acquaintances

Friday 8th June 2007

8:16 p.m. CET Both Tuesday night and Wednesday night were fairly uneventful, especially Wednesday, I think I only sang about eleven songs in total (which was the fewest for a while), the rest were instrumental. I finished early both nights. Last night was more like a weekend, there were plenty of people in the show lounge and the piano bar throughout the evening. There was a group of about a dozen older people in for the first half of the evening who were very appreciative, and there were a few other couples and smaller groups dotted about who were making requests later on. Played my rendition of Penny Lane for the first time, which went down particularly well. One chap also requested Song for Guy; it was the first time I played for several months but I managed to play it all the way through without any problems. Had a few compliments afterwards, which was encouraging, as it’s nice to know that people are grateful even if I don’t always get consistent applause.

There seems to be a good mixture of people in tonight, different ages and backgrounds. Time to start compiling my songs for this evening…

11:53 p.m. BST Had quite a good night tonight. There was a group of older people in again this evening (in fact I think it might have been the same lot from last night), and this time they stayed until the end. There were plenty of other people in too, and I had a warm reception throughout, and several requests.

Yesterday afternoon while I was using my laptop in my cabin I noticed that a new wireless network called ‘internet@sea’ had appeared. I managed to connect to it, but when I tried to load any web-pages I was forwarded to a login page. Later on I asked about it at reception but they didn’t seem to know anything about it. Still, it would be good to have internet access on the ship, particularly while at sea! I’m hoping that it’s a new thing which they are planning to roll out to everybody (certainly it appears to be new).

Sunday 10th June 2007

4:11 p.m. CET Last night was predictably busy, although early on in the evening I became afflicted with a sore throat so I was unable to sing. Nevertheless I played a variety of material, and later on in the evening I had people singing along to the some of the more up-beat tunes. I finished early again.

I was hoping to go down to the Seafarer’s Centre on this (the Europort) side this afternoon, to swim and possibly investigate the internet facilities, but as I was still feeling rough this morning I decided to stay on-board.

I’m not sure if I’ll be up to a night of singing tonight either, but I should be able to manage at least a few vocal numbers.

Monday 11th June 2007

12:46 p.m. BST Despite still suffering I managed to sing a fair bit last night, and had a pretty good night. A couple were sat nearby who had been in on Thursday night, so I chatted to them and they made a few requests, along with several others who were dotted about. Again had a few words of thanks afterwards from different people which was positive.

Earlier on I got an e-mail from Mathias, who was working as resident pianist on the Rotterdam when I was working on the York last year. His latest gig involves playing the piano aboard some kind of luxury cruise boat on the Danube!

Today Gareth (the Ent’s manager) is celebrating his birthday (Happy Birthday G!) so we are going for a meal somewhere later on. Great weather for it too, it’s excellent here in Hull today.