Last Sea Day
Today was our final full sea-day, as we head South towards Ringaskiddy (for Cork) in Ireland.
My class was a 10am start, which meant that we were able to leave the room semi-set up after yesterday afternoons class (which in turn took some of the pressure off our morning get-up time). Last night, the clocks went forward, meaning we lost an hour, but it also means that we are now back in line with UK time (yeey!).
Today, I taught the class all about Negative Painting, which went well; there is only one last class for me to do, which will be tomorrow afternoon (after our Cork stop), so we won’t be escorting any tours then, as we will have to be back in time to set up the room.
After lunch we went up to Scott’s Bar, where Bruce Thompson was giving an extra performance, playing his guitar and singing a few folk songs. He has a remarkable singing voice, and clean playing style; clearly, an ‘old folkie’… Needless to say, it was standing room only in Scotts Bar, and a happy room-full of passengers… nice one, Bruce!
After the folk session, we retired to Marco’s Bistro for afternoon tea. Sandwiches and cakes are laid on, and it always amazes me just how much food folks can manage to pile up on their plates, not to mention how much food they can stuff away considering it wasn’t that long ago since lunchtime.
As well as the new carpet and paint job, there have been a couple of other new additions to the bistro area. The old tea-making machines have finally been replaced by swish new modern ones, which make the job of making tea and coffee swift and effortless. The other change is to the cold drinks machine. In the morning it serves cold fruit juices; during the rest of the day, it serves cold water. The machine is incredibly annoying, though; if it is left unused for more than about five minutes, it starts playing an advertising video on its front screen. That wouldn’t be so annoying by itself if it wasn’t accompanied by an truly awful jingle that plays alongside it. The whole thing replays over and over again, on a loop, until someone either presses the buttton for a cold drink of water, or touches the screen, which stops the video. Wherever you are within Marcos, your can hear the jingle start up periodically and play to itself… its quite annoying, and I’ve taken to whacking the screen automatically everytime I pass by it, to stop its innane jibberings… surely I can’t be alone in hating this thing, and I’m certain someone must have lodged a complaint about it at reception (I hope so)… surely, there must be someway to disable the video, or at least turn the sound off… there it goes again… aaaargh!
