Opera Evening
We invited the voyage crew to a Gala performance to be held in the Nellie opera house aka the bar. It was an evening of fun and frivolity to begin after ‘sundowners’ beautifully prepared by the brace of cooks (Dave and Mona) and the engineers Rachel and Alec. Of course, we were also very honoured to have a special guest on board in the guise of the very lovely Lady Rosemary herself, who found herself preyed upon to give an oration or two, once the gin had started to soak in.
To show our appreciation of each performance we handed round a bucket in which we invited everyone to contribute – of course, in true busking fashion this was either to encourage them to continue or in some special cases to ‘Geddoff’! Whoever raised the most funds by foul means or fair was considered the winner.
Topping the bill was a variety of talent and I quickly realised that we hadn’t actually defined ‘talent’! There was a selection of songs, sketches and prose – and an open mike opportunity for those who found their courage and voices at the end of the night.
It was an evening of fun and frivolity with a show stopping star performance by the ‘The P**s Miserables’ presenting ‘Master of the House’ and a heart stopping one by a ‘young girl’. Rumour had it that following the GG watch leader weekend, there was a ‘stowaway’ girl guide who stole the show and looked remarkably like one of our cook’s. Hairy legs and a green and yellow check skirt, complete with woggle and badges like the ‘cup cake advanced badge’, the ‘thirst aid badge’ and the ‘texting badge’. Our lovely guide then proceeded to tell that she had asked Marcin the Bosun to show her some knots and spent the next five days trying to undo them to escape! Then she decided to tell all the secrets from ‘PC World’ as the Permanent crew accommodation became known!
We then had ‘Guiding Spirit’ kindly brought to us by the very lovely Fwd Port watch and Mr Phil Watts. Katherine Jenkins stand-in Mr Peter Hill with his tribute to Kenny Rodgers. Forward Stbd Chris’s watch performed the ‘Brain dead aerobics’. Then Jay, Becky, Mona, Dave and Alma – sent up the permanent crew with their impersonations in the confession box. Virginia represented Diana’s watch (Aft Stbd) with ‘My dear son’. The Northern Whippets aka Sally’s watch Aft Port gave their rendition of the hilarious ‘Albert & the Lion’ when Wallace the lion ‘et Albert, who’d shoved his ‘orses, ‘ead ‘andle in the lion’s ear!!! Utter madness!
The open mike session topped the evening off beautifully with music and song – perfect!
After some frantic calculating it was clear that our stowaway guide was our winner although the clear winner once again JST with £289.37 raised on the night towards the 800 Challenge.
Rachel
MP LN