All The Fun Of The Fair

Thursday 5 April

We have noticed that as we have gotten further into the cruise more and more people are arriving after us for breakfast at the Terrace Café – we can even get a table by the window easily now. After we had both eaten our fill we made our way to the computer section to enquire about the strange message we had received last night. Georgina, author of the message, was confused, but assured us we were still in time – in fact she also returned the ten minutes we had used yesterday morning, when the system went down and we achieved nothing. Colin was not eager to take part in the “trivial pursuits” challenge this morning, so we returned to blog and read for half an hour before the main event of the day – the “Country Fair” at 11.00.

We made our way to the pool deck where all the loungers had been removed to make way for individual stalls of fairground games, each organized by a different service on the ship. Bottles from the bar were tempting targets for the hoopla, batting the rat with a long truncheon as it fell from a box and knocking over bottles with a football in the skittle alley proved to be great entertainment in which most of the cruising passengers participated – silly games to play in the sun for an hour. One of the “deadliest” stalls had men succumbing to an area of their leg hair being removed by waxing as their partners ripped the wax strip off with relish. It seemed very painful but as the prize for all these games was Oceania paper dollars - to be exchanged for “O” points later – and as some men will do anything to win a bit more -there were a few men that had areas of their backs waxed for double ‘money’! Ugh – it was bad enough that they were gorilla-like in the first place, but to have an area in the centre of their back balded by this method was horrible. More gentle pursuits included ping-pong balls bounced into glasses at the far end of a table-tennis table, tins containing spices and flavourings used in the kitchen to be sniffed and identified, and plastic ducks swimming in the jucuzzi to be caught in small tiddler nets. Everyone seemed to have fun. At midday, a halt was called to all the frolicing and six horses were set up on wooden stands at one end of the deck for a “horse race”. Lots of people bet the “hard earned dollars” they had collected, on one or more of the six horses, and the game proceeded by two people each throwing a dice, to determine the number of the horse and the number of moves it was to take up the track. The whole crowd was shouting and encouraging their horses, but in the end there could be just one winner – number three today, and a few lucky punters collected their prizes. It had been a really successful morning, and with all the fresh air and excitement, everyone had worked up an appetite for lunch!

Today’s theme in the Terrace Café at lunch time was “oriental”, and a wide range of Chinese, Indonesian and sushi foods were available – it was hard not to eat too much – this was after all, only lunch and we had to stay awake for “bridge”. Classes today talked about “conventions” – systems people use in specific circumstances to find out more about their partner’s hand. We now have so much information to remember about the bidding process, it has become a bit like ‘overload’, and when playing, we all keep referring back to our notes, so games take a long time! To think that when we get to England they play a different system, and we would have to relearn everything again if we want to continue playing is a bit mind-blowing.

The trivia team congregated once more in the Martini lounge – still ten of us, and still too many to be able to consider everyone’s answer (especially as the questions have to be repeated several times for Ella to understand!), so another day of performing poorly. We even got “which is the second longest river in the world?” wrong! With a paltry score of nine points we must have been somewhere near the bottom. We lazed around for the next couple of hours, before it was time for drinks and dinner. Having sampled many of the martinis on offer, I have decided the ‘citrus martini’ is best, especially if served with olives as well as a lemon twist. We had thought of trying to squeeze into the Polo Grill again tonight – even though we have had too many bookings so weren’t allowed to make a reservation. The restaurant would be very busy now the end of the cruise is approaching – so we decided it was probably better to sample the Grand Dining Room once more. It was less than half full when we arrived, and seemed like a vast cavern with about as much atmosphere – cool and not terribly inviting. We have heard people finding different foods on offer here – like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and Dover sole - but it never happens when we are there. I decided to try a different starter and ended up with a strange concoction of a mashed potato nest filled with sweet corn kernels, surrounded by black beans, asparagus and shitake mushrooms – the flavours did not go together at all well, and it was a bit like sampling a vegetable basket. Colin chose tiny ravioli in a tomatoey creamy sauce to start which he enjoyed. My lamb chops were excellent – the bright pink meat was soft and succulent and melted in the mouth. Colin ate loin of venison with a fig compote and some grilled vegetables. Nice but … not exciting. For dessert he chose profiteroles, filled with ice cream – they were too cold to be tasty, and he says he is looking forward to me making more when we get home!

We made our way to the Insignia lounge and arrived just as the new entertainer – an impersonator – took to the stage. He had joined the boat in Tenerife, although has been on Oceania cruises before. Over the course of forty five minutes, he presented about thirty different characters, some, like George Burns, very funny, as well as a wide selection of entertainers like Dean Martin and Elvis. His routine was quite slick as he passed from person to person, but somehow lacked the sparkle of the Des and Cherry show.

For the last time on this cruise we were losing yet another hour tonight, and we had to be up early – around 07.00 – to see our entry into the Mediterranean through the narrow straits between the island of Gibraltar and Morocco. So it was straight to bed after the show, no lingering, or listening to jazz in the Martini lounge. Although the sea has been very calm all day, we seemed to be rolling around quite a lot during the night – apparently there is a strong eastward current in the straits, as evaporation is greater than the amount of water entering the Mediterranean by rivers and other water courses. The Atlantic Ocean pours in through this gap to maintain the level. The current was certainly speeding us along past the southern coasts of Portugal and Spain, on the final leg of our voyage.