Monday 26 August- at sea

The forecasted rain has finally caught up with us and our sea day today was on and off drizzle, but with the temperature around 23C.
Fairly restful day and mid-morning attended a talk on Japan (primarily its education system) from one of the young crew members who was born in Japan and has spent most of his life moving variously between Japan, US and Taiwan - experiencing the education and cultural differences of each. He was very interesting and explained how much of the discipline, responsibility, respect and focus on tidyness of the Japanese has its origins in early schooling.
After lunch we attended a performance of the ship's orchestra and particularly its Japanese saxophonist. It was outstanding, a near full house (vast majority Japanese) and included his great interaction with the audience.
Spent time in one of the open air spa pools, sharing it at one stage with 4 Japanese, a woman from Portugal and a Maltese from Craigieburn - so some good conversation.
Dinner tonight with our neighbours after pre-dinner drinks in Skywalkers. For dinner we were at the "exclusives" Sabatini's Restaurant compliments of one of our bonuses - no cover charge for us and included wine as well. I very much enjoyed my calamari, small sea food plate, lobster and caffee creme brulee, but with the food quality in our usual Savoy Restaurant, it is highly questionable whether the cover charge at Sabatinin's is value (unless, of course, you get it as a bonus)!!! We were pretty much last to leave, so the night was quite late.
During the day, I had heard the Test result - unbelievable!!! When I lost WiFi off the coast the previous night England had only 3 wickets left and needed 97 runs. An easy dropped catch, a fumbled run out and injudicious use of reviews was obviously costly - an incredible opportunity to wrap up the Ashes lost!!!