Saturday 12th November

Today's port is La Palma one of the Canary Islands. The Captain warned the seas may get a little choppier last night but we didn't notice. We walked the short distance into port and thought it was a nice little place for a stroll and drink.  We stopped for a while to listen to a local folk band which was nice and then stopped off for a beer and daily wifi before heading back to the ship for lunch.  We ended up ordering 2 beers each as the weather was overcast so no hurry to return to the ship.  When we asked for the bill we were charged €4.80 so called the waitress over to tell her she hadn't charged us for our extra round of beers but she assured us she had so we were very pleasantly surprised at the cost at only €1.20 each glass.

We walked back to the ship and stopped off at a Spar shop to buy a new toothbrush for me as I had brought my electric one with me but the charger didn't fit in the bathroom which I'm sure it usually does??  We also ended up buying a litre bottle of Gordon's gin for the cabin as at less than €12 it seemed rude not to.

We ran back to the ship and pretended it was because we were caught in a rain shower but in actual fact I had an urge for fish and chips in the Golden Lion and David thought they stopped serving at 2pm so it ended in a sprint with us stepping into the bar at 1.59pm, as it happens we think it must have served lunch until 2.30 as others came in after us and ordered.  We didn't have dessert - not because we were being good - we just didn't want to be put off afternoon tea at 3.30pm.

The weather didn't end up improving so found a comfy chair to spend an hour reading and blog writing.

David is going to go to the gym later to work off the additional calories but I'm not sure I will.  The other day he came back from the gym to proudly tell me that one of the cabin stewardesses had told him he had a good body and asked if he worked out regularly so think he's been spurred on.

I've not previously mentioned that we buy a magnet from each new cruise port.  We started doing this after a previous table mate told us she did this for each port on each cruise and writes the date on the reverse and pops them on the fridge under a magnet of the ship for that particular cruise.  We adapted the idea so just buy magnets for each new ship and new port so we have a lovely colourful memory board on the fridge of our holidays.  Whilst at sea I put the newly purchased magnets to good use in the cabin as the walls are magnetic.

Dinner once again went smoothly - David struggled to find options for his fussy eating tonight for the second time but Ramil is very obliging and brought plain chicken, baked potato and vegetables.

We danced again this evening and feel very humbled to receive so many compliments from guests on our dancing, both from fellow dancers and non dancers.  We are simply social dancers at home and enjoy dancing to our best ability and this is one of the main reasons we keep choosing Cunard as our cruise line of choice.  Sequence dancing has been on offer before dinner each evening and although not our first choice happy to participate.  It's nice to see the American dancers so interested as I don't believe they are particularly familiar with this in the USA.  After chatting with one American  couple who dance ballroom beautifully David offered to teach the lady the Mayfair Quickstep - so hopefully it will be good for Anglo American relations.