The church bells toll the death knell of another week. *sigh* (And, yes, before you ask, they did broadcast them into the cabins – grrrr). This is going WAY too fast for my liking. We have passed halfway now, and have done over 19,000 miles. We are, essentially, now – via a rather circuitous route, granted – on our way home. Much as I love you all dearly, that’s a miserable thought. On the one hand, it’s a bit early for the post-holiday blues, but on the other, we have, to all intents and purposes, now finished three holidays, and only have three (well, two and a bit) left to go. So you could argue we have a right to a few post-holiday blues at this stage.

We have already said goodbye to Hugh, Bob, Sheila, Peter and Nicky from the first leg, Chris, Fran and Abigail from the second, and Paula and Dale and Laurie and Michael and Michael from the third. I am in email contact with Paula and Dale and Single Michael. So far, none of the others have made contact.

81 in the shade. Grey, overcast, not a breath of wind, sea like a millpond, H.A.H.(humid as hell)

Mum got her Mother’s Day cards first thing, and then her gifts at lunchtime – a small fluffy penguin from The Falklands, and a koala magnet from Sydney. I don’t think many people on the ship got Mother’s Day cards. I wonder if she realised how special she was?

Then we pretty much all went back to bed! We are shattered. I was way too weary to swim. I would have sunk like a stone. My arms and legs feel like jelly. And my brain has turned to mush (again). Couldn’t even complete a simple Sudoku today. And there were two crossword clues that stumped me as well – so it’s not just my logic, but my language centres that are affected. And as for my concentration…

Turns out the tablemates are quite good company, as long as no one mentions refugees…

We won’t be Skyping anyone tomorrow (Yorkey’s Knob/Cairns). We are currently at GMT +10, so 11am for us is 1am in the UK, which is no good, and we have to think about heading back (as it is a tender port) at about 5pm, which would be 7am, which would probably not go down well, either.  All this time zone nonsense is very confusing. Life was much simpler before Skype – we just sent postcards! Now we have to constantly think about what time it is at home, which is, frankly, exhausting.