It's a hard life - or is it?

Here we are, back at sea - having a hard time fitting in all the things we want to do. We start in the early morning, watching the Aussie dollar rise against the US dollar (we LIKE that!), then go down for breakfast - we could go up, to the Lido, but find that it's much more civilised in the dining room, and we eat less than at the buffet - it's much easier to say "No" to a menu! From there we return to our room - cleaned for the first time for the day - it will be totally done again while we're at dinner - then parade around the deck for exercise, stopping to chat as we go. We appear to be two of only four Aussies on this particular cruise - would you believe that the others have a grandaughter/niece who teaches at Coolum High School - it's a small world!

A spell by the pool leads to conversation - and then it's lunch time. Back to the dining room - seafood for Frances, a chinese pepper steak salad for John, and a visit from the captain, wandering around for a chat ... much more welcome than the wandering magician, who's a bit of a dill! An afternoon nap for John, while Frances tries to catch up with some uni work, then it's back to the deck. Today Frances and John (known as Jack) invited us to their suite at the rear of the ship, where we enjoyed their huge private balcony, sheltered from the wind - the side balconies are attractive, but tend to be windy. We followed this with attendance at a Past Guest's party - more food, free cocktails - we try to be very moderate, but it's hard - before changing for dinner. Crab legs and chicken in a truffle sauce for Frances, hazelnut crusted camembert for John, followed by rare roast beef, then a souffle for Frances and fruit & cheese for John ... please note that we only have one starter each - some of the people around us have three starters before their main course!

We're catching up on our emailing now (All our emails have suddenly disappeared!! If you've sent a message in the last few days, please could you resend it?) before we go to a show, equal to anything we'd pay $70 a ticket for at home ... oh, and we forgot to mention the chocolate coated strawberries, each one in a white chocolate 'shirt' and a dark chocolate 'coat' and 'bow tie' that were waiting in our cabin, a gift from the Hotel Manager.

What's hard about this life? Well, we are missing you all - and Theodora the cat - and we've only 2 days before we have to pack - AND we have to make plans about losing weight when we disembark! Sorry if we've made you jealous - we know that life on land is good too!