The Itinerary says At Sea 1, but that's because its the 1st sea day of our 2nd leg. It's the 11th of the total.
Anyway, I managed to get up for Sergey's Tai Chi at 7am, despite a long day's walk & a late night chat, and (of course) stayed out on the deck of the Tropical Bar for Amanda's exercises.
In my notes I wrote "on other port side" about breakfast
I have No Idea what that meant?
Duh %-@
Scratches head (beware the sawdust ;-p )
After Brekkers I chatted for a while with Peter amidships, did a bit of my usual reading & sleeping (Holiday & all that), & went to lunch with Harry.
I had my free back & leg massage at 4pm, so I didn't go to Sergey's Story Time: I didn't want to walk out before the end.
In between lunch & 4 it was more reading & sleeping, & after the massage I read on my bed.
While I was there, there was a tannoy announcement about whales, so I grabbed my camera & ran.
As bloody usual, no sign of cetaceans for Shirl :-(
It was sunny, so I read on the aft deck until 7, watched a snatch of MI-Ghost Protocol while I got ready for dinner, & had dinner with Tony, Michael, Ian & Conrad.
As per norm, little Conrad spoke with great authority on everything under discussion, including rugby. He seemed surprised that I disagreed with his opinion about scrummaging, & Tony was struggling not to laugh*. He hid it well in his pudding, though.
* & then he made a joke about peeps who talk bullshit, & I was struggling not to laugh.
Tony is so funny & has a great dry sense of humour :-D
And what a lovely man.
After dinner there was a Pub Quiz in the Piano Bar, & I joined Collette & Bernie, + 2 peeps whose names I didn't write down. After being ignored on an answer in the pub at Oban on Stewart Island in 2011 (& where our team came 2nd), I stuck to my guns & our team won. I think we got a bottle of fizz, but it didn't go far between 5 of us.
Ah well, better than a Crackerjack Pencil ;-)*
A behemoth of children's programming, for nearly three decades Crackerjack pretty much marked the start of the weekend with its mixture of sketches, pop performances and of course its games. Countless different games were played down the years - there were any number of straightforward on-the-buzzer quizzes, alongside other games like the jigsaw-based Jig-Jak and Hangman variant Take A Letter, but the show's signature game was Double Or Drop, devised by original host Eamonn Andrews, in which kids had to answer questions while holding on to an ever-increasing pile of prizes (with cabbages added to the heap for wrong answers). Win or lose, everyone went home with the coveted "Crackerjack pencil" (later replaced by the "Crackerjack pen").The famed Crackerjack pencils were only given to children who actually took part in the games, and they were kept under lock and key so nobody else - even the presenters and crew - could have one. One exception was made in 1961 when the Queen visited the set and was given pencils for Prince Charles and Princess Anne. The pencils were abandoned for a short time in the early 1970s but were subsequently reintroduced, and later on there were Crackerjack pens as well. Leslie Crowther once stated in an interview that he was never given a "Crackerjack" pencil, yet people would constantly ask him for one many years after he stopped hosting the show.
Having taken no photographs the whole day ~ in the absence of interesting things on deck & me missing the cetaceans, here are some delicious looking food photos courtesy of Andy.
By the fact that there is still a knife & fork on the table, this must have been one of Andy's starters?
Hey, I made a rhyme.
I'm a poet & didn't know it*
* That is a very old phrase, & I don't know who 1st said it.
Another one from a children's book is:
It wasn't the cough,
That carried him off.
It was the coffin,
They carried him off in!
I'll get my coat . . . . .
I think this was a starter as well?
Either that or a fish course.
Whatever it was, it looks scrummy.
Yummy and scrummy - childhood terms for the taste of food. I remember using them when I was a kid. They're actually quite old - well, a hundred years or so - they're late 19th century - is the first time I've found a reference to them from 'yum, yum' - 'yummy' from 'yum, yum' - first, referring to delicious food, of course, and then to attractive people. That became a usage in the 1990s, which was quite fashionable for a while. People talked about 'yummy mummies' - that is, the perfectly-groomed woman who goes to yoga classes, stays slim, has clean children and has a four-wheel-drive. And other usages came in too - 'I've got a very yummy job', people might say, and recently, I heard somebody talking about somebody who had a very yummy blog on the internet - in that sense, it means, sort of, delightful and attractive, rather than delicious.
Scrummy', anyway became modelled on 'yummy'. It developed in the early 20th century some years later, again, originally with reference to food - scrumptious, you see, it's a derivation from that word, which means delicious. People talked about 'scrummy cakes' and 'scrummy recipes', and then, started using it as an adjective too, more than 'yummy' did, you know, 'that was scrummier', 'this is scrummiest'. I have heard 'yummier' and 'yummiest', but 'scrummier' and 'scrummiest' seems to be more common! Something 'sounds scrummy'. There are 'scrummy TV shows' now. The word, evidently, has moved on!
And this! Mmmmm
Some sort of savoury pate? Well, I imagine it would be savoury? Broccoli, asparagus etc. are not usually served as part of pudding, even in the most avant garde cuisine!?
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| I remember this cutlet. It was scrummy, too |
When I was younger I was not able to eat lamb: I'd get spots when I ate some foods, & lamb was one.
Now I don't ~ I'm obviously no longer prone to adolescent acne ;-p, so I can eat all sorts of stuff I didn't for years, including lamb, coffee, salted peanuts & strawberries.
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| Nice & red: that's the way to do it ;-q |
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| Peach Melba? |
And a lunchtime dessert table. I'm hungry just looking at it!
Sea Day 12 ~ Friday April 25th
I woke before 0630, & grabbed the Jo to do a bit of pre-dawn practice on the Tropical Bar deck in order to check clearance all round.
I didn't want to whack any of the audience, especially with the big Yokouchi at the end!
It was Lidja's turn to run the 0700 class. This meant Yoga-y stuff as opposed the Tai Chi we did with the Captain.
Then it was Amanda, as usual.
I had breakfast with Ernest & Harry, took a few kiwis on deck & read the next book in line ~Gateways.
Gerry was up there as well, so we shared the kiwis.
There was mast climbing again, so I lurked well before 1030 to ensure I got another go.
I went up 2 before Andy, & managed to get a couple of him climbing up the rat-lines.
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| That's Amanda's R leg. She stayed up there the whole time to help us off the rat-lines & up through the access hole |
Somebody?? took a couple of me & Andy? It's a shame he didn't show his teeth ;-p
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| This is Andy taking a pic of me taking a pic! |
Once down on deck again, I took a few lying down & looking up, & when I got home Andy E'd a few to me which he'd taken.
The pics give a great impression of how high we'd climbed.
Sadly, we were only allowed up to the 1st cradle/platform, which was a bit disappointing, but I'd expected it after the mast climb on Star Clipper in 2006.
I'd love to go all the way up :-p.
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| Note the shadows on the left ~ 1 |
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| Note the shadows on the left ~ 2 |
From the shadows on the 2 which initially look identical you can get an impression of how the ship was rolling while we were up there. Not at all nauseating, in my opinion, but obviously more than it felt like. We'd clearly got our sea-legs by then & didn't notice a bit of rolling.
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| Patrick on his way up |
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| Harry putting on a cheery face, pre-climb ;-) |
After all the excitement it was time to chill & chat, & take some more pics of my lovely fellow voyagers.
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| Mr Chill personified ~ Jerry from Canada |
Big David getting his harness fitted by (big) Erik.
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| The very chilled |
And then it was lunch time ~ Chef's best.
As usual, unlike Andy's, my food photos tend to look a bit like vomit on a plate*, but this was very tasty, despite what it looked like.
* Check out the Hamilton, NZ, seafood pate from Sept 2011!
There was no "Erik's Abs, so I spent 40 minutes stretching down in the gym, & had a bit of a 'singalongaMonika' before going down to my cabin to prep for dinner.
I had dinner mostly alone & then went up to the Piano Bar to see the documentary about a whale. Good film, but I was sat next to Tony who started to snore ;-p.
I let him sleep ;-)
Before I got there, I took the last 2 pics of the evening sky.
I really like the one of the jibs.
After the film I sat chatting with Tony, Marcel, Gabi & Harry, & Marcel got some filched hot chocs. out of his cabin & we all had a midnight night-cap. Well, not quite midnight, as I was back in my cabin & in bed before 12.
My bed-time read was very short this evening as I was very sleepy.
I'd had the next day's Itinerary placed on my pillow & realised we only had 2 sea days left of our marvellous voyage across the Atlantic :-(
OAO
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