Thursday – Oh, Those Bridge Players….
Today is the second day in a row that there’s been no internet access on board ship. A sign in the Reception area confirms this, but doesn’t give any explanation why, other than to say that we’ve lost the internet connection (very careless I’d say).
It’s been another busy working day today, with three classes on Tonal Awareness (that’s painting a Tonal Study). At just gone 2pm, a lady came dashing into the room and sat down amongst the first (1-2pm) group, who were in the final ten minutes of completing their painting, looking expectantly at first, then slightly bemused at not recognising any of the other passengers around her, who were looking at her equally bemused. When it dawned upon her than she was almost 30 minutes early for the 2:30 group, her bemusement turned to embarrassment, and I declared her early arrival to be something of a record. Needless to say, she made herself as tiny as she could and slipped out quietly, returning for her correct group a little later.
The Craft Room (which is actually ‘The Conference Room’), has four large tables, each with 6 chairs placed around them, making a total possible group size of 24. At the start of the week, it was noted that 2 chairs were missing. Linda, the Jewellery Crafter took it upon herself to retrieve the two chairs that had mysteriously disappeared into the Card Room next door. Without going into too much detail, there’s been a bit of aggro with Bridge players; that’s no surprise, since Bridge players have always seemed able to stir up trouble on board every ship that I’ve ever worked on. On this occasion, they’re apparently unhappy at the Crafts on board, particularly because we’re using the ‘Craft Room’, which they, for some reason, seem to think should be available to them for Bridge sessions (yeah… right).
Today, during Linda’s Jewellery session, a bridge player slipped into the Craft Room and tried to wisk a chair away… only Linda caught her in the act, and had a bit of a barny with her; the bridge player claiming that the chairs belong in the card room (because 50 people want to play bridge and they haven’t got enough chairs), and Linda insisting that said chairs belong in the Craft Room, making the required 24 places. I’ll be watching the door very closely during my classes to ensure that no chairs go astray; I’m not sure this little spat is over… watch this space.
Tomorrow, we arrive in Lisbon, and I’ve been given a Tour-escorting duty (‘Lisbon Highlights and Estoril’).
