Champions For The Day

Saturday 31 March

Having put our clocks forward again last night, we were very late waking up – some people are up and fighting for exercise machines when the spa opens at 06.30 – but that is not us. Breakfast is served till 10.00 and we only arrived about twenty minutes before closing. Colin had promised the other Colin to go along and support the men’s team playing Trivial Pursuit against the ladies. So far the men only have four in their team while the women are up to about twenty six – needless to say the women are winning the challenge 4 – 1 at present. While Colin went along to help the men out, I went to see Mark and have my hair leveled - so I now have two ears showing! - and then blogged till he returned – defeated - although they did have a little more support today. But Colin said they were playing “American Trivvers” and lots of the questions were about all American things like baseball, while the girls had questions like which sea touches Europe, North Africa and Asia? Men are such bad losers.

We played bridge on the computer till lunch time, revising the bidding process, ready for our afternoon class. The numbers attending each lesson continued to swell, although the newcomers today had all played the game a little before and had some idea of the game. Marilyn and Bill came and played on our table, both are American and both well-traveled - but not together. Bill joined this boat at Buenos Aires, and when it docks in Barcelona, he is spending a week there before flying to Fort Lauderdale and joining another cruise across the Atlantic to Cork, Dublin and London. Marilyn, too, has further cruises booked for the year, the first in May when she flies from San Francisco to Rome and then sails to Stockholm. Cruising sounds a little less adventurous than our trip, but they are getting to see the world. Colin played some “whizzo” no trumps hands and he and Bill beat Marilyn and I easily – our excuse was that we just weren’t dealt the high cards.

The numbers attending the quiz evening are also growing every evening, and the “four amigos and friend” has now swelled to more than a dozen in total! We managed to answer more questions correctly today and amazingly came in joint first – more “O” points. We could have had even more points if I had remembered goatskin was Moroccan leather – not camel – and I had spelt guerrilla with two “r”s instead of one. I took some friendly stick from Alan and his three “friends” being the “writer” for the day, but hey we won They still want us to back on their team on Monday. Question: what does SMS stand for on a mobile phone? To celebrate our success, we went to the “Love Songs” concert and drank a few cocktails whilst listening to Billy of the entertainment’s team croon – like Johnny Matthis, or the Platters?. This meant I couldn’t exercise tonight – too many drinks and nibbles – though it doesn’t take much to dissuade me. We had an hour to read, blog, or watch the television before getting ready for the onslaught of more food.

Tonight we were eating in Toscana and the choice of food is becoming more difficult – we don’t want to keep eating the same food, so the choice becomes limited as each restaurant has a variation on the same meats and fish – even though we have found all the dishes so far are scrummy and could be eaten over and over again. Colin decided to sample the prawns wrapped in parma ham with garlic and tomatoes that we had seen prepared at the first cookery demonstration. Feeling well again, he celebrated with pasta! – his most favourite of foods. Tonight’s choice was the ‘dish of the day’ with Italian sausage and a creamy tomato sauce over pappadelle. I chose baby squid, deep fried with spicy tomato sauce (they must have a huge vat of this as they use it in lots of their dishes – possibly even Colin’s pasta) and aoli, followed by Colin’s recommendation of lamb chops – in a black olive and herb sauce. The chops were over an inch thick and very pink – excellent. Colin could not resist the dessert menu any longer, and although he fancied an apple pie-type dish, he didn’t have the space, so chose instead another firm favourite in crème brulée.

The main entertainment tonight was a “50’s Soc Hop” with lots of twist and jive music to dance to. We only managed the slower numbers (having just eaten it was probably not a good idea to jump and down too enthusiastically) and even that proved quite difficult as the ship lurched and one partner went one way and the other in the opposite direction. At the end of the show we watched a few people playing the tables in the casino – still losing - before retiring to our room. We switched on the television – always fatal – and ended up watching a smultzy “made for tv” film, so it was well after midnight before we settled down.

Tomorrow is our first “port day’, but we have decided to stay on the ship – the presentation on our first day did not make Sao Vincente sound very inviting, with its capital, Mindelo, just a very poor settlement on the very arid volcanic island – some people have even mentioned a “leper colony” but I am sure that can’t be right. The rainfall here is minimal, so very few crops grow, although in the past there was an attempt to cultivate sugar cane. The islands were first settled by the Portuguese explorers in 1456 and later became a major centre for the slave trade. With the inception of trans-Atlantic shipping at the start of the 20th century, Cape Verde became a major refueling station for the ocean going liners – using coal brought from Wales. Most Cape Verdeans now live in Portugal or the USA, and many of the current inhabitants are bohemian artists and musicians from around the world. We will have a day off tomorrow from both bridge and trivia, but there will still be lots of activities provided onboard, so I am sure we will find plenty to do.