What has happened since I last spoke to you? Well, in no particular order, I have had a swim, re-damaged my right rotator cuff injury, and caught either a streaming cold or maddening hay fever, take your pick.

I lasted five days before damaging myself, this time. I probably did it yanking on one of those extremely heavy doors I mentioned the other day. You do not realise how often you reach for something until you can’t. Even tying my hair up is out of the question. So I had my hair down, and Dad couldn’t find me in the buffet, because he didn’t recognise the back of my head!

Yesterday, I slept. All day.

Whether the previous night’s sleep was disturbed because: (a) the cabin was too hot, (b) the sea was too smooth, (c) shoulder pain, or (d) insomnia is just a Thing for me now, I do not know. But we now have a fan in the cabin to obviate (a), (b) is a bit hard to solve – and, frankly, I feel quite churlish even complaining about it! And (c) maybe, and (d) just is what it is with M.E., I suppose. So, even when our steward came at 5.30pm, he STILL had to wake me up! A bit embarrassing. On the upside, I didn’t overeat yesterday, that’s for sure!

The afternoon massage was wonderful (this was the BOGOF one – I was always intending the ones at the beginning and end of the cruise). Beki was very careful with my right arm and I didn’t have to yelp once. I’m definitely developing a liking for face massages. Afterwards, she referred me to the acupuncturist, who did a free assessment of my shoulder, to see if he can help. The things that you can achieve for your right shoulder by pressing on acupressure points on your left wrist and right knee are very enlightening! I have booked a session for tomorrow, the eighth. Strictly speaking, it’s Palermo tomorrow, so I made it for 4pm, just in case we get seized with a powerful urge to go ashore. BOB is 4.30, so we would aim to be back by 4 anyway. Chances are we won’t go. My cold/hayfever still has me sneezing like a good ‘un, but I’ll leave it to Dad to decide. He has been quite lethargic the past couple of days. I hope he’s not coming down with something.

We won the quiz tonight.

As an FYI, we have one Sea Day after Palermo and then five ports in five days. Correspondence may become somewhat patchy.

Missive ends.