0130 am UPDATE: Things I know. Of all the announcements that wake you and are GUARANTEED to ensure you do not fall back asleep any time soon, this may be #1: Assessment Party Deck 9 Forward Zone 5. I have no idea what Zone 5 is but Assessment Party means FIRE. FOR REAL.  Less than 300 yards from where you are sitting in your fluffiest pyjamas listening to your heart pound in your ears. And Deck 9 Forward is the spa and salon. Where things like saunas and hair dryers and all manner of flammable goodies are located. The fact that a First Aid Team was also mustered does not ease my mind in the slightest. That just makes it sound like an electrical fire. SO not dozing back off again any time soon, it’s not even funny.

Second announcement while I was typing this: both teams have been stood down, so problem solved, presumably with a fire extinguisher or local sprinklers, or a false alarm entirely, but that was far too exciting for my liking. Sleep will evade me for a while, I think.

Immediate follow-up announcement by the Captain: He is explaining what happened. There was a report of smoke by the Neptune Pool (next to the salon), but all teams that were mustered (as we heard) have now been stood down. Sorry for disturbing you, thank you and good night. That was a long fourteen minutes for me, so I can’t imagine what it was like for them.

Fire is the most worrying thing on a ship. Not water. Fire is insatiably hungry and has no respect for watertight bulkheads. It only needs air, and we have plenty of that. And something to eat. And we ARE plenty of that. The trouble with fire is, where do you run away to? If you’re in an office block, you go out the building down the fire escapes and stand outside for an hour in the freezing cold wishing you had picked up your coat, not your phone, when the alarm blasted through the ceiling and rang with deafening insistence until you hit save and left. If you’re at home, you go out the front door or the back, or jump from a window if you must. Where do you ‘pop outside’ to on a ship? There is nowhere to run. Watertight doors can close around a hole, and trap the water in a confined area. Even Titanic had those and that was the tech a hundred years ago – we’ve improved on it a bit since then. Hell, we now deliberately take IN water, as I have explained already, for ballast, so we have two-way valves for that. But fire is the frightening one. Which is why I am still typing like I have neat caffeine flowing through my veins and it is SO unlikely that I will be asleep by 2am, or any time soon for that matter. Ever heard your nerves jangle? Trust me, it’s an actual sound and sensation. Like an internal fire alarm or alarm clock that vibrates throughout your entire system. And it takes a while to calm down again, believe you me.

Thinking about it, it is, essentially, adrenaline – fight or flight – flooding your system. Every announcement starts with a ‘bing bong’ sound to get your attention. If you’re asleep, you aren’t by bong. Your system is tuned in to that sound. Ever read the phrase “Sat bolt upright in bed” and wondered if people really do it? They do if the bing bong goes off. You discover tummy muscles you never knew you had. Then the phrase ‘assessment party’ percolates through your consciousness, and suddenly you are looking around for where your clothes are, how quickly you can dress, and what coats, medicines, etc you would need to grab if this becomes a full muster, and how fast you can grab them all in the dark if the lights go out (and where your torch is). The sea is about 80 degrees here, allegedly, so layers would not be an issue – remember you can’t wear too much if you’re going to get the lifejacket over the top. All this rushes through your head in the split seconds after the bing bong. So by the time they stand down fourteen minutes later, my nerves are wound so tight, you could play a tune on them. Oh well. Might as well give sleep a try. Although I’m not fancying my odds much.

Please note all timings are now approximate. We have gone back forward an hour, probably, and I no longer have the slightest idea what time it is, or day, for that matter. Like my body clock wasn’t messed up enough already. This has not been helpful from my personal perspective. Mind you, it has probably put the fear of God into the crew. They don’t often get mustered FOR REAL at one in the morning. Thank goodness.

22^nd January – I think it is a Friday – Salvador, Brazil

No rain. Remember the talk of flash floods and thunderstorms? This forecast has now been transferred to Rio, not Salvador. Okay, the humidity was high. You could pretty much touch the air. And there was about half an hour of what an optimistic Brit might refer to as spitting, but you had to pay really close attention to notice – there was not much enthusiasm behind it. And that was it for the moisture. It was in the air and it stayed there.

We walked into town. Can’t take the mobility scooter on cobbles – mum likes her vertebrae to stay in the same order – and anyway, the road tarmac here has a tendency to stop a foot before the kerb, which would not have been conducive to stress-free wheeled travel.  Luckily, the ship’s berth was smack bang where we needed it to be. We came out of the terminal, got harassed by a significant number of taxi drivers, who all suddenly lost all semblance of English once they realised you were asking for directions, not prices, and then walked the few blocks to the funicular. This was without a shadow of a doubt the highlight of my day. I LOVE funiculars. Cable cars? Meh. Lifts (of which Salvador has 16 due to its split level layout – half on top of the cliff, half at the bottom)? Meh. But a funicular is a whole other world of joy. They call theirs an inclined railway, I think – my Portuguese is pretty much non-existent, so I may be wrong on this. The term is ‘plano inclinado’, but I have no idea what ‘plano’ means. I’m guessing at railway.

The port talk woman said that everyone is happy to accept dollars. Erm. Nope. Wrong again, lady! So we went to the café next door to the funicular entrance, where a man sits outside and he is the “Cambio” or money changer (these men are dotted all around the touristy areas). He slightly gouged us on the exchange rate, but we weren’t that fussed. All for 15 Reals (about 20p?!) for me to ride the funicular. Turns out old folk go for free. Worth noting for future reference.

So up we went, in a beautiful, wrought-iron Victorian car, with surprisingly comfy wooden benches. We had to wait a few minutes for the car at the top to fill up, as it works on a simple counterweight + gravity principle. And then up we went. Sadly, it didn’t take long, but it was definitely the best bit of my day.

At the top, we found ourselves in the old town, known as the Pelourinho district. Or, as the port talk miserable cow put it, not a really old town, but just built to look like it. Really? Cos I don’t know how many buildings you walk past every day that were built in 1911, love, but that is over a century ago. I guess they’re allowed to call that old. We can’t all be Skara Brae, you know. And as they have gone to all the trouble of putting the dates on the buildings and all 365 churches in this town, maybe we should just let them call it the Old Town. Urgh, her negativity is really starting to grind me down now.

The buildings were in a variety of colonial styles – French-style ironwork and balconies and some Dutch-style roof patterns. Which bearing in mind this part of the world was mostly the Spanish and Portuguese (I thought), shows just how styles influence each other and how people copy the best bits from other cultures and societies. Some of them were rather confused confections (yes, they really did look like cakes!), but they are busy restoring and repainting ready for the summer, so they all look very pretty. The colour scheme here is pastel walls (pink, yellow, blue, turquoise) with white woodwork. Very nice indeed.

The flag of Brazil is green and yellow with a bit of blue in the middle. I checked. But here in Salvador, the local colours are red, green and yellow. They seem quite convinced that they are all (a) African (b) in Africa and/or (c) Jamaican and (d) in Jamaica. Entire shops sold nothing but African art, photographs, carvings, prints, beads and dreadlocks glued to hats, and there were numerous street stalls for plaiting and braids and cornrows. It was rather odd. This is South America, people, pay attention. Wrong continent.

We wandered around until we found a café. Not many to be had, funnily enough (normally they’re epidemic in frequency), and most were shut until about 1pm, which meant a LOT of cruise passengers had walked past their closed shutters, including two entire walking tours. In other countries, we have had the opposite problem – you can buy morning coffee and pastries til the cows come home, but no one serves lunch (i.e. Iceland, as I recall). We went to the Café Cuco, which has beautiful toilets, but pitiful wifi. And the service is so slow, I think they must lose money hand over fist, because people just get tired of waiting for attention, and leave without paying their bill.

Outside the café, a young Christian tied a free ribbon around my wrist with three knots and asked me to make a wish with each one he tied – a gift from his church. I don’t know what sort of Christianity he follows, but I’m not sure wish granting, per se, was in any version of it that I ever learned (at dinner, Nicky suggested it might be a Voodoo influence/convergence). He also gave me a little shell on a string to put around my neck. I don’t much like these, because I think shells belong in the sea, but he was quite insistent. The rest of his wares were hideous lumpy necklaces that I wouldn’t wear under any circumstances, and anyway, I had no currency, so we parted ways – quite amicably considering the amount of freebies I was now wearing. When I found mum and dad, mum, too, had one of his ribbons around her wrist, which I duly removed for her. He was a busy boy!

When we had finally succeeded in paying for our drinks, we took the elevator back down (disappointing – no windows, stick to the funicular – but still free for mum and dad) to the indoor market, which was, as with all such places we visit, bustling and fun. Mum bought a long-sleeved blouse, because she hadn’t packed any (I’ll explain why we need them in a sec), and I got a Salvador t-shirt and some postcards. We then went upstairs to the restaurant, and sat on the balcony with chicken and chips and Coke Zeros, watching the boats in the marina bob up and down in the surprisingly choppy waters, and the mounted military police passing by below.

Long sleeves. Zika virus. We had a letter yesterday evening, warning us about Zika virus. If you’ve been watching the news, you’ll know. It causes a bit of fever and conjunctivitis, if you’re healthy to start with, but the main problem is birth defects if you’re bitten while pregnant (pretty sure Mum and Dad are safe on that one. So am I, frankly). Microencephaly cases have gone up from 150 last year to 3,996 so far this year – this means babies born with skulls too small for their brains to grow properly. But, and this is the important bit from our point of view, they are DAY-BITING mosquitoes. Usually, mosquitoes come out at dusk, by which time we are back on board and smugly sailing out on the evening tide. But these are day-biting buggers. So we were told to wear long sleeves and long trousers and DEET. All of which I did, but virtually no one else we saw had! Mum thought she should get a long-sleeved blouse, at least for the remainder of the affected places we will be visiting. The full list is: Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin/Saant Maarten, Suriname, Venezuela. Here’s a memory game you can play. Can you name all the ones we will be visiting on this cruise, without looking at the itinerary?

The surprisingly choppy waters? When we got back on board, Dad spotted that the harbour wall is not a harbour wall. It’s just a breaker, with free-flowing water going around both ends. Which is why the inside is not much calmer than the outside, and why all the marina boats were bouncing around so cheerfully.

On the way to dinner (BOB was 4.30), I passed the on board shops. They have a whole section of memorabilia for this cruise (W16, which apparently means World Cruise 2016, despite the fact that we were told it can’t be called a worldy unless it’s a circumnavigation). There is even a slogan: “The Greatest Show Is Earth”. Very nice. Just one problem. As soon as I looked at the mugs, tea towels, etc, I spotted a mistake. They have picked out the continents in blue dots with red dots for the ports we are visiting. We aren’t visiting mainland Spain or Portugal or Gibraltar. Unless something changes radically! And yet, there is a red dot in the bottom left-hand corner of the European continent. Oops. Seriously, does no one proofread ANYTHING any more?! Hundreds of tea towels, t-shirts, bags and mugs, ALL with the wrong ports marked on them. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Thursday – probably. 21st?

I am having a ludicrously good hair day today. I don’t want to go to bed because it will muss it up.  I don’t want to do anything but play with the perfect curls and wag my ponytail in front of the mirror, like some demented puppy trying to catch its own tail. Apparently the trick is to go swimming and then remember that the water in the shower is REALLY soft, and not use too much shampoo and conditioner, as you have been doing for the past fortnight. You live and learn. Mind you, I couldn’t have over-soaped anyway, because my arms ache too much from swimming to hold them above my head for too long. The current was even stronger today, as we are both pitching and rolling. Not by much. You’d have to stare pretty hard at the horizon to even notice it. But enough to make swimming in a straight line, with no mini-tsunamis smacking you in the ear sporadically (still deaf from yesterday as regards the right ear), nigh on impossible.

Tonight was Black and White formal night, and I got in my usual, not very high, dudgeon about women not wearing black and/or white. Seriously, it’s hardly a major ask. But we saw blues and purples and bright red and gold lamé (I shit you not) and even one woman wearing rainbow shoes. That was not a mistake. That was a deliberate LOOK AT ME act of defiance/ignorance/ stupidity/ attention-seeking/whatever. Everyone ELSE looked chic and elegant, and the whole thing was lovely. And that last sentence had nothing whatsoever to do with a free and gratis G ‘n’ T on an empty stomach. Oh no, not in the slightest. I found Sheila by the pool at the cocktail party before dinner where they hand out the Only Free Booze On Board, and we debated the pros and cons (mostly cons) of every woman’s outfit, particularly focussing on those centred on the less monochrome parts of the spectrum. Dinner was delicious. Turns out, what the chef is REALLY good at, is cottage pie. Divine. Chalk that one up for future reference.

Tried to do some yoga this morning. Boy, am I stiff! This may take a bit of time to work out the kinks that appear to have developed over the past few weeks, no, months, of neglect. Did I go to yoga in December? I don’t think I did. Which means it’s over six weeks. Well, that certainly explains a lot. I didn’t hurt myself. I just found that when I tried to do things I was taking for granted that I could do in November, the necessary limbs, muscles and joints were not nearly as keen as they had been before. Stiff isn’t really the word. I moved a bit like Brian the Robot from Confused dot com. Short, jerky movements that didn’t achieve the intended effect. And my breathing was a mixture of short and panicked gasps, with added long sighs on the outbreath, to basically empty my lungs and reduce the risk of hyperventilation/ getting too high on excess oxygen intake. Oh well, I’ll have another go tomorrow, and hope things loosen up a bit soon. I will have an extra hour to play with, because the clocks go back again tonight to GMT-3.

Talking of tomorrow, it’s Salvador in northern Brazil. 28 in the shade and, to put it politely, has been chucking it down all week, to such an extent that there have been warnings of flash floods. Oh. Goody. That’ll be fun then! It looks like a pretty enough place – especially the old town. I have found that the trick with the port talks (which are recorded in the theatre and then shown on the telly in the cabins) is to watch them with the sound off. That way, you learn a bit about the best places to visit, without having to listen to all the negative scare-mongering and lies with which the lady giving the talks inevitably peppers her speeches. See? Every problem has a solution.

Then we will have a sea day to recover/prepare for Rio, which seems to be a fairly daunting undertaking in and of itself, and which will in no way be tempered by the fact that, due to all the construction going on in preparation for the summer, there will be no transport available to get us from the ship to the town. No shuttle buses, probably no taxis. Nowt. I hope it’s not far, because otherwise people are going to be right annoyed. Not least the 600 people disembarking and the 600 embarking.

Our mood will probably not be improved by having to give back the hour that we gain tonight, as Rio is GMT-2. Yes, that’s right. Two cities in the same country, on the same coast, but in different time zones.  I can’t imagine that causes any problems for the locals, or the administration of the country, or, for that matter, the Olympics/Football/other sporting events that keep flooding into this country. Who comes up with these ideas?! You couldn’t put a kink in it (Kiribati-style) so that the whole country is in one time zone?! Really?! How do outsiders do business with more than one city at a time?! Ludicrous. Come to think of it, I can’t imagine it’s easy to process speeding tickets from automatic cameras here, if they have them. The complexities are ludicrous. When you send an email, it arrives an hour before it was sent! How can you compile evidence of a crime using date and time stamps?! No wonder the country is apparently a bit of a mess.

Stopped for a hair wag. Sorry. It really is very pretty. It looks the way I hoped it would look when I started using Finesse shampoo and conditioner back in 1987. The girl in the advert had such perfect curls. I wanted hair like hers. It didn’t look like it then, but it does today. I’m not even sure they make Finesse any more! But Herbal Essences (the green ones) has now (finally) really hit its stride. I just hope it lasts.

Here endeth the fourth sea day of four, and the penultimate sea day of this sector/cruise (which ends at Rio, where the next sector starts). Those going home have had a very nice two-week holiday. I’m barely bedded in. The waiters are trained, but my cabin steward still needs work. Well, tomorrow is another day.

Monday 18^th January – sea day 1 of 2

I am so tired, I don’t know what I’m doing. I slept fine, but I’m shattered. This is what slowing down does to you. It makes everything feel like you’re wading through molasses. I’ll just have to take it easy and hope I rejuvenate a bit later.

My hair wishes to point out at this juncture that the sudden increase in humidity may be part of the problem – the frizz quotient has certainly gone through the roof (I may not see my curls again for quite some time), so it is entirely possible that the heat and humidity are sapping my strength a little too.  Humidity and my family do not get on. I’ve warned Dad that Salvador currently 35 degrees with thunder storms, but he’s choosing to ignore me.

Dear Longines, Thank you. Thank you for taking a display case outside the jewellery shop on board and filling it with a four foot square photo of Simon Baker. Just thank you. It’s the only eye candy on board, and I do enjoy walking past it every so often. I asked if I could have it and they said not while he remains the Longines ambassador. *sigh*

Today I did nothing. And I mean nothing. Got up, got dressed, ate some fruit. Had some lunch. Did some Sudoku. Read/finished my second book. Went to dinner. Went to the show. Went to bed. That’s it. that’s the whole day right there.

The books: The first was the Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hodd and the second was Black Hills by Nora Roberts. Both thoroughly engrossing. The former, a fantasy adventure set in a primitive land by an imaginary coast; the second, a modern-day thriller/murder mystery, including wireless CCTV cameras, and email threats. At dinner, Sheila casually pointed out that she is on her fourth book this week. But as the Nora Roberts was about three times the size of the Robin Hodd (and weighed about the same as my pink laptop), I’ve probably read about the same amount of wordage as she has!  Suddenly my excessively large pile of books brought along for this cruise is not looking quite so excessive.

The Headliners’ first show was called Destination Dance, and was a sort of compilation of different forms of dance. ‘Roxanne’ done as a tango was a new one on me, but seemed to work, but their flamenco (done to Ravel’s ‘Bolero’) did not (I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to stamp your feet, for a start…), but the Riverdance was step-perfect and very enjoyable. I was a little critical of their Can-Can, but maybe that’s just me. IMO, their skirts were held too high and the splits were only done at the end. Every Francophile knows that there is a set way of doing the Can-Can correctly, and they hadn’t quite got it right. Close, and perfectly enjoyable, but not spot on, like the Riverdance was. I’ve seen other Headliner groups do a better job of the Can-Can on other ships. Perhaps they have changed choregraphers, somewhere along the line. All in all, however, very enjoyable.

I was intending to go to the later show, and to go to the cinema first to see Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, but the cinema was suffering from “technical issues”, which were not pointed out until AFTER I had bolted my meal and legged it the entire length of the ship to get there in time. Ta, everso, for that. Really enjoyed the indigestion. So went to the early show instead.

A longer day than I have had for a while, so much yawning now in progress. Time for bed, said Zebedee. Clocks go back tonight again, to GMT-2.

20^th January – Sea Day 3 of 4

Had quite a busy day today, for a sea day. Started with fruit and Sudoku, as usual, on the open deck, in the shade – where it was 82 degrees again, although the sky was more cloudy, and it was much more breezy, so the sun did not feel quite so fierce. So I imagine people will be quite lobster-hued by dinner, as people are nothing if not gullible about cloud and wind entailing a weaker UV factor; of course, neither do any such thing.

After some lunch, the music got stupidly loud, so I moved to the other pool, which was much quieter. Finished my first painting – a postcard that John challenged me to do. Not sure how happy I am with the result. May have another go tomorrow.

Mum and dad went to the Crossing the Line party as their quiz partners were participating – every ship in the world that crosses the Equator has to ask permission from Neptune to do so. Every time you cross. This is usually an excuse for dowsing the newest crew members in water with varying degrees of added humiliation tagged on where possible. On P&O ships, it takes place at one of the pools.

I also went for a swim (in the other pool (ironically named the Neptune Pool, as opposed to the Aquarius we normally frequent)). Only managed six lengths. It’s quite exhausting swimming against the flow of the water, which follows the movement of the ship. The current is surprisingly strong. An hour later, I am still deaf in one ear, which is full of water.

Had a lovely long chat with Keith. He tootles around the ship on a little mobility scooter and we’ve chatted to him before. Turns out, he left home without his wallet. No credit cards, no cash, nothing. He has had to make a bank transfer to pay P&O for his onboard expenses. He was worrying about what he will do when he gets to Sydney. I suggested he ask Reception to cash a cheque (he managed to pack that, at least). Or ask his brother-in-law to post his wallet out to meet him in Oz. He will consider both options, neither of which had occurred to him. I suppose in the heat of finding myself on the opposite side of the world to my wallet, I would not find it easy to think too clearly either.

19^th January  – don’t ask what day it is, I have no idea

It’s a sea day. I know that much. I think it’s sea day two of four. Probably. And we are now at GMT -2, which means that when I look at the clock it says 8.30am, but my brain is saying it’s 10.30am and that, really, even I should be vertical by now. Jet lag is rubbish in any direction and at any speed. Anyone who tells you that doing it one hour at a time makes it easier is a rotten fibber, and you should check their undergarments are not smouldering.

Having internet connection issues, which is very annoying. May have to go and have a word with someone. Can’t stand much more of this. It’s both irritating and expensive, and I don’t see why we should be stuck with it. Like paying 20p a minute isn’t extortionate enough already, that doesn’t even get you a decent enough signal to do anything useful! And, yes, that does equate to £12 an hour. Which is more than I pay per month at home. It’s eye-watering, and I think it most unkind that even that does not ensure we get a decent signal so we can do the things we are trying to. P&O are quite shameless on this. Other lines give their passengers free wifi, but P&O is quite happy to keep fleecing us. It makes me very sad, that I am just so obviously and blatantly a cash cow to them. Not content with making me pay twice for every morsel of food I eat (single person uplift is 75%), they then squeeze me again on the internet fees. I may have to severely restrict my usage, in which case, these posts may become significantly more sporadic. There are, of course, only 30-odd ports on this cruise, so if I have money problems, I will have to reduce my blog postings to when I am in port and can get cheap/free wifi to do the uploading. It doesn’t take long, even on board, but I am starting to resent every single second. If I had a decent signal, then it might seem reasonable, but right now, I’m afraid it does not.

1500 UPDATE: Have found a decent signal. Sadly, at, take a guess, yup, The Other End of the Ship. Typical.

It is 28 in the shade today, which is a bit of a jump from the 24 of yesterday, but it is the humidity that is knocking people sideways. The air is so moist that simply walking across deck entails a layer of moisture sticking to your skin. I feel like a Coke bottle straight out of the fridge. The moisture just coalesces out of the air because your skin is cooler than the air around you. It is really dreadfully stuffy, even outdoors. And I’m drenched – not all sweat, mostly humidity. I suppose I should sit out in it, in order to acclimatise, but after four hours in the shade already, the novelty has worn off, so I’ve come indoors for a bit. Might be time to dig out the cozzie and take the plunge. Literally. May even have to actually go out in the sun, but I’m not sure there’s enough sun cream in the world! Even if I swim, I will definitely need my sun hat. Now all I have to do is find it…

2200. I am quite sure that when I go on about how much more fierce the sunlight and burn risk is when you are at sea, you all just nod and say, ‘yeah, yeah, we believe you; it can’t be THAT much stronger’. So I will add here a photo of my sunburn, incurred today, in the SHADE. I did not, at any point, venture out into direct sunlight. This is what you get in the SHADE. And yes, it is quite sore, thanks for asking.

Film update: Went to the (now working) cinema and saw The Man From UNCLE. Not bad. Not sure about some of the handheld camerawork, Mr Ritchie, but other than that, very enjoyable.

A few ship facts I have learned:

Arcadia can produce/desalinate 250 tonnes of drinking water per day. We use 700 tonnes a day. So we top up in every port.

As we use up the fuel in our tanks, we have to let in sea water as ballast to stop us from popping up out of the water and being too light. When we change oceans, we have to change the ballast water. When we get to some ports, they will test our ballast water, to ensure it not from the wrong ocean. During the Cold War, both sides deliberately took the wrong water and dumped it in the other side’s water – Russia put the wrong water into the Great Lakes and the Americans put the wrong water into the Black Sea. The fungus and bacteria makeup is so different in different waters, that you can destroy entire fish stocks and eco systems in this way.

Our fuel consumption is nineteen feet per gallon.

It takes us about ten minutes to travel one minute of arc, so to speak. We are big circle sailing, because the shortest distance around a sphere (or an oblate spheroid, for that matter) is not in a straight line.

The captain said we would cross the Equator at 3.30am. He was wrong. By 20 seconds. See photo.

Sunday 17^th January– Mindelo, Sao Vincente, Cape Verde Islands

Arriving somewhere at lunchtime is actually rather pleasant – don’t think we’ve ever done it before. None of this getting up at a silly hour, being wrenched from sleep by announcements, rushing around, blah blah. Just a leisurely morning, a barbecue lunch on deck and then a wander ashore. Very relaxing.

Watched a film yesterday. I think it is called Red 2. Very good action movie. If I’ve got the name right, I would really like to see the first film. Light-hearted and funny, but an excellent action movie at the same time, with some lovely and very original set pieces.  I also glimpsed Edge of Tomorrow again, but as I saw that on Oceana, several times, I could recite the script, so I kept channel surfing. Gravity looks okay, although I have not yet managed to see the beginning. That’s the thing about cruises, you’re never in place for the beginnings of stuff, so you tend to see the end bit first, and then go back and find the beginning later. As I did with The Judge the other day. Seen the middle of that one, but not yet the beginning or the end. Likewise, thus far, Noah and how I saw Saving Mr Banks on Oceana. And 3 Days to Kill, come to think of it. I have never yet seen the beginning of About Time, although I have watched from midway to the end several times so far (and am doing so again now). In fact, the In Cabin Viewing Guide for now reads as follows:

Channel 28: An episode of The Big Bang Theory

Channel 29: Arbitrage

Channel 30: About Time

Channel 31: Noah

Channel 32: Some travel show about alcohol in Portugal.

Sorry, got distracted there for a bit. Mindelo was, as expected, pretty much shut. But much more developed than it was the last time we were here, which I reckoned, off the top of my head, was about twelve years ago.

The first thing you see when you disembark is the graffiti left by the sailors of other ships that have docked here. They seem to have either stopped people doing it or had a massive drop in trade, because I could not find a single one dated between 2012 and 2015, and only one dated 2016 (not us). Some take it very seriously and clearly have ready-made stencils made, with boats and neatly-printed lettering. Bless. Others just arrive with a brush and a message. Sort of marine tagging, I suppose. “Oriana woz here” – that type of thing. Different colours, different languages. Some have more than one date- they add another the next time they come. It shows a pattern, a consistency, although most only seem to come by once a year or once every two years, which makes me wonder where they go the rest of the time, and who is here in their absence. Even a simple thing like graffiti holds a whole world of unanswered questions, if you have little enough to do that you have the space to really overthink things.

The second thing you see, at the port gate, is a brand new dual carriageway and, opposite you, a large advertising hoarding, currently extolling the virtues of a particular broadband provider. There was no broadband here twelve years ago. Hell, even we might have been on dial-up back then – the internet was only about ten years old!

So we took the shuttle bus into town. This was not a bus, per se, or even a coach, these were minibuses of eleven seats each. We had been warned that there were not many available, but there were a dozen standing idle, so that piece of information was stonkingly wrong. In fact, the port talk and port guide were both so wrong, that we are thinking of making a formal complaint. The port talk lady slagged off the place to such an extent that some people didn’t even bother to disembark, and the printed port guide referenced the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Do they even still publish that?! But as what they described seems to have been precisely what was here twelve years ago, they were both so wide of the mark, we could almost have felt embarrassed for her and whoever wrote the guide, but for the fact that, between them, they ruined the entire day of some passengers, but also significantly reduced the money spent in town, a place that is clearly in massive need of income. Those that went on the organised excursion, touring the island, LOVED it. There was some hesitancy about the journey up to the top of the island (about which some expressed concern that their insurance policies did not cover extreme sports), but once there, they were very happy.

We stayed in town. We were directed to some wifi, but it wasn’t working, so we retired to a nearby café, which turned out to have brilliant wifi, completely free of charge, so we rested in the shade for a while, and tried to Skype people the UK, only to find that apparently the entire Skype system was down at the other end. Then mum and dad went back to the ship, and I carried on surfing for a while longer, drinking their Sprite and using their very clean loos, with motion sensors on the lights to conserve electricity (although the wind farm on the cliffs outside town looked thoroughly functional and busy to me). In fact, the motion sensors were so enthusiastic about turning the lights off, I had to wave my hands above my head twice, just to find the toilet paper! It was about 24 degrees in the shade, but the humidity was extremely high (we are now only 17 degrees from the Equator, so we are well into the Tropics), so it felt quite oppressive. On the plus side, all the doors and windows were open, so there was a lovely draught that kept me cool. We’ve had some wifi signal issues on board over the past few days, so it was nice to be able to post on Facebook without seeing my post vanish completely as soon as I hit send, as has been the case recently. I’m hoping our signal will improve over the next day or so. Otherwise, I may have to formally report it – it’s starting to annoy me a bit. And cost me money, to boot.

Anyway, when I got back on board, I had a very long, cold shower. My skin was so hot that although the water was quite cool when it hit my shoulders, it was warm by the time it got to my feet! Went to dinner and then back to the cabin to cool down again and wait for whatever sunburn I probably have to develop. Dad reckons four hours, so as I got back on board about 5, I should know the worst by about 9. We are currently at GMT -1, so I may have escaped any permanent damage, but I wouldn’t say no to another cold shower. I appreciate that, for most of you reading this, it is currently snowing, but I can only apologise for that. You knew I was heading south when you started reading. 😉

Four sea days now before Salvador. Apparently Declan Curry is now on board, but his talk on pensions is at 9am, so I don’t fancy my chances of making it, frankly, however much I would like to.

Day Five – Santa Cruz, Tenerife – 15^th January

WARNING: THE LEGS ARE OUT. I REPEAT THE LEGS ARE OUT. 21 degrees in the shade? I’ll give that a go. Shorts. Oh yes. It’s time. Toes painted. Legs shaved. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Look out Spain, here come my legs. Sunglasses are advised, however overcast the sky. I’m not sure a shade of white this bright even has a name.

Today has had quite an annoying start. Announcements blaring from 7 in the morning and continuing as the crew drills began at half nine. Every announcement means you are deafened by being shouted at from the speakers and don’t even try to watch tv because that is automatically muted by every announcement. It’s like some kind of audiovisual hell. You are forced to hear what you don’t want and denied the ability to listen to what you do.

Bizarrely, the arrival in Tenerife has precipitated a sudden religious conversion from whomever makes the television decisions. Breakfast viewing alternatives consisted of that recent Noah film on one channel and the Moses/Exodus: Kings and whatsits film on another. Is this Old Testament country, Tenerife? I didn’t think so before, but now I am starting to wonder what it is that I have missed. There must be something. Yesterday was Law and Order and New Tricks.

Went ashore and spoke to the Hop On Hop Off Bus people. There are three cruise ships in Santa Cruz today: the others are the Aida something and the Mein Schiff 4, parent company unknown. The big eye on the front of the Aida creeps me out. Bleurgh. Anyway, the bloke was quite good at plugging his tour, and his German sounded excellent, but only one girl was taking money and the queue of people waiting for a bus was about 30 metres long. When I suggested three cruise ships might merit more than one bus every twenty minutes, the response was, and I kid you not, “But buses cost money, madam”. And yes, how do you expect to MAKE ANY if you have no buses to put all the people on?! They hadn’t even made any provision for people to sit while they waited. And still wanted eighteen euros a head. Maybe not.

Instead, we got a taxi to the Meridiano shopping centre, so that mum and I could go to C&A. She bought a skirt and I bought two tops in the sale for a fiver each. Her other favourite shop, Punto Roma, also has a branch there, so she was quite content. Then we went up to the roof terrace and had lunch in McDonalds, just so that I could have a gluten-free Maccy D’s. So enjoyable, it almost makes me weep.

Simon and Guy couldn’t meet us, due to a plumbing crisis at home (I’m pretty sure a foot-wide hole in the outside wall of your home counts as a crisis), so we just went to the Mercado (a food and flower market which, although not very old, has been designed to look like an old Moorish/Spanish building – medina-style shops around two interlocking courtyards, with a fish market below – where I bought a cheap little backpack (could have sworn I packed one, but apparently not) for port days/laptop movement, and we had a drink and watched the sellers closing up for the day. Then we pootled back to the ship, but the taxi took us a very long way round, which entailed some confusion as to intended destination, but resulted in us getting quite a nice, cheap view of the town that did not set us back anywhere near the 45 quid the tour bus would have.

Then mum had a rest, while dad and I had ice creams up on deck. The sun was by now so fierce, we had to retreat to the shade! No pleasing some people! After about an hour, we spotted the Entertainments Team fiddling with the outside PA equipment, and then the music started to get louder. This meant the sailaway party was due to get going (BOB was 4.30 today), so we beat a hasty retreat to our respective cabins for a bit of peace and quiet!

At quarter past six, the Assistant Housekeeping Manager turned up. I pointed out that I had asked to see the Housekeeping Manager. I was told she was “ill” and that he was standing in her place. So he came in and we discussed whether leaving footprints on a bathroom floor qualifies at clean. At first, he seemed to agree, and said he would redo the whole cabin, but then he seemed to change his mind and started arguing. He said that he had personally checked and there were no footprints. I said that they did not match the tread of any of my shoes and that, whilst the cabin is clearly jinxed, it isn’t haunted, and even if it was, ghosts do not wear shoes. He got more and more uppity and said there was no need for me to raise my voice. There is nothing more guaranteed to make me angry than being called either unreasonable for making a complaint or, as in this case, essentially, a liar, so, yes, I had a right to raise my voice.

He walked out.

I shit you not.

The man who is supposed to be ensuring my problems are solved and I am happy. Walked out.

I shouted down the corridor after him “Don’t you dare walk out while I’m talking to you”. He kept going.

So I locked the room and went to Reception, where I asked to speak to the Purser. I chose the word specifically, because it isn’t used any more, and therefore shows that a passenger has been travelling a LONG time with P&O. The Hotel Manager, as she is now known, came straight out to see me. She was not happy with the service I had received. She promised to re-sanitise my cabin and clean the carpets again, while I was at dinner. She agreed that the footprints did not insinuate that the place was clean, and certainly not as clean as was being suggested. She said that the room would be cleaned with Virox, which kills, and I quote, “Everything, including HIV”. HIV?! She told me to leave out all the shoes and slippers that I had been wearing, so they could Virox the soles of them all, so I could be absolutely sure that everything was as clean as possible. She will come tomorrow to inspect the cleaning job herself. She did not apologise for the Assistant Housekeeper’s behaviour, but she was clearly not happy with it.

So I went back and put out the shoes, found another pair to wear, and then went to dinner. Late. Dinner was very nice, and everyone seems to have had a nice day in Santa Cruz, but we are all clearly very tired. Mum was unhappy with her fish dish (the batter was so hard, you could hit it like a drum – there was no way she could cut it, it was rock solid), so it was replaced with a large salad. And when I say large, I mean HUGE. Ten or eleven inches in diameter and maybe four inches deep all the way across. She made a valiant effort, but there was no way she could eat it all!

I am so tired, I’m no longer sure which way is up. I think I may have to have a very VERY early night (like, now – 9pm). We got back after dinner to find an invitation to a coffee morning tomorrow for all those going all the way around, so we can meet each other. At 10.30am. I’m not usually upright by then when I’m on holiday, so it constitutes an early start for me. Might as well, though. And it would be nice to meet some of the others who are in it for the long haul. Having been told there are over 400 of us on board already, I think I’ve met two, so meeting a few more would be nice.

I’m wondering if this level of fatigue is partly due to the fact that we are finally starting to unwind. We all seem to be utterly shattered. Even typing this seems like hard work. Gnite.

Day Six – Saturday 16^th January

Twelve hours’ kip. Now that’s more like it. I am starting to unwind.

Made it to the coffee morning at 10.30. Met a lovely lady called Sue, who has a broken wrist. Like someone else we know, she fell in her cabin while the ship was moored/stationary. Ahem. She had an operation yesterday Tenerife. She said the treatment was wonderful. Good to know…

Subodh came to our table at the coffee morning, and sat down to chat for a few minutes. Dad went and got a coffee and got one for Subodh as well. He was genuinely shocked. He said that, in twenty-one years with P&O, no passenger had ever got a drink for him. Wow, that’s dreadful. That’s what a life of service really looks like. Mind you, there’s a security of having held a job for over twenty years of which I, myself, am very jealous, along with, I expect, most of my generation. We are definitely considered more disposable than our parents ever were. Which is odd, because we have learned our skills just the same.

After the coffee morning, we went up to get some fruit before the breakfast buffet closed, and then sat and did Sudoku until lunch was served. The noon announcement told us that the ocean where we were was about 1.5 miles deep, and the sea temperature was 21 degrees, with the air temperature 22. It feels much hotter, however, because the light reflects back off the sea, so you are exposed to the same sunlight twice, and therefore get much hotter and are much more likely to burn. The sun was too fierce for me to feel like sitting out in, so I stuck to the shade again, for now. I’m pretty pale, so I really need to be careful.

The Hotel Manager visited my cabin this morning while I was out, and when I returned, it SMELLED clean. They usually use aroma-free chemicals, which is very unsatisfying and their cleanliness assurances are corresponding unconvincing (it’s hard to take their word for it if the room still smells a bit musty), but with the scent of chlorine, you can feel reassured that it IS as clean as they claim. Ergo, here probably endeth the sewage saga. I hope.

Apparently, we will arrive in Sao Vincente in Cape Verde tomorrow at around noon, so we only have half a day. Mind you, we’ve been to Mindelo before on a Sunday, and there is usually very little open, so we’re not worried about missing much! It’s a quiet little place, although that will undoubtedly change when the airport is in place and direct flights from the UK commence.(Perhaps I should clarify: Cape Verde is the island group, Sao Vincente is the island and Mindelo is the capital city/town). I may be biased, however. Last time we were here, on another Sunday coincidentally, they had launched a new national beer the night before, with many freebies, and EVERYTHING was shut – even the CHURCHES. Apparently, even clergy get hangovers when the beer is free. In the whole town centre, as I recall, only one shop was open, selling cold drinks, and that was run by a bloke called Mike, from Brixton. Hopefully, we’ll have a little more luck tomorrow.

Another formal night tonight, so much planning and preening to be done before 6.30. At least my toe is better today, so I have unstrapped it. I might not wear heels that are too high, though. No need to place unnecessary pressure on it just yet.

You may or may not have noticed that I have not mentioned any theatre West End-style shows yet. Today we found out why. Firstly, the Headliners Company didn’t board til Tenerife, but as the stage is broken and it isn’t safe for them to dance on it, there wasn’t really any need for them to be aboard any earlier. Hopefully it will be fixed soon, though.

2130. There are phrases that I never thought I would write. The following is one of them. Brace yourself.

Tonight I went to a show and watched a James Brown song (‘I feel good, I got you’) performed on a kazoo with ukulele accompaniment.

You can see why I never thought I would type that. The group was called Ukebox and they are VERY good. If you ever get the opportunity to see them perform, please do yourself a favour and go.

CORRECTION: Mindelo is not the capital. It is the main port (carved by the sea from a volcano crater). The capital is called Praia and is on a completely different island.  I’m sure you feel better for knowing this corrected information. I do.

Thursday 14^th January – Sea Day 4 of 4, for now at least

Today I had a shower. This may not seem momentous at first glance, but bearing in mind what was on my bathroom floor yesterday, I feel so brave I can’t stop myself feeling like someone should give me a medal for bravery or a Purple Heart or a prize of some sort. Or at least a chocolate. Not much chocolate on this ship. Or at the very least some antiseptic wipes for my feet. But today was calm, and the humidity in my cabin was astonishingly high and the carpet was still reassuringly wet in patches (damp means clean – hence reassuring, but also hence the internal humidity), so I went for it. The shower has that lovely stuttering raindrop setting, which I find almost unbearably luxurious. It feels fantastic.

When you become hypervigilant (as in astonishingly paranoid about germs on the floor, no idea where that piece of unprovoked paranoia came from), and then relax, you notice the silliest little things. Despite the fact that it was very calm today, the water still sloshed all over the bathroom floor, so it got another wash. Which is a Good Thing, definitely. Bizarrely, however, it went AROUND the bath mat, which stayed bone dry til I stepped on it. Very odd. I have no explanation for it. Maybe something about the way the ship is moving? Or the camber of the floor? I dunno. Just odd. Entertainingly odd. But odd. That’s the sort of minutiae you spot when you have become really really paranoid about the floor.

Lunch was lovely. We sat outside, and Subodh brought out my GF burger in a GF bun. In the shade,  because Mum once took a drug which caused increased susceptibility to sunburn and now will never, ever sit in direct sunlight ever again, no matter how many times you point out that she hasn’t taken that drug in five years. Either that or she has vampire ancestry that she has yet to mention… Sitting in the shade was just a little too breezy for long-term book reading without a cardigan around your shoulders (which I had), but it was nice to be outdoors. Dad and I moved into the sun after Mum went to a talk by a Magistrate. It was good to get a bit of Vitamin D and some sun on my face. Shame the muzak was so loud.

Apparently, because the air con vents are on the deck above, and make a constant whooshing noise, no passenger can possibly stand to sit on deck and read or sleep without sixties and seventies disco blaring out at a volume so loud you cannot converse with the person next to you. Never mind that some people LIKE white noise… When I asked them to turn it down, they said they couldn’t. So I went into the cupboard and found the OFF button myself. No one batted an eyelid. When I later went to the loo, I came back to find it was all back on, but they had turned it down (suddenly apparently, you CAN alter the volume). When I asked why they couldn’t leave it off altogether, the bar manager tried to convince me that someone had asked for it to be turned back on, although he couldn’t actually look me in the eye when he said it. A new war of attrition begins here. If you think I’m letting you ruin my sunbathing time for the next four months with non-stop Tom Jones, Motown and Abba, you are sorely mistaken. And if I have to go into that cupboard every day myself and turn it off, don’t you worry, I will. I’ll poll the passengers if you really want to argue with me on this. Don’t think I won’t.

Other than that, it is a lovely day. Having passed the weather system that was making things decidedly uneven, the sea is now so calm that you have to glance over the side to be sure we are still moving. It’s a perfect royal blue (aquamarine for the artists), so much so that if you painted it that colour, people would say “Nah, it’s never THAT blue”. It’s the colour that P&O intended their new livery to mimic, I think. They failed miserably and ended up with a dusty/dirty imitation thereof, but they tried. Personally, I miss the old cream/yellow/buff coloured funnels, but I am a notorious creature of habit, who hates change at the best of times (hell, I’m still sulking about puberty), so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.

So, so far, a lovely day… So far. Let’s see if we can get all the way through it without P&O making me cry. Nothing like a lofty ambition to keep things interesting…

I talked about chocolate earlier and now I have a chocolate craving, so let’s see what is available on board in the way of solid cocoa products.

1730. I seem to be finally starting to relax. I’ve slept for two hours straight.
1731. Visited my bathroom. Found FOOTPRINTS. Now, I don’t care what your definition of cleaning or sanitising or disinfecting a surface is, but leaving your dirty footprints on it doesn’t count, not from where I stand. Called the Deck Supervisor and said he had to redo the whole room tonight while I am at dinner. He tried to make excuses, but I reminded him that I was taking the risk of walking around in sewage and this was not good enough as a reassurance the floor was clean. He agreed to redo the whole room when I go out. There is a formal tonight, and gala dinner and drinks do (which, as my regular followers will be aware is the only chance of a free drink on P&O), so they will have over two hours to clean my room again from scratch. I do not feel safe here.

UPDATE: Turns out our bumpy weather was us passing through the depression that is now forming into Hurricane Alex, the first January-born Atlantic Hurricane in about sixty years. Spiffing. Luckily we are heading south as it heads north. Good luck to the Azores.

2005. Came back and found a NEW, different footprint this time. Different tread. Called the Deck Supervisor. He rubbed it out with his finger and said he could not deal with this and needed to escalate it to his manager. I said I was going to the Spinnaker Bar and he could come and find me there. He agreed.
2006. Went to Reception. He never showed. They sent for the Night Manager. His name was Cyrus. He made a whole load of excuses. The day manager person was busy with some burst pipes which is why he didn’t bother to come and see me before he went off shift. The sewage wasn’t sewage it was “overflow”. The footprints were made of carpet shampoo. This is a man who has, to my knowledge, never been to my cabin, remember. He said an Assistant Someone Or Other would come and see me at 5pm tomorrow. After he had gone, I went back to Reception and spoke to Mika, who had taken my original call, and seems to be the only person on the ship who does her job properly and tells the truth without making excuses (her and Subohd are pretty much it for decent staff on the whole bloody ship, so far). She said it would not be an Assistant someone tomorrow at five. She would make sure it was a ‘proper’ manager. She’s finding it as hard to understand as I am, I think. If not, she gives a very good acting performance. I said if they are not there at 5 PROMPT, my next appointment will be with the Captain himself, who I happen to know from previous cruises. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear this story, and will be SOOOOO proud of his team.

I’m going for a walk. It’s a formal night, it’s warm and dry outside, I’m all dressed up (I look lovely, if I do say so myself). I should feel pretty and glamorous and cheerful, not seethingly angry and stressed and sad and disappointed and exhausted. I’ve wasted enough of my evening on these incompetents and dumb insolents. Time for some fresh air and some alcohol, methinks. Someone said before I left that I should make my blog more ‘positive’. I’m trying, really I am, but it’s not easy!

Oh, here’s a positive: my toe doesn’t hurt as much any more. Only if I do a lot of walking in one go. So that’s good then.