Tuesday April 6th.

Another full day at sea. Still sailing up the Red Sea towards our first port of call in Egypt. We started the day with our now customary mile long walk around the promenade deck, passing by the usual people as we walked past them (we had given some people nick-names, as you do when you don't know their actual names). In the early morning shade down the starboard side of the deck, many people were always in the same loungers with their books or the daily crossword and/or sudoku puzzle. One of these men, I remember with hilarity because I really couldn't see the need for it, we christened "Underpant Man". He used to sit on his lounger, or sometimes he'd be standing up catching a few rays as we walked past, and instead of the usual shorts/ cargo pants/ swimming trunks you would expect men to be wearing, he would parade about in his underpants. Yes, you read it right the first time, his underpants! There really was no reason for it at all.

Another man reinforced my general impression that men with moustaches are quite often arrogant and tend to have characters I do not particularly like. I am not saying that every man who has a moustache is the same, or that there is anything wrong with men having a moustache - just commenting on a small observation of mine over the years. Anyway, back to the moustache man. He waddled along the deck in front of us this morning and suddenly stopped, gave an extremely loud phlegm-induced hawking noise and then disposed of the product produced by this action in the corner of the deck. Mmmm, how pleasant! I felt physically sick by this! I know sometimes coughing up phlegm is unavoidable, but usually don't people keep it private?

Another woman who we regularly saw on our walk was "Laundry woman". We only knew her by sight and because she'd given us some tips on how to use the machines down in the laundry room when we first went down there! There was "Arthur Two Sticks Jackson" - a man who needed two walking sticks in order to get about (although, to be fair, there were probably two or three likely contenders for this particular name) and just because I'm on the subject of nick-names, the best of all was "Passport Man" - but I will tell you how we gave him his name later on in my tale.

Only 29 degrees today, so slightly cooler than yesterday!!!! Did a spot of relaxing on our private balcony this morning before having a "civilised" lunch in the dining room. It's so pleasant to be waited on at meal-times! Today's meal was a rather delicious Cullen Skink soup followed by a roast beef sandwich. Read a bit more of our books after lunch, then I went to my 2nd choir rehearsal this afternoon. Sang "Edelweiss", "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho", "Flying Free" and "Ascot Gavotte". We were told to pencil in a date for the concert of April 18th. Edelweiss brought back some memories for me, since that was the song I sang almost a year ago exactly as my audition piece to join Hull Musical Society.

Keith not feeling too good all day, but still joined me at dinner. He just had a very plain meal of consommé followed by an omelette. No doubt I had fish of some description, but I've forgotten which one it was exactly tonight! The waiters always addressed the men as either "Mr Davison" (or whatever their surname happened to be) or, if the men were happy to be addressed by their first name, it was always "Sir Keith" which seemed rather regal, somehow! At the end of every meal, whether we were having a dessert or not, the waiters brought around a selection of Petits Fours, not dissimilar to these:

However, one of the waiters just kept getting it wrong and every night without fail, he would bring the tray to me, then say "Petit Pois, Madame Davison?" and I just couldn't tell him he was wrong - not because I didn't want to correct him, but because I rather liked the idea of eating some rather small green peas at the end of a meal! Oh, perhaps I should have mentioned that most of the cabin crew, in particular the waiting, kitchen, and cabin staff were Filipino people, extremely hard working and very eager to please at all times. They often made me laugh the way they never seemed to stop singing, either, especially at breakfast time.

Monday, April 5th

Another scorcher of a day was on the cards as we took our mile long walk before breakfast this morning. After a leisurely feast of orange juice, poached eggs, mushrooms, bacon, beans and toast (washed down with a cup of earl grey tea), we went to the destinations lecture in the ballroom. Given by Dr Peter Crimes, it was interesting to learn about the actual proximity of the pyramids to the city of Cairo - I'd always had an image in my mind of the pyramids being in the middle of the desert and nothing but sand all around. We would soon find out differently, but at least now we were prepared!

Had a bite to eat in the Lido cafe at lunch-time, then sat on the deck for a while, reading and enjoying the sunshine with a temperature of 30 degrees and a lovely cooling breeze. Yesterday, as we'd walked through the Preview bar at some point in the afternoon,  there were a group of passengers in there singing. It dawned on me, after reading through the "Today" bulletin, that this was the Saga Ruby passenger choir. Missing my weekly rehearsals with Hull Musical Society back home, I decided to take the plunge this afternoon and joined in half way through the rehearsal. I sat next to a woman called Gillian who let me share her music for the rehearsal. I got chatting to the musical director afterwards who at first assumed I was a member of the crew on board. Her name was Jacky March and she'd joined the cruise at Mumbai like us - but most of the other choir members had been singing together since January when the cruise began. They'd already done 3 or 4 concerts (with a different musical director) and there was a plan to perform one more towards the end of the tour. I was really pleased to be able to take part in this, since I was already missing a couple of concerts with my local society in Hull. Everyone was really welcoming and I thoroughly enjoyed my first rehearsal with them.

After the rehearsal I joined Keith back in the cabin and read another book until dinner time. Keith was trying to learn some of his lines for the play we will be doing in June. I helped him a bit by testing him on the ones he'd learned already. At the dinner table tonight, as we all told each other what we'd been doing during the day, I found out that Geoff is also a singer in the Dalston Male Voice Choir in Cumbria. They perform quite regularly and have even made a couple of CDs. I tried to persuade him to come along to the passenger choir, but he doesn't want to! One of the pieces we are singing in the choir is "Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho" which I had been rehearsing at home, but a slightly different version. I have been allocated a couple of second soprano notes in that piece, along with one of the other altos, a woman named Joy. We are planning to sing approximately 10 pieces in total at our concert - today I only sang 3 of them, so I'm looking forward to getting the rest of the music tomorrow in my own folder!