Today’s Daily Programme Can Be Found Here
It was a glorious morning, clear blue skies and little wind with a sea as flat as a pancake. I’d woken early and opened the balcony curtains as they are very effecive blackouts, this allows us to wake slowly with the dawn, unless you’re lazy like me and sleep straight though until 8:45 and was nearly late for breakfast. Luckily I’m in and out of the shower in minutes and we were sitting down in the restaurant at 09;05. I love kedgeree and I’d asked the Head Waiter if it was possible to get it as it wasn’t on the main breakfast menu. He said I could with a bit of notice, so I’d ordered it for today and I wasn’t disappointed with the spicy rice dish they served.
As it was a sea day there were three Insights presentations in the morning. The first of these was John Laverick talking about the engineering challenges of Gibraltar and the little known Spanish blockade up until 1985, something I’d experienced first hand with the RAF Jaguar detachments there around the Falklands conflict.
The second was Nicki Chapman’s Q&A. As expected she was very good and although she claimed to not to be able to “busk it” unlike some of her some of her colleagues, needing to be fully scripted, she handled the Q&A session incredibly well with wit and charm throughout.
The final one was Keith Appleyard and his talk on cyber security, now this was more my cup of tea, being an avowed geek hosting my own website and blog which is constantly under attack by malignant actors, it’s a subject close to my heart. He covered the subject very well, especially given this was never his field as a “Spook”.
It was then a rush back to the stateroom to meet Jane and then upstairs for lunch. After which we went for a stroll around the upper decks to have a look what it was like on a sunny sea day. The pool area was very busy but away from there, there were plenty of loungers and seats available both in the sun and in the shade. There were also some secret little areas where you could hide away, there one by the Tramonto restaurant exit and one by the Grills Restaurant exit.
We headed back to the room as Jane found it very hot in the sun in her morning session on the Grills Terrace and thought it’d be easier to sit on the balcony and retire back inside if it was too hot. I found it to be glorious and promptly fell asleep. Refreshed it was time to head back out and have a cocktail in the Sky Bar, It was the World Club event, a drinks party for Gold tier and above, in the Pavilion pool, so that route was closed to us so we headed there via the Grills Terrace which allowed us to peer down of the proceedings. We had and invite to the 7:45 one, but that interfered with dinner and we weren’t that desperate for a free glass of fizz. It was nice in the Sky Bar unfortunately I had the sun in my eyes, so had to move into a shadier area, which was a bit fresher while Jane was gossiping with a nice pair of lads, she can talk for England, a proper chatterer.
Then it was back to the room to get changed for dinner. Very nice but uneventful, just lots of nice food, and pleasant company before heading up to the Commodore club for a little light Jazz via the Queens Room.