At sea

Monday 2^nd December

I decided it was time to get up at 9.30, though I have little doubt I could have gone back to sleep if I’d let myself! When did I last sleep for 12 hours? I must have been more tired than I realised. Unfortunately I seem to have the bug that’s going around – sore throat and a bit of a cough,though I have not yet developed the cold that’s also going around. Seeing I only get colds about once a year, and I had dose myself with echinacea before coming away, then this is very unusual! In eight cruises I have only been ill twice, both times on the Queen Victoria with cough/cold type illnesses.

The morning was a leisurely one, catching up on emails on the expensive ship’s system (over $50 for 2 hours – though luckily I get that amount free as a loyalty reward) and then on my diary and photos on my own computer.

The dance lesson today was tango – a revision of what we had done before, with another added step. Chris did not come to this. I met Lisa (Japanese, from Tokyo) who had been brought along by Alan for her first lesson.

I had planned to go to the cinema for the afternoon but instead I saw Lisa in the Lido and she invited me to join her as she met up with Alan to learn shuffleboard. (I’m not sure what Alan thought about that, but he was a perfect gentleman and welcomed me! Afterword: he said it was an advantage as then he could go off and leave us and do other things.) We took part in the shuffleboard tournament. Most of my practice shots went right to the end of the board and out the other side. In the game I actually managed to score 7s and 8s, but a better player on the opposing team knocked them out! Such is the competitive nature of the game! We were eliminated in the first round.

Lisa and I went to the Lido for coffee and then met up with Alan for afternoon tea, joined by another solo traveller who is very brave in the way he walks up to strangers and sits down with them (the one who offered to show me round Valletta – insensitive but brave).

I went down to the medical centre to see if they had any large plasters to cover my blisters. To my surprise after all the horror stories I’ve heard, they gave me three free of charge – and suggested I find more in Kusadasi as they don’t have many of that size. I also worked out that I had two wound plasters in my first aid kit and looked at them closely. They have thicker padding. One of these worked beautifully for the dancing, which means that in future I could cut a cosmetic pad to the required shape and put that in a large plaster for extra padding. Dancing problem solved!

There were a couple of disasters at dinner tonight. First we heard a great crashing noise as a waiter had obviously dropped a laden tray of dishes. The pecking order was admirably displayed. The waiters all went running to see what had happened. Along came their line manager to send them back to work and fix the solution. Then along came the next highest in line. After that was fixed, our under-waiter dropped a glass of water over Dorothy’s dress, so she had to go up and change. If disasters come in threes, we saw someone at a nearby table talking to a chef, and by the look on his face as he returned to the kitchen, he hadn’t been complimented!

There was one evening where I hadn’t liked anything on the menu, so asked for the safe option of grilled salmon (which someone had told me one could do). Ever since then the head waiter brings me the menu the night before, so that I can see if I want the salmon. That way they can serve my dinner at the same time as the rest of the table, not 15 minutes later as happened that first day (not that I complained – I kept reassuring them that I didn’t mind at all). Chris is also shown this menu now, as she also had a night where she ate the dinner but later told the head waiter that it was not good and the other selections were not appealing.

Once again, the evening consisted of dancing until after midnight. It was good to be able to get out on the dance floor again, after a couple of nights out of action because of blisters. Trevor co-operated to dance a couple of quicksteps with me so it could be videoed to prove I’m dancing again. Unfortunately the only one that showed up well was a very slow one; we were actually doing a quickstep to a foxtrot tune. Oops. It shows the steps but not as well as I was dancing a few nights earlier, the night that caused the blisters! This can't be posted to the blog but I'm currently downloading it to facebook.