We slept like the dead!   We always do on a ship. I don’t know if it’s the barely perceptible rocking or the total blackout but I do enjoy it. First time in a while that I haven’t woken at 5.

Last night we had dinner at 815.  It’s freedom dining ie restaurant style, you can reserve a time and table size of your choosing or just rock up and possibly share a large table with others.   We reserved a table for two last night. In fact the tables were very close together so we got chatting to the couple on the next table anyway.  They were from Nottingham and are doing the whole voyage, lucky things. Dinner was very good. Good choices and quality.  I had a crab panacotta, caesar salad with anchovies, steak with veg. And then a small plate of cheese. Bob had the same except he had a huge porkchop instead of the steak and a bowl of ice cream instead of cheese.  We both had coffees but declined chocolates and petit fours.   We are trying to have a dryish January so we didn’t have any drinks.. 

After dinner we went to the show which was a selection of musical numbers from the resident company. Very good. Looking forward to more. Turned in about 11 and slept till 8.

By then we were past the Scillies, and in the north Atlantic heading southish on a great circle route to Terceira in the Azores which we reach on Monday morning. It’s quite sunny with a wind about a force 4, a 3m swell and the temperature is 13C.   Much better than we feared.   The ship is hardly rolling at all, no drunken sailor staggering. Stabilisers must be superb. The captain is a jovial Irish man and he promises good weather!!!

We went to the 10 am art class and it was well attended.  In my view a very hard subject for a first one.  A pier disappearing into perspective out to sea against the sea and sunset. Our attempts were pretty rubbish and you can definitely tell we haven’t done much for a long time.  There’s a lot of technique to watercolour and we are very rusty.  Hopefully that will improve as we sail on. Enjoyable though.

There’s a full program of lectures and activities as usual.  Less than on Queen Mary because she has more venues than Queen Victoria.  But enough.  And to be honest we are so tired we are happy to spend some time vegging out with a book or a film.    We did take a couple of turns around the prom deck which was lovely in the sun.

After lunch (sushi and sashimi) we got our kindles and sat up in the Winter Garden, a sort of huge conservatory and read. Then we took part in a music quiz and did pretty well considering we were only 2 people and up against some teams of 6 or 7 people. It was fun anyway.

This evening we chose to join a mixed table and we dined with a pair of German doctors, one of whom was a diving medicine specialist and ophthalmic surgeon. Really interesting chap to talk to. And one other couple from near St Andrews in Scotland who were also excellent company. Very good dinner that passed in a delightfully quick time.

We went to the late show which was an A Capella singing group who performed modern pop and dance classics with an electric drum backing. Odd concept to be honest but they had very good voices and tried very hard.