Bright and sunny morning, with calm seas.
Two of our Trivia team are leaving tomorrow, in San Antonio, to fly back to Australia. We were hoping for a breakthrough to mark the occasion but we fell short. There were some very obtuse and dodgy questions – what does “Per aspera ad astra” mean?
I complained to Porky Peter, saying that the motto of the RAF was “Ad Astra per Ardua” but he insisted that he had googled it and he was correct – think he is a “diversity hire”, as POTUS would describe it.
We need to get on with our recruitment from the new passengers and I think we should look for Americans, as there are a few US related questions where we are weak.
One of the other teams, who have won on a few occasions, are also losing two team members and I received a veiled approach to join them but I am loyal to my team and they did not offer enough wine.
Back to doing our laps of the deck and I also managed some pedalling in the afternoon.
Decided that we would try some dancing before dinner, rather than wait until the Sequence fascists had finished their 45 minute parade, from 8pm. Unfortunately, the ballroom was being used for a cocktail party for the passengers who are leaving tomorrow and we were directed to one of the bar/disco type lounges. The Tango group had just finished their session but there were a couple of stragglers still on the floor – a younger woman and an elderly gentleman, trying to perfect their moves. The young lady appeared to be trying to get her leg around her partner’s neck. They finally left the floor to give way to the displaced ballroom dancers.
We started speaking to one couple, who were sequence dancers and had complained to the entertainments director (Fat Freddie) about the lack of opportunities for them to practice their art.
Displaying my usual flexibility of firmly held beliefs, I sympathised with them but with crossed fingers behind my back.
We wandered on to dinner and then to the now open ballroom, where it was party night. It was obvious that the cocktail party had gone well, judging by the freestyle dancing of some wobbly octogenarians. There were obviously thinking that they would never see the rest of the passengers again, so let their hair down – figuratively speaking, as there was not much of it and that was grey.
One energetic couple tripped – they said it was an ankle tap from another dancer – and fell in a heap in the middle of the floor. The stretcher bearers were quickly on the scene but not needed.
It was a very jolly evening and we were late to bed.