Well, here we are. All aboard. Seriously the toing and froing necessary to get from your front door to this sofa is quite astonishingly arduous. Not only dealing with minicab drivers who have no idea where South Mimms Services is, but then standing in the freezing cold guarding 14 pieces of luggage until the driver has finished his bacon butty and comes back to unlock the coach. Then the journey with quite nauseatingly soft suspension, way worse than a rough sea! Then mum wants a bag from the coach hold to carry on herself which takes an eternity to find because the whole idea is that you don’t see your cases til they arrive at your cabin. Then the queue and security and passport and ticket and sign a piece of paper saying you’re not ill and haven’t been for two days and have your photo taken and sign your cruise card and hand over your credit card and then put the bags through the x-ray machine and walk through the scanner, but then you have to do it again because, oh, I don’t know, it’s a day with a y in it. Then you heave up a rather steep gangplank, show your cruise card for the third time since you signed it and find a lift. Then have to find your cabin. Then realise you’re walking down the evens and you’re in the odds which is completely the other side of the ship so go back down the corridor and start again. Then I get to my cabin and the door handle is so stiff, I hurt my hand trying to get in the room! Which is annoying, because it means your cabin steward’s first experience of you is a complaint. Not ideal. He’s very sweet, Daniel, although the idea that a person never drinks hot drinks clearly threw him completely. They very kindly put out a kettle and tea and cups and milk and spoons, all of which are rather noisy in rough weather, not to mention mobile in some cases, so, as I don’t need them, I always ask for them to be taken away. He was flummoxed. He looked at me like my skin had turned green and I was beeping at him. Absolutely floored, he was. Bless. But I have a rose in a vase and free gunk in the bathroom (you know, eye stuff, skin stuff, blah blah) and some sweeties and a free (small) bottle of water and I’ve turned the air con down from sauna to breathable, so, so far, so good. I think the layout of the ship is fairly similar to Oriana, but I’m going to go and have an explore anyway. Bye for now, my snow-bound chums.

P.S. Talking of snow… it’s snowing. On deck. Bit odd…