Thursday – Heading East
Guess who forgot to put their clocks forward one hour…
I was sat working in the cabin, at what I thought was 11am, when the Captain’s voice came drifting over the airwaves with his noonday announcement. I thought it strange that he’d decided to give us his ‘positional report’ earlier than usual; it wasn’t until the ‘ting-ting’ of whatever it is that he tings, tinged, that I knew then that it was me who was out of synch with the rest of the ship. As I’m normally turning up to the Craft Room at 12:15, it gave me only 15 minutes to get myself organised… not a good start to the day.
When I arrived at the craft room, Krystina, the crafty person who does the morning shift told me that the ‘Christian Fellowship’ group, who have taken to periodically holding meetings in the Card Room next door (which I’m sure has gone down a storm with the bridge players), had come into her session, unannounced, and helped themselves to half a dozen chairs. The odd thing is; they didn’t even ask first if it would be okay to borrow the chairs – they simply flounced in and helped themselves… quite rude (and some might say, very unchristian…). I went to have a word with Jonathon, the Cruise Director, and then had several words with the organisers when they finally returned the chairs, right in the middle of my first class. Hopefully, all has been said that needs to be said, and that it won’t happen again.
It’s not like me to have a moan, but it just seemed like one thing after another today. As I was setting up the room for the classes, the piped music came on in the Craft Room. This has happened before, but has always been resolved very quickly. The barman in the Columbus Lounge, which is adjacent to the Craft Room has got used to me; he knows when I’m in there, and if the music is on when I arrive, he turns it off automatically. I’ve even taken to catching his eye across the width of the ship, and we’ve nodded, or thumbs-upped in acknowledgement. Unfortunately, they’ve had a massive changearound of bar staff. I assume this is a something they do as a matter of course; a change is a good as a rest n’ all that. When I went to the bar to ask if they could turn the music off in the Craft Room, all I got in return was a blank stare, followed by a shrug of the shoulders. I tried to explain the situation, but the barman wasn’t having any of it. I even pointed to the little cubby hole into which the previous barman would disappear, and make the music go away, but he just shook his head and calmly explained to me that it wasn’t anything to do with him, and that the music was controlled from the bridge. The Bridge?…. The… Bridge!!!! Really… honestly?….. No amount of my gesticulating would make him change his mind. It took another trip to the Cruise Director’s office, with me Victor (I don’t Believe it!) Meldrew-ing to get the music finally turned off. I have a sneaky feeling this is going to happen again tomorrow…
Despite having had a bad start to the day, the classes went well. I had them painting a snowy mountain ridge (Striding Edge), in order to explain all about the importance of shadows, and how to turn flat, two-dimensional shapes into three-dimensional-looking rocks.
It’s going to be like this for the next four days, as we head towards our final two stops of the whole cruise; Horta and Ponta Del Garda, in The Azores.
This evening, we had a new guest act entertain us, having joined us in Barbados yesterday. Andy Leech, who I have seen before, is a comedian/magician, and it was a packed house in the Marco Polo Lounge that greeted him this evening. All very entertaining stuff… particularly his spoonerism-loaded re-telling of Rinder Cella… very clever, and very funny.
