I’m running out of tablets. This is disastrous because it means only one thing. We’re running out of cruise. By all accounts we have less than four weeks left. This is a Bad Thing. Boo.

Having slept 14 hours straight, I feel a bit better today, but I am ACHEY beyond reason. I don’t know why – I didn’t do that much physical work in LA. I think it’s all just catching up with me a bit. Added to which, we’re about to start losing hours. Rats. 😦 It might also help the achiness if I actually remembered to WEAR the sling I bought for my shoulder…

Dad and I spent a couple of hours today trying to balance my bill. P&O have, without a shadow of a doubt, the most complicated bills on the planet. Good thing I kicked that headache beforehand! We finally sussed it and found that, astonishingly, it was correct, all five pages of it, which was both a surprise and a relief. Tomorrow, we’ll do Dad’s bill! That’ll be fun. You see what a party we have? You’re so jealous. I can tell.

Today was definitely a Take It Easy day. I surfed the Internet a bit and caught up on some emails and then had a short rest before it was time to get ready for another formal night, complete with Captain’s drinks. Oh well, a free drink is a free drink! 😀

Complainers. This ship is full of them. I even found someone today who actually complained that the invitation to the Captain’s drinks do wasn’t printed on good enough card. No, really. It was on thin card and was quite generic and had probably been printed in a bit of a hurry, to placate people with free booze after the past couple of days of ‘excitement’, instead of on the usual thick invitation card printed with your cabin number and name as usual. And someone actually complained that it wasn’t good enough. Unbelievable, it may seem, but you have my word of honour, it is 100% true. I was there. This one I witnessed myself. I can’t help but think that if that is the only thing you’ve got to worry about, you’re having a pretty good day.

After a light supper (avocado, cold meat and coleslaw, fruit platter), I had drinks with a couple of good friends, Joan and Colin, who are an absolute joy to hang out with. They never complain and are clearly happy to be here and enjoying every second, but they are cursed with the worst tablemates, so I have endless hours of fun listening to the complaints of people I have never met and never want to meet! One person told Joan how odd she was to spend her money on ringing home to speak to her children and grandchildren. Really? You need to comment on that? Just because you don’t do it, no one should?

I never understand why people disapprove of others. You have no idea what life is like inside my skin or my head and, until you do, you are in no position to comment, frankly. Who are you to “disapprove” of how I spend my time or my money? What’s it to you whether I get up at 8am or 11am? It’s a funny old world when how often I cook for myself matters to anyone else on the planet but me, and it is nothing short of hilarious why it matters what I do for a living. And as to my health? You have no clue, trust me. Don’t go there, you will just make a fool of yourself.*

People who devote their time and energy to judging others in this way are simply wasting their valuable and extremely limited time on this Earth in the most unproductive way imaginable and will achieve nothing whatsoever but to drive themselves completely insane and render themselves friendless and alone. After all, none of us want to spend our time with people who irritate us at best and upset us at worst. Life’s too short to spend it with people that toxic.

If you have someone in your life that judges you, criticises you and informs you of their opinion of you when you haven’t asked, get rid. Remove that person from your daily life, and I guarantee you will feel better, a weight will be lifted and you will be free to enjoy your life more. It’s simple. You don’t like my driving? You’re free to get out and walk any time you like. My car, my rules. Similarly, my life, my rules. Not yours or anybody else’s. If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. If I don’t, I won’t, and if I don’t, it’s because I have no desire to hear it. If you impart it anyway, be ready for goodbyes. I can’t be doing with it any more. This foot is being put down right here, right now. Make a note.

I have a friend whose mother-in-law is toxic like this. She puts up with it a lot of the time, but about once a year, she blows. She tells her mother-in-law exactly what she thinks of her and her opinions and bans her from the house until she has learned some respect/manners. After a few weeks, she’s back, quieter, politer and a little contrite. She deteriorates again gradually, but it’ll be another year or so before my friend blows her top again, so it never gets TOO acrimonious. Mother-in-laws are sadly not as easily disposed of as judgemental friends might be (although I keep telling her ‘a body is a body is a body’), but even relatives can be held in check with a few judicious ‘taste of your own medicine’ moments. Give it a go. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. 😉 As the song sort of says, ‘if you love them, kick them out, if they love you, they’ll come back’. Or something like that.

Tonight, my air con is making a humming noise that sounds like the horn of a distant train. Not an English two-tone train, an American one, racing across the flat plains of the prairies with mile upon mile of freight carriages in tow. You know the sound. Like that, only quieter, like it’s a long way in the distance. Which, from where we are now, it would be! The gibberish has set in. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

* Sorry, that does sound very American, but sometimes a British turn of phrase just won’t suffice.