What I like to do on the ship

Well the time has flown by since my last post from Kusadasi. After buying not one but two bags from very persistent salesmen (one of whom kept kissing me, probably because we paid over the odds for the bag!) we had another day at sea. A day at sea is a nice change of pace and we both totally chilled out. I have enjoyed my reading this holiday. First of all I finished Hillary Clinton's book "Hard Choices" which I was already half way through. I could rename it "Hard Going" because I found it to be rather difficult; I'm not very well informed about politics due to my reprehensible lack of interest in the subject when I was younger. However I persisted and felt that I learned quite a bit. Then I read David Mitchell's "The Bone Clocks" which I thought was very good and well written (he also wrote "Cloud Atlas") and then Paul Merton's autobiography which was quite interesting although a bit guarded in places. Now I am reading another Patricia Cornwell "Scarpetta" crime novel; I rather overdid these earlier in the year but after a break I am ready to suspend my disbelief and enter into the world of Kay and her cronies once again! 

In between all this reading I managed to go to the gym and keep up my swimming. There are lots and lots of activities on the cruise (line dancing, fitness classes, bingo, shows, quizzes, lectures on the destinations to name but a few) but James and I are really very happy pottering about doing our own thing. And in the evening after dinner we go to our favourite bar for drinks. We are quite happy with our own company but as it happens we met some great people this week - we bonded when we noticed that we were all covertly watching a couple who were so drunk that they were falling down - quite literally. We didn't mean to laugh at them but the combination of their finery and dishevelled state was very funny! This got us all chatting and we started meeting up and have had a good laugh. And later on James and I like going back to the room to sit on the balcony in the warm darkness and watch the lights of other ships passing in the distance.