I went to the first night show before dinner, a very entertaining performance by a Welsh comedian/magician/juggler.
Simon isn’t a fan of live shows, so we met up afterwards for dinner. Cunard ships are known for a high standard of dress; it is nice to dress up for dinner. We have a regular table kept for us every night, in the main restaurant, but if we don’t turn up within 30 minutes of our booking they give the table away. It’s a table for two which is a relief. Then an early night after a big day.
I had been pleased to discover that there was a hairdresser on board, so made an appointment for this morning.
What I hadn’t appreciated was that we had to put our clocks forward by an hour overnight, so that when room service turned up with my breakfast it was only 6:30 to me. A nasty shock on my holiday, and rather discombobulating.
The South African hairdresser did a fabulous job on my hair, in spite of the fact that I was falling asleep in the chair. On my way back upstairs, I came across some sort of dance class which looked interesting. I almost joined but then I saw a poster saying it was a lesson in line dancing. A close call!
Simon was starting to wake up when I got back to our stateroom. The poor man is really no better, in spite of a very strict adherence to his rigid no fat diet. It’s really getting him down. We went to look for some breakfast for him but unfortunately it coincided with one of the very few times in the day when all the food outlets were closed. We did a disconsolate wander around the ship until the buffet reopened.
From there I went to a ballroom dance class in beginners salsa. Luckily for me a young Japanese man offered to be my partner, and we did pretty well. It’s definitely good exercise.
After that I went to an educational talk on Astronomy Through the Ages. It was essentially a revision of a course I did in my first year in university (I had originally planned on doing a degree in astrophysics) but it was very well and entertainingly presented. Howard Parkin MBE (plus a bunch of other letters) is doing a series of lectures so I hope to get to more.
Back to the room for a nap before sunset stretch, a kind of yoga class at 5pm. The wellness studio is right next to the pavilion, a giant space with a glass roof, a pool, spas, bars, restaurants and a big screen where they played the women’s rugby World Cup final, so our yoga session had a background noise throughout of yells and screams as England dealt to Canada. Great to see so much enthusiasm for women’s sport.
Meanwhile, Simon had gone to the ship’s doctor to get some more antibiotics, as he continues to have fevers and feel lousy. The doctor had a clever machine that can do a CRP blood test just on a finger prick of blood, which is technology neither of us had ever heard of. CRP is a measure of inflammation, and Simon’s is as high as when he was first admitted to hospital a week ago. The doctor said Simon shouldn’t have got on board if he felt sick, but as you’ll recall, he was feeling quite good at that time. Anyway, too late now, and it seems even though he isn’t really improving, at least the chances of something catastrophic happening are very low.
We had prebooked a Japanese dinner for tonight. I had the degustation as planned and Simon had some very uninspired looking vegetable sushi. At least we both enjoyed the plum wine.