck to walk off lunch (which included edible proof of a pudding that Matt had previously not believed existed: Brown Betty), in which I was successful in not losing anything overboard (one of my main cruise fears), we avoided the organised deck sports, donned appropriate sun protection and found some loungers in a quiet spot. We read for a bit, looked at the clouds and topped up our sun protection. I wasn’t particularly comfortable as I had to sit with my head clamped against the lounger to prevent the loss of my (rather lovely) sun hat to the occasional gust of wind.

I managed to retain my hat

After a couple of hours we moved inside and I got my watercolours out and painted the sky and sea. Matt mostly read and passed occasional comment on my interpretation of the sky and sea.

 

I clearly have some way to go before
I'll be exhibiting at the Royal Academy

And then it was 7 o’clock and probably time to contemplate getting ready for dinner. This would mainly consist of ironing (Matt) and dealing with nails (me). As usual I made a right mess of painting my right finger nails but did a very neutral colour so hopefully it didn’t look too bad to a casual observer.  

We ate dinner with a lovely, recently retired couple from Waterlooville. Sharon was particularly pleased to live somewhere called this. Neil had worked shifts for many years and they were “making up for lost time” cruising now. I was rather disconcerted by Neil’s earring (it just somehow didn’t go with a dickie bow). We enjoyed sharing stories of camping (our usual holiday mode) and discovered that they had met in Germany. Neil had been in the forces and Sharon had gone out married to one serviceman and come back married to  another (Neil).

I had my first ever experience of Lobster. And very nice it was too. It had a cheesey sauce and, as we know, cheese improves almost everything.

We rounded off Sunday with some more ballroom and latin dancing – a  bit better this evening mainly because I think that I had found my proverbial sea legs and Matt wasn’t drugged.