Woke up this morning to find I was getting a cold. 🙁 Sniffly, sneezy and bunged up. Not surprising really, when you think there are the best part of 900 passengers on the Braemar and the last few days have been a bit too windy to spend any time outside, so we’re all below decks breathing the recycled air-conditioning.
After getting up fairly late (after 9.00am), I left my white trousers (and the free laundry voucher) in the bag for the cabin stewardess to take away to be cleaned. We then pottered about for a bit before going along to the Neptune Lounge to hear another of Elliot’s “An Audience With…”, this time it featured Captain Jozo Glavic as well as the Hotel Manager. The Captain is very amusing and always ends his midday navigational speech with “Always remember, be happy”. It was an interesting 45 minutes or so, as we knew it would be.
We followed this by taking part in “Name that Tune” at 12.15pm which once again we didn’t win. The problem is that they are playing excepts from tunes which were popular in the 50s and 60s, whereas my music era is the 70s and 80s. So a lot of the tunes were in the charts before I was even born.
This took us nicely to lunchtime (more eating!) which we enjoyed in the Palms Café, washed down with a chilled glass of rosé wine. Then we ventured out on deck but it really did feel quite chilly the closer we’re getting to Blighty, so we didn’t stay out long.
At three o’clock we once again headed to the Neptune Lounge for another talk by Bob Wragg; this one was called “The Custom of the Sea – A Question of Survival or Morals?” It told the story of the ship Mignonette which was shipwrecked leaving four survivors (including the captain) in the lifeboat for days on end. One of them was very ill and didn’t have long to live, and the captain made the decision to hasten the lad’s death so the other three could live off his remains. It sounded an interesting (albeit gruesome) story; I will have to find out more about it when I get home.
Straight after the talk we stayed in our seats because the excellent Braemar Orchestra were themselves in the spotlight today with their tribute to the Big Band greats. They played a good selection of lively tunes and I could see many feet tapping along in time. I really enjoyed their performance and I love the fact that all the productions on board featured a live band; on some ships the singers/dancers have performed to pre-recorded ‘canned’ music and it’s just not the same.
It was then time to get washed and changed and go to dinner; once again the galley team did us proud with their culinary delights and once again it did my waistline no good at all! 🙂
The performance tonight was a Grand Variety Show and featured all of the guest entertainers; that is Lloyd Davies the comedian, John Lenahan the magician, Lauren Charlotte the violinist and Jon Moses the singer. It was a good show all round.
We then went along to the fast-filling Coral Lounge to take part in the quiz. Jackie and Kathy were already waiting for us, and the theme tonight was ‘The Body’. All the cryptic clues had an answer which was part of the human body, for example: A tropical tree (answer: palm). We got 15/15 but two other teams also scored full marks so it went to the tie-breaker. We won!! Yes, we’ve finally won our second quiz, so we enjoyed a bottle of chilled cava on the house. 🙂
The evening finished with a second show; this one featured the Braemar Show Company and was called “The Big Wheels of Motown”. Once again, it was a lively, original performance and the Motown theme continued afterwards with the Revolverlites, before the disco played to a packed dance floor. It was late once again when we went to bed, and we tried hard not to think about the fact that we only had three more nights on board. 🙁