During the night we lost an hour’s sleep, as the clocks were put forward an hour becoming nearer to British Summer Time. Nevertheless we were still up around 8.15am, as we had a full itinerary of events to look forward to today.
After breakfast we got ourselves ready for our first “Boudicca Olympics” event, which was carpet bowls. Quite a few other participants were there when we arrived, about 20 of us altogether. I had never played carpet bowls in my life so didn’t know what to expect.
We were put into pairs to play, ladies versus the men. I was paired with a very nice lady called Mags. She had played bowls before, which made up for my total lack of experience (which showed). The end result was that the ladies won Gold (5 prize points) and Mags and I won Silver (3 prize points each, certainly down to her and not me) and the men won the Bronze.
The next game was Golf Putting, which took place inside in the conference room as the upper deck, where the golf nets were, was too windy. You had six balls and had to putt them into these holes; the smaller the hole the greater the number of points. We each had two turns, using left and right hands. With my left hand I scored 11, but when it came to my right hand I got all six balls into a hole, scoring a total of 27. A complete fluke of course, just luck. So my full tally was 38 points.
The game continued thus, with lots of misses and near-misses. The end result was that I had the second-highest total so won the Silver medal (3 points) while Trevor had the third-highest and got the Bronze medal (1 point). So I had redeemed myself somewhat with the Ladies Team after my poor start at the carpet bowls. 🙂
At 12.15pm we had to go to the Lido Lounge to play Nintendo Wii 10-pin bowling. I scored a Spare but my total points weren’t enough to win a medal this time.
Then it was off to lunch and a bit of free time before darts at 3.00pm. As there were so many of us the rules were thus: you started with two lives each and you had to beat the score of the person who went before you, otherwise you lost a life. I threw my darts immediately after Trevor, and the first time he scored 46 but I beat him with 56, so I retained both my lives.
Basically, we all kept playing to this format until, one by one, we each lost our lives until there were only three people left in, who were obviously the ‘medal’ winners. The Ladies got the gold medal this time round. 🙂
That was all the ‘Olympic’ games for today; we would have more to look forward to tomorrow.
We then took part in the quiz at 4.00pm, with a full team consisting of me and Trevor, Steve and Marilyn and Michael and Julia. We didn’t win; the worst part is when you have the right answer, then the doubt creeps in and you change the answer, only to lose a point because you’d changed your mind. First instincts are usually correct. 🙂
We stayed for another drink or two after the quiz then it was time to go back and get ourselves ready for tonight, which was a Red, White and Blue (or British) themed night. Trevor wore a very dapper Union Jack waistcoat and dicky-bow tie, while I wore white trousers, a blue t-shirt and a Union Jack jacket. But my pièce de résistance was a large flag I draped over my shoulders; the flag featured the silhouettes of WW1 soldiers against the background of a large poppy, and the words “Lest We Forget” emblazoned in capital letters along the bottom of the flag. It is, after all, 100 years since the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
When we went up to dinner (where our outfits had already attracted much attention), we found we were the only couple at table #21. The others had evidently gone to the Indian buffet in the Secret Garden, but we were treated to an array of British dishes in the Tintagel Restaurant. Trevor had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding while I enjoyed bangers and mash.
We then made our way along to the Neptune Lounge for the great British singalong at 8.00pm. While we were in the queue someone asked if they could take Trevor’s picture, of him with his John Bull waistcoat and dicky-bow.
We found seats as near to the front as possible, and Elliot Taylor, the cruise director, had a look around to see who had the best outfits. When he asked “who has made the most effort with their British costumes?” some people shouted out “Debbie! Debbie!” So I went out to the front and let them all see my Union Jack jacket, then turned around so they could see my flag, which elicited an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience. Elliot said I had brought a ‘touch of class’ to the proceedings. 🙂
Anyway, the show started with a good old British singalong, with much flag-waving and singing with gusto. Then the Boudicca Show Company’s performance was called “Britain Rocks”, featuring the best of British music from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, including a medley of James Bond theme songs. For the Bond songs, Julian the blond lead dancer came on as James Bond, complete with dinner suit and gun. He did a fantastic dance routine, including some acrobatics; he really is a fit lad and his dancing is amazing. I am sure we will see more of Julian in the future.
Towards the end of the show, the singers and dancers came on dressed in Union Jack costumes and did a rendition of rousing patriotic songs such as “Jerusalem” and “Land of Hope and Glory”, in which the audience joined in enthusiastically. It really was a tremendous show.
We stayed for the quiz afterwards, and Steve, Trevor, Julia and I were joined by another couple, David and Lorna. It was a British themed quiz and… we won, with 15/15. Of course it went to a tie-breaker, but we knew that India had gained its independence from Britain in 1947, so we won!! Yay! We’ve made the hat-trick. 🙂
We finished the evening by going up to the Lido Lounge, where Colin James the pianist was doing a selection of great British pop songs. While we were there, the gentleman who had the little soldier bear came over and wanted his bear photographed in front of my “Lest We Forget” flag.
It was late when we got to bed, made even more so by the fact that we had to put our clocks forward an hour again. What the hell… we’re on holiday, so we can have a lie-in in the morning if we want. 🙂