November 14: 🚢Cruising the Red Sea for the second day
You guessed it - rinse and repeat
No rush to get anywhere with plenty of time up our sleeves - forget the old adage "he who hesitates is lost" on sea days - because it is all about "hesitation" in the form of "will I or won't I?" Plenty of chances to test doing new things - or leaving for tomorrow. By the time you have three square meals, before and after drinks, visit the pool or the gym (twice in @Richard's case - he has been committed), join in a couple of activities, participate in a class or two, make your contribution at the jigsaw table take in a movie, a lecture and a show and catch up with a few fellow travellers - you actually don't have much time in the day. Time was soooooo tight today, I had to set a timer on my watch to squeeze in a 25-minute nap between commitments. We almost need a PA to help keep track of the day. I know - I hear you - if we cut out the eating and drinking - we'd have oodles of time.
A later breakfast time saw us coincidentally converging on La Veranda at the same time and being engaged in a deep and meaningful about the size and flavour of this morning's cronuts. I'd already caught some early morning rays on the balcony and threaded up and used a few strands of cotton on the embroidery, so was happy to support the indoor option for breakfast in the comfort of the aircon.
My little bat cave people then fronted up for the next session in the lecture series. Again, so interesting - this one a look at the similarities between the written teachings of the Bible, Torah and Koran. I caught it late at night on TV replay.
I filled in my hour in an alternate way - gasp and gasp again in total disbelief - because I found myself DOING SOME CHORES!!! Think I must be experiencing housework withdrawal or feeling the need to brush up on my skills ready for the return to my real life at home. Refolded stuff in drawers, sorted through coat hangers, discarded some of the PAPER accumlating in the room and disrupted @Mac's methodical "in rotation" system of his clothing (I wonder if he will notice?) Even found myself on Level 6 in the Laundrette doing a load of washing and ironing a dress. Set the timer in my watch to match the timer on the washing machine and went back after the designated 40 minutes only to find the machine hadn't actually started. Catastrophic result, I am out of practice. Had to do a take-two and this time, supervised the first action of the machine fill, just to be sure.
Wandered up to the Observation Deck and found a table that had one chair in the sun and three in the shade and waited for the crew to assemble for the Sequence challenge that @Loraine had requested. The boys thoroughly demolished us today - we were barely in the running. Boys are declaring the previous team games as null and void because of a slight discrepancy in the card count.
Took a grab and go lunch back to the room to enjoy on the deck, had a 25-minute catnap for a refresh before more embroidery and then ART CLASS.
Oh dear, thank goodness that the artist in residence @Kirsten Kunhardt was so patient and encouraging. Definitely not my forte but guided by @Loraine and supported by the other attendees, managed to work through the three activities: making your mark (I was perhaps overzealous armed with two pencils taped together), sketching the fruit (yeah, sure) and finally, a collaborative sketch (oh dear - I left my "affirmed grape mark" - see below - on everyone else's page)
This last round was a timed activity - a minute for each rotation. You start by drawing your perception of the fruit for 1 minute - and then you pass your efforts to the next person and then they add to it to create a final single image. A collaborative work created by a team of four. It was like a revisit of Mr Squiggle - without his talent - and reflecting, I do think I would have been more credible with a pencil tied to my nose! But we all laughed our way through the challenge and were proud recipients of the final piece.
Was a great afternoon. Time just flew by with shared effort and laughter with your small group and the encouragement of @Kirsten. Have to say that @Kirsten did make the "teacher rookie mistake" - she admired and complimented my "grapes" in the first "make your mark" activity - and then I dutifully reproduced my "affirmed grape mark" over and over in an attempt to win her approval. And still smiling thinking about the t ladies on the table next to us - they were fixated on the banana in their fruit bowl and apparently had some very graphic interpretations of that piece of fruit which caused repeated laughter.
Only a limited number of places available in the class - so @Loraine headed straight to Reception to book us in again for tomorrow. Such fun.
@Mac and @Richard took in the movie option in the afternoon - complete with popcorn. In shock really - it was MAMMA MIA - and @Mac said he was singing along to his old ABBA familiar favs. Did comment that he was given extra confidence boost with his choral efforts because of Pierce Brosnan's " daggie-dad" attempt at singing. Even more surprised - they said they actually enjoyed it!
Already 5 pm and we had to be ready for the 6 pm meet up for cocktails and the next round in the eating marathon.
It was a milestone night at dinner. First of all, @Mac got his escargot fix served just the way he likes it in Compass Rose (plenty of garlic sauce and dipping bread.) I had to chastise him for being overzealous in scraping every last morsel from the plate - at one stage I was horrified he might pick it up and actually LICK the bl@@dy thing! Secondly, there was a little role reversal in our MENSA puzzles - @Loraine was the genius behind the maths solution and @Mac unravelled the word puzzle that had us stumped. Obviously, we don't keep turning up for the food - only there for benefit of exercising our brains.
Took the brain exercise a little further and put in 30 minutes of team effort on the World Jigsaw that has been going for days now and concentrated on Australia before heading onto tonight's "Broadway Hits" show in Constellation Theatre. Definitely the quick and the dead for seating options - theatre always fills up so fast. Found ourselves perched on the higher chairs of the back row with a perfect uncluttered view.
Lights out literally everywhere on ship thanks to @Captain Luca's reminders and that was a close to another day. Starting to get that little shadow of sadness impinging on our peripherals - the Wi-Fi had us logging in and displaying our countdown as another 7 days have ticked over. We are on that slippery slope side of "it's nearly over" and we definitely don't want it to be.
Weather: 28 and a hazy pall on the horizon
Steps: 5 343
#RegentSevenSeasExplorer #RegentSevenSeas #RegentCruise
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