At Sea

Today, we have been sailing the North Sea. It’s been rough enough to upset a few people, close a few staircases and bring out the sickbag fairy from hibernation, but nothing as serious as we’ve seen on other occasions.

I was worried it might affect the turnout for my class, but I’m pleased to say that the room was full of just over 20 keen folks ready to learn the basics of watercolour.

Art and craft classes take place in one of the side rooms attached to the restaurant down on deck 3. It’s not quite as big as the conference room on the Marco Polo, but it did the job admirably. Running classes in a restaurant can sometimes create a bit of tension between the interests of the two parties; tables need to be covered, naturally, but also when a restaurant is going to be needed soon after an art class, there’s extra pressure to finish on time and clear up ready for the next meal.

Fortunately, the small lounge doesn’t appear to be used by the restaurant on a regular basis, so I was able to stretch the class without worrying about being kicked out. In fact; they were very accomodating.

The rest of the day was almost as low-key as yesterday. The constant pitching of the ship curtailed a few planned activities (ballroom dancing, for instance), and I’m certain many people spent a large proportion of the day in their cabins. Tracey, who hates it when the sea is rough, spent the afternoon sleeping (thanks to the sea-sickness tablets), and I spent it working on an editing job and  catching up on Better Call Saul, The Big Bang Theory and Westworld.

All this ultra-leisure is tiring, though, so I’m looking forward to arriving at our first Norwegian port-of-call tomorrow (and so far we’ve managed to avoid getting roped into any tour escorting duties…)