Day Two – At Sea.

Firstly an apology regarding the lack of pictures on yesterday’s entry. Due to the cost of internet connection on board, I am using Live Writer to compose the blog off-line. For some reason the formatting, which looks fine on the computer, changes when posted. It doesn’t seem to like too many pictures!!! From now on I will only put a couple of photos on per post , I am sure that we will post the most interesting ones on Facebook on our return.

I also forgot to mention that we went to our first show last night, unintentionally! We went to the theatre to see the introduction of the Entertainment team, arriving late we sat in the front row. We were surprised to find that this introduction was immediately followed by ‘the act’, comic-magician Martin Daniels [son of Paul]. We narrowly escaped a visit to the stage, a fate that was to fall to the man sat next to me. Having said all that it was a very entertaining show.

Now to today….firstly the sun was shining!! This is where having a balcony really comes into it’s own as after a leisurely breakfast we were able to sit soaking up the morning sun. We also found the table-tennis, the short tennis court and the deck quoits. We gave them all a go , being more successful at some more than others.

This cruise is one of P&O’s speciality cruises called a Tate cruise and on-board are several experts from the gallery. Today was the first of a series of lectures on great painters, today’s being on Turner. It was a very well presented talk from a gallery guide who obviously enjoyed his job and had a genuine enthusiasm for the subject. We both look forward to future presentations.

Tonight was the first formal night of the cruise and we had booked into Siddhu, the on-board Indian restaurant. This however is not just ordinary Indian as it is run by Atul Kochhur, the ‘Master of Spices’, the first Indian chef to gain a Michelin star. The food was superb, delicately spiced but very tasty. You’ll get an idea of the meal from the photo of our sweets.

Oh and by the way, Sylvia and I together with some new found friends from Carrickfergus, won the lunchtime quiz. Unlike previous trips this is a progressive quiz meaning that the scores are added daily through the cruise. We will try to continue where we started!!!  Two questions we got wrong were Who wrote the novel “The Fourth Estate” ?  and Who released the award winning album “Surrender” in 1997? – Any Guesses???? ………………Answers tomorrow.