Slept eleven hours, with only one bout of shivering/ getting up to put on a jumper to constitute an interruption. Bliss.

Lunch, fruit, Sudoku, etc. Dad is very pleased/cross with his new kakuro puzzle book. They’re rather hard, apparently!

Formal night. Wore the new silk jacket I bought in Stanley Market, over the Falkland Islands t-shirt, which just happened to be the right colour, and looked quite ordinary because the jacket covered the penguins, so it looked like a plain top. Got LOTS of compliments on the jacket.

Unfortunately, the food was TERRIBLE. The bread roll was one of those raw dough things I got for breakfast the other day, that I had to spit out – this one disintegrated on contact into a squillion tiny crumbs – and the salad dressing was oil and mustard with no vinegar in it?! The avocado was so hard, I have literally no clue how the chef got a knife through it. It would have been easier to chew the plate it was on. Luckily, today was Eton Mess for dessert night, so I did manage to eat something! Subodh will report back my concerns to the kitchen. He was mortified.

It seems they have rotated the staff again, so we have to start over with a bunch of amateurs in the kitchen who clearly cannot serve decent food to save their lives. To be frank, on a cruise this expensive, I should not be a guinea pig for beginner chefs who cannot even tell whether an avocado is ripe or not. Even I can do that, and they named a tv series after my culinary skills.

The shoulder is better, but not better, if you see what I mean. I still have to use the sling, but mostly to remind me not to do stupid stuff, more than anything else. It still twinges if I do too much with it – like type for long periods, or open the door with the wrong hand, or lie on it for too long. Sue says I can keep the sling as long as I need to, so I’ll keep it on for a while longer, just to be on the safe side. We aren’t taking the wheelchair or the buggy tomorrow, so, at least I won’t feel so guilty about dad having to do all the work.

Tomorrow is a busy day. We are going to try and go to Kyoto in the morning, on the bullet train, to see some cherry blossom, and then come back to Osaka for electronics shopping before dinner. Wish me luck!

Then SEVEN, count them, SEVEN sea days. Lovely. Can’t wait. CORRECTION: EIGHT! WOOHOO!