Woke about 9.30 and decided to pack. I hate having this chore hanging over me so I like to get it done so I don’t have to think about it anymore. I didn’t bring much with me, so it didn’t take long! Short cruises really are a whole different ballgame to long ones. I only have one case with me on this one. Remember, on the African and Asian Odyssey we had 19 pieces of luggage between us! This is a breeze by comparison!

Talking of breezes, today is the first day of this holiday that has really felt like a ‘normal’ cruise. The sea is flat as the proverbial Shrove Tuesday fare, the pools are open and the sun is shining. It may not be exactly cossies and suncream weather, but people are out and about on deck, sleeping in the sun, albeit in cardigans. There is always a breeze on deck, due to the movement of the vessel, so it has to be really hot to be considered outright balmy. It is, however, quite warm, bordering on full-blown hot in the direct sunlight, especially when the breeze drops. Some people even have their legs out. Personally, I think that’s pushing it a bit, but each to their own.

It would appear that the trick is to open up your sunlounger of choice, allowing the accumulated rain of Scotland to drain out of the various channels, nooks and crannies. Then you add your sun towel from your cabin – everyone gets one – and then you lie down, fully clothed, and fall asleep. It all looks quite blissful.

Despite a stiff neck from reading in bed last night, I feel pretty good today. Better than I have for a while. Of course, now that I am fully relaxed and in holiday mode, it is time to go home. THAT’s the drawback of a short cruise. Just as you get going, it’s time to stop. I have a hankering for a long one. I think I will devote lunch to trying to convince Mum and Dad of the same thing. Time to settle in for a long one.

Apart from anything else, I have had barely any time at all to sit and gaze at the water on this trip. Today, the sea is a sort of turquoisey-green colour. Similar perhaps to the colour of an empty wine bottle where the sunlight hits it. Not dark, bottle green, but a cloudier, lighter one. It’s a colour you don’t see anywhere else, I don’t think, so it’s hard to think of a comparator.  The best I can come up with is the green of the leaves on a rose – bluey-green – but slightly lighter. It is so green and far from blue, in fact, that the foam kicked up by our passage is actually a yellowy-cream against it, and pale green as it sinks. Very little proper white to be seen. But the constant motion and activity remains as hypnotic as ever.

Having finished the Terry Pratchett book and returned it to the library, last night I went back to the book I had brought with me in the first place. ‘On the Map’ by Simon Garfield, who also wrote the last book I read that I truly loved, which was ‘Just my Type’. The latter was a history of fonts and typefaces and was endlessly fascinating from start to finish. ‘On the Map’ gives the same treatment to the history of mapmakers around the world. It, too, is a ridiculously enjoyable read.  Did you know, for example, that it used to be customary to put East at the top of the page, i.e. Jerusalem, and so that’s where the word ‘orientate’ comes from? Any amount of neck stiffness is worth it for this book. I was only prepared to put it down last night after I fell asleep and dropped it onto my nose.

After lunch, mum went to a concert and dad and I went to the Future Cruises desk to discuss long cruises. Then we went out on deck and had a Classic Magnum each. I had, by now, changed my top, because the door to the toilets had gouged a hole in the one I was wearing earlier, so I had to hand it in to Reception to be mended. Although the sun had gone in, it was still quite pleasant in our little corner, out of the wind.

It’s not often I laugh out loud while watching the news. A Greek minister (Administrative Affairs apparently, whatever that means) has just said, with a completely straight face, that “Our banks are not insolvent. There is no solvency issue. It is an issue of liquidity which could be easily solved if the ECB just gave us more money”.

Last formal tonight. I went with a simple black long jersey dress with nice jewellery (bracelet and necklace from my friend, Angie; new watch from the sale held in the onboard shop yesterday). Others really pulled out the stops. Saw some really beautiful dresses tonight. I didn’t have much time, because dad left me asleep in Andersons (bar designed to look like a private club – all wingback chairs and dark wood and QUIET) and I didn’t wake til 5.30. I was supposed to be at a drinks do at 6! You’ve never seen me shower and dress so fast. Have to go to the drinks receptions, when they occur. It’s the only time you get a free drink! After dinner, we sat and planned tomorrow (Dublin) and then went our separate ways – me back to my book, mum and dad off to their quiz.

Kirkwall is the capital of the Orkneys and has around 9,000 residents. It was founded by the Vikings in 1035 exactly, apparently.  This was the only early start on the whole cruise and dressed and on the quayside by 9.30 doesn’t sound that early, but it definitely feels it.  Our guide and driver, Brian and Brian, were very knowledgeable and plied us with information all the way to Skara Brae. Brian the guide then showed us around and was still quite knowledgeable, although hampered by having to answer “No one knows” to some of the questions! Skara Brae was found by a landowner and the second part of the tour was a visit to the big house, but Dad and I decided to give it a miss and head back to the shop/toilet/cafe instead, via the reconstruction of what a complete Skara Brae house would have been like to go inside.  I was bent almost double to get through the entrance passage. Dad cheated and went around and met me at the other doorway! People we spoke to later said they wished they had skipped the big house as well, as they had no time for shopping or hot chocolate, both of which they felt they very much needed!

We were, I might add, pretty drenched by this time. Although the drizzle was a mere mizzle to start, it got steadily heavier as the tour progressed, and the wind picked up too, so by the time we made it into the visitor centre after our tour, we were fairly sodden. We dried out a bit and attacked the shop with a vengeance. Unfortunately, I had accidentally left my wallet in the coach, which meant Dad had to pay. Oops. Then we were taken on a tour of two sets of standing stones, which together with a barrow we didn’t have time for, make up the four parts of the UNESCO World Heritage Site here, with Skara Brae forming the backbone, obviously.  Possibly the best preserved Neolithic village in the world is deserving of some kudos.

We got back to the ship bang on time and went up for a hasty bite to eat before heading into town again. Mum joined us after her excursion and we went down the (spot the theme of the cruise) one shopping street in the town (Albert Street, in case you’re ever here). I realised when I got to the till in Boots that I had euros on me, not sterling! Oops again.

My cheeks are tingling. I think I have a little wind burn again. It definitely ain’t sunburn today. Yesterday it might have been, but even when it stopped raining here (which, to be fair, it did, a few times), the wind kept going full pelt. Like I said before, humans choose to live in some really stupid places.  It might be very pleasant when the sun shines and the wind drops, but, then again. I liked it, because I’m a fan of little towns, but Mum and Dad have developed a passionate dislike of the wind, so this was not a good day for them!

Am definitely in need of a sea day tomorrow. I’m pretty pooped, and think the parents are too.

What an absolutely lovely little town. A bit hilly, but the glorious warm sunshine took the edge off of that. Friendly people and pretty buildings. Shame nothing opened until 11.30 except one hotel cafe and one rather expensive clothes shop. Here, virtually all the shops seem to sell postcards and fridge magnets, so we bought ours in the rather expensive clothes shop. So expensive, they didn’t put prices on things. You know the sort. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. I’ve never been in a shop with no prices before. It’s weird.

Torshavn (Thor’s harbour) actually has two harbours, separated by a small but very hilly spit of land. This is where they decided to settle. Humans really are a bit mental sometimes. The old town, therefore, is a collection of wooden buildings, all painted the same burgundy-ish colour, with ground floors built of stone, and grass roofs. It’s ridiculously pretty.

It is apparently one of the smallest capital cities in the world, with a population of around 19,000. Allegedly. I doubt it, to be honest. It’s pretty small. If you want to find it on a map, there are 18 Faroe Islands and Torshavn is on Streymoy. The Faroes were settled by, in roughly chronological order: Irish monks, Vikings, Norway, Denmark, Britain (during the war) and now they are a self-governing overseas territory of Denmark.

So, anyway, we did what we do. We pootled up the one street of shops, we ate in a cafe (and observed the minute’s silence  for Tunisia there), we pootled some more. We visited the touristy shops and marvelled at the prices. We noticed that all the doorsteps are up and over ones – even at the top of the hill. Flooding worries? Thresholds? Or just habit?

The official Tourist Information office in town is also a bookshop and sells stationery and office supplies, as well as the obligatory postcards and tourist items. A school bag cost about eighty quid and a Frozen pencil case is twenty-five quid. But up the road, in the cafe of the public library, a large freshly squeezed orange juice was two pound fifty. There is no logic that I can see to the prices here. T-shirts can vary between nine quid and sixteen quid, which seems a very large gap for the same product 500 yards away. Still, with weather this nice and a town this pretty and friendly, nothing really matters much.

Dad asked how they mow the roofs and the answer was, you climb up a ladder and strim it. So now you know. We had speculated on the possible use of goats or sheep, but apparently not. The humans do it themselves.

Because it was quite hilly, we had to stop quite a few times. Joyfully, this is a town that understands not only the concept of free wifi (including in the taxi?!) but also the importance of the Bench and provides them every few hundred yards. Marvellous. Mum and I did much basking in the sun while Dad went and explored on his own (whilst ostensibly looking for eateries). We ended up by the marina, gazing at the boats and drinking more freshly squeezed orange juice (where do they get all their oranges from?!).

My personal high point was the abundance of public art all over the place, which, as you know, I am very passionate about. The thinking here seems to be “We haven’t had a bench for about 200 yards, let’s put one here. And let’s stick in a sculpture for good measure”. Birds – flying and wading, people, naked dancers, busts of important folk, replica Viking boats, settlers lugging stuff about, even a giant bench. Remember this is a town with a central area consisting of one street (on a hill) between two marinas with bars around the edge. That’s it. That’s quite a lot of public art for such a small space. Even some of the shops had sculptures in! In fact, the roundabout at the top end of the pedestrian precinct had a sculpture in the middle and a stone bench all the way around.  It was odd having cars passing you every few seconds, but it was still a surprisingly pleasant place to stop and sit.

Back on board, there was a smell of engine fumes in my cabin.  I reported it three times over the space of an hour before anyone came to investigate (other than a deck supervisor with, apparently, no sense of smell!). When I got back after dinner, the room now smells of strawberries. I’m going to call this an improvement, as I don’t think the smell of strawberries can be considered poisonous, whereas exhaust fumes almost certainly can, but it’s a very odd smell to have permeating my bedroom, just the same! The question is, is it masking the fumes or replacing them? And I am saddened that it takes three separate calls to get action on something so potentially serious. After all, I have an internal cabin. I have no other source of air other than the air con. If that is spewing carbon monoxide and/or dioxide into my cabin, it could, conceivably, kill me if left unattended for long enough.  I would have expected it to be taken a lot more seriously than it was. Definitely worth a mention in the end of cruise customer satisfaction survey. Can’t allow that kind of lackadaisical attitude go uncommented.

Dad and I then had to organise tomorrow (Kirkwall in the Orkneys), as he and I are going on an excursion to Skara Brae, whilst mum is going on a different one to look for sea birds. The logistics are surprisingly messy.  I think we have it sorted now, but I have a horribly early start to look forward to.

Film update: Saving Mr Banks. Delightful. Funny, sad, shed a tear and clapped. Quite the emotional rollercoaster, but very enjoyable. The time passed very quickly indeed.

My massage therapist, Shona, is very pleased with my progress. There is almost no yelping now from me when she works on my upper or lower back.  Today I had that special offer thing I mentioned, which lasted an hour and a half in total. And, yes, during the scalp massage, I did fall asleep. Which is a compliment to the masseur. Woke this morning after about eleven hours sleep, on and off, and went to lunch alone – Mum and Dad had a special meal for their loyalty points tier.  Feeling very rested and a bit more human. Then my massage, and now it’s time to get ready for a formal night. Busy, busy, busy.

Black and white night tonight. It’s always interesting to see how many women are either unwilling or unable to follow the dress code on a theme night. It’s not like they don’t know in advance. We are always told about theme nights weeks before departure. It’s just cussedness that causes them to rebel. But I don’t think it is a positive rebellion. It’s not cool to rebel against the rules in this instance. It’s just rude. It’s saying to everyone else, you can do what you’re told, but we’re not going to. We’re going to spoil the photos and aesthetic effect for everyone because we are so desperate for attention that even disapproving glares will do. There is no gain to this rebellion. Rebel against important stuff, by all means – sexism, homophobia, racism, prejudice. Fight against the status quo if it has a positive benefit to society. But wearing red or blue on Black and White night just makes you look like a petulant child, stamping your foot because you’re being told which dress to wear to the party.

There is currently a fascinatingly racist woman on BBC World, talking about the Saudi prince’s promise to give away all his money.  I think they said she is Lebanese and allegedly knows the Saudi prince personally. She keeps spouting anti-West and anti-Christian racist nonsense. First she said that Islamic charitable giving is more complicated than Christian giving and amounts to 3% which is much more than Christianity requires. As I recall, the Jewish and Christian tithe is 10%, and it isn’t just cash but also goods, i.e. a portion of your crop if you are a farmer, which she was claiming as a purely Muslim idea.  Then she said that it was even more complicated in Ramadan. I don’t think it is. It’s more important, but it doesn’t get more complicated – at least not that I know of.  And then she said that because Saudis pay no tax, when they give, they give from the heart, whereas Westerners only give for tax reasons. What a load of (very offensive) twaddle. I have no idea what her name is, but if anyone said stuff that denigrating about Islam or Saudi and Lebanese citizens that she is saying about Westerners and Christians, all hell would break loose. Racism works all ways, people.

Okay. Now I am officially angry. Really, steamingly angry. I have been deliberately swindled out of a VAT refund on my purchases by a bitch with a serious attitude problem. In her shop, I spent just shy of 5,000 krona – about 25 quid. I asked for a tax receipt so I could claim back my VAT. She REFUSED, because she said the minimum was 6,000 kr, although I was sure it was 4,000. When I get back on board, turns out, it is ANY amount, but you MUST have the special tax receipt. Never mind that you have to fill in your name address, passport number and credit card details on every single one you claim, that’s just stupid bureaucracy. But that bitch has denied me my refund, and I will be writing to the embassy in London to express my disgust at allowing such appalling treatment of visitors to this, otherwise lovely, country.

That aside, Akureyri is a funny place. It’s a big town, with a university, but it still only has one main street of shops, so it might as well be as small as Isafjordur. Stuff is about one third cheaper here today than it was yesterday. It mizzled all day. Basically a cloud was sitting over the town. You couldn’t see the tops of the mountains. But at least there was no wind cutting through you like a light saber like we had yesterday. We pootled, we shopped, we ate, we drank, we took photos, we bought souvenirs (and got conned in the process as above). Then mum and dad went back to the ship and I settled down in a hotel with a drink and a plate of nibbles to use their free wifi for a bit. Bob was 4.30, so we will be setting off any minute now, I imagine. We have a sea day between here and Torshavn, so a chance to unwind and recover from three ports in three days. And get the tax ranting out of my system, hopefully. Right, how do you address a letter to an ambassador?

Leisurely start, again, very civilised. I even had time for a proper breakfast! Tender port, so we just pootled until all the organised excursions had gone ashore.  Trying to get into a 100-person lifeboat/tender at the same time as six coach-loads of people want to, does not make for happy motoring. So we waited for the all clear to say that the excursions were all gone, and that we independent passengers could set off to begin our day. Walked into town and found the Tourist Information office – standard map purloining and postcard purchases.  Then we pootled down the only shopping street – the whole town is only about ten roads in total, I think.  Bought a couple of souvenirs and some expensive drinks. You know, the usual visiting a new town kind of a morning.

Iceland’s currency is a little annoying. Basically, a glass of coke or a coffee costs 350 krona, roughly. But the coins are in denominations of 100. This means you need the strength of an ox to carry around a purse, because you would need at least 7 coins just to buy coffee for two. A t-shirt costs 3,500. There are 500 krona notes, but they don’t seem to use them much. And if you pay in Euros, which equates a coke to around 4.5 euros, much more manageable (yes, that is dangerously close to a fiver), the locals will only give you change in their local currency and will only accept euro notes, not coins. It’s bizarre and invariably means your wallet weighs more than any purchases you could possibly have made, short of buying an actual entire car.

We ate in a local cafe for lunch. Not exactly local cuisine but it was all we could find. Icelanders don’t really do lunch. They’re more of a cake and coffee and large supper kind of a nation. I had a plate of chips – being a coeliac affords certain perks when eating out – my menu choices are very limited and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Mum and Dad shared a 15 inch pizza and, yes, they did finish it between them!

One thing Iceland is very good at is disabled-access toilets. Even little cafes have proper loos. It is quite impressive and very useful. In fact, they have very nice toilets generally.

But no matter how pretty the little wooden houses painted in bright colours, or how breathtaking the mountains behind, or how enjoyable our visit, one street is, after all, just one street, and we were back on board by 3.30pm. With very rosy cheeks. The weather was bright but overcast, dry but windy (that’s sunglasses and hooded jackets, to you). And I mean windy. Isafjordur is located in an inlet (fjord) that runs northwest to south east in the top left-hand corner of Iceland, with mountains on three sides, so the wind funnels straight in off the Atlantic, via Greenland and the Arctic, and smacks straight into if you’re walking down the main street. If you’re lucky, it hits your back. If you’re going the other way, it slaps you right in the face. Sunburn is one thing. Wind burn is quite another. My cheeks are still tingling and I have been back on board for over two hours.

Films I have seen so far this cruise: Paddington – LOVED it. So did the parents. When he missed his footing (pawing?), the whole cinema gasped. Devil’s Knot – meh. Did the weird teenagers kill the children? Didn’t they? Don’t really care, to be honest. About Time – schmaltzy but nice. Time travelling romance. You can’t go wrong with a bit of Bill Nighy. Les Mis – yet again – the musical film version. Always enjoyable. And always on on a P&O cruise, because most Med cruises stop at Vigo. Edge of Tomorrow – surprisingly gripping Groundhog Day with futuristic warriors and alien enemies. Tom Cruise even acts in places. No, really. Philomena – well, I haven’t really been watching it, because I find it so upsetting, but it is like an old friend, popping up on the telly every so often. A few minutes of Judy Dench can cure a lot of ills. 3 Days to Kill – dying CIA man does one last job in exchange for life-extending drug. Another surprisingly good action movie – Kevin Costner this time, not Tom Cruise. He is really rather good in this. He has always been good at playing protagonists you don’t like much but develop a grudging respect for (think Waterworld) and he does it again here. He’s not a very nice man and he doesn’t treat people very well, but you can’t help but root for him.

And today: Lucy. A fast-moving but thoughtful action movie/meditation piece about what humans are really on Earth for and what we have the potential to achieve if we just stop grabbing more stuff. Morgan Freeman really does do the wise old man thing very well indeed, although in this, he is pretty much reprising the God role from Bruce Almighty but without the laughs, so it was hardly taxing for him. Scarlett Johanssen is not my favourite actress but as this required as little acting as possible – she was supposed to be losing her emotions – she did just fine.  If you like blood, gore, Scarlett Johanssen in need of a more supportive bra, and a touch of existential philosophy, this, you will love. Needless to say, it is Luc Besson, whose work I love anyway. I’ve watched it twice through already. It may well go into my list of favourite films ever, up there alongside Leon.

Silly little administrative niggle that could get out of hand if I could be bothered #1:

I don’t think I have mentioned the ongoing saga with the water, so, as I am up at 4am with no internet signal, you can get it all now. The day after we boarded, I get a letter in my cabin saying they needed to do some repairs/maintenance and would be turning off the water while we were in Killybegs. So I thought I would be clever and order some mineral water. It’s not cheap, nearly two pound for 1.5 litres, but I’ll always drink it if it’s there. I knew that they have what they call a ‘package’ available, a sort of bulk discount. So I rang Room Service and they said the package was buy six, get one free. Fair enough. So I ordered. Nothing came. So two hours later, I rang back. Oh no, madam, only the cabin steward during the day can bring you a package. But I’m thirsty now and they are turning off the water in the morning. So they brought me one bottle and I signed for it. Pay attention now, there will be a test at the end.

The next day, my water didn’t come until I chased and when it did, it was 5 bottles, which I signed for. Apparently the package is 5+1, not 6+1. Still with me? When I looked at the new bar chit, it said I had signed for 6 bottles. So I went to Reception. They tried to give me a long spiel about the difference between Room Service and cabin stewards. Like I care about their internal administrative boundaries. So then they called the Deck Supervisor and printed my bill, so that we could try and establish precisely what I had been charged for and compare it to what I had actually received. No can do. Because the person who deals with water orders doesn’t bother billing daily. They wait until they have a huge pile and then do them all at once. So despite the guidance in the daily onboard newspaper saying to print out your account to keep track of your spending, you can’t, because they haven’t bothered to bill you.

When I got back from dinner that night, there was an extra bottle of water in my cabin. Still counting? So, by my calculations, I have currently received 7 and signed for 7. Which doesn’t seem like much of a discount to me… Although how many I have been actually charged for is anybody’s guess! Day Six and the water still has not, to my knowledge, been billed, so I am no closer to getting this sorted out. It’s a bit of a farce, really. Naughty, even, because if I wasn’t feeling so relaxed and holiday-like, offering a discount and then not giving it is, of course, a criminal offence under the Consumer Protection Against Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Which all my regular readers will now be well-trained in reciting, I trust! But no need to go there just yet… YET… Watch this space. I’m not going to chase it. If they don’t want to charge me anything at all for seven bottles of surprisingly salty Devon mineral water, why should I care?

It’s called Tarka, by the way. It’s probably less dangerous than drinking neat sea water, but it doesn’t refresh you in the slightest. Seriously, in the event of a nuclear fall-out, you could probably get away with drinking it, but unless the world is actually ending and every other water source is polluted, I’d leave it, if I were you. It’s the least refreshing drink I think I have ever tasted.

Today we had a fairly leisurely start, which was nice because I didn’t  sleep very well. I sleep better when it’s a bit rough. If it’s too smooth, I can’t sleep. This can have its uses, as it means I automatically wake up when we come into harbour and the sea calms down. No need for alarm clocks!

We joined our organised excursion and they drove us to the Blue Lagoon.  When you get near, you can see a plume of steam rising up against the dark backdrop of the mountains behind. It looks quite spectacular.

When we got there, I promptly lost mum. I just turned around in the ladies’ locker room to find us lockers, and she was gone. I got changed and then spent about half an hour searching for her, calling out, getting staff to search for her. In the end, I gave up and went out to the lagoon, in case she was out there. She wasn’t. I found dad and then he went looking for her. Some staff eventually found her and she joined us in the water. Turned out she had answered when I called, but I couldn’t hear her over the noise of a dozen hair dryers!

It was lovely. Just like a warm bath but with opaque, milky-blue water. Not as hot as some Jacuzzis or thalassotherapy pools I have been in, but very pleasant. The bottom of the lagoon is natural rock and sand, and is VERY uneven. Much stubbing of toes going on. Even I tripped up once, and I was wearing my Crocs! After about an hour, my fingers were starting to get pruney, so I applied the white silica mud to my face and let it dry for ten minutes. Then I went and rinsed all the salts off and the mud. Then I went back again and rinsed my sunglasses, which had been liberally covered in what looked like Plaster of Paris, but was really just the mud I had put on my face! By the time we had dried off and dressed, in changing rooms that are phenomenally badly designed and far too small for the number of visitors they cater for – currently around 1 million a year, and they arrive in coachloads, like we did – there was just time for a quick sprint around the shop and a loo visit before getting back on the bus.

We then got a guided tour of Reykjavik itself, which is very small and pretty and very green indeed. Some stats for you: Most of the original wooden houses burned down in 1919 and then they passed a law saying the replacements had to be built of brick or cement. 25% of the homes in Iceland run on geothermal hot spring water for all their heating and hot water needs. They use no gas, coal or oil for power. Nor did I see any wind turbines. And there are heated swimming pools everywhere.  Iceland used to be 25% forest. It now has only 1%, but there is an ongoing tree-planting programme in Reykjavik and so most of the greenery is now in the capital. The rest is lumpy black lava flows, where the only things that grow are moss and blue and white lupins (which are considered an invasive species, despite how lovely they look against the rocks). Yoko Ono built a sculpture/tower to commemorate John Lennon which is lit up on his birthday and stays lit until the anniversary of his death. Reykjavik has a small airport smack bang in the middle of it, built by the British during the war. Which is unusual. Although to be fair, it wasn’t in the middle back then! The big airport outside of town was built by the Americans. Gorbachev and Reagan met here for two-day summit which is believed to have been the start of the end of the Cold War. Until 200 years ago, Reykjavik was a small fishing village and the population was spread evenly around the island. Then they all moved to the capital and it now holds 300,000 people.  It has a surface area similar to Barcelona. They like their space here…

On our return to the ship at 3pm, we finally got some lunch! I had lost my bottle of water in transit and so was very dehydrated by the time we got back. My head was pounding. I drank half a litre of water and about the same in diet pepsi, and the combination of liquid and caffeine soon fixed the headache right up. Although later I did have to rush out of dinner before dessert to deal with all that extra liquid! Dessert was a gluten-free orange meringue pie specially made just for me, so I was happy to come back for it!

The thirst thing continued all evening. At about 10pm, I made an interesting discovery. Not all the items on the Room Service menu have prices. And when I ordered one of them – a “trio of melon”, if you must know – it didn’t seem to have a charge attached. I didn’t have to sign to pay for it or anything. Curiouser and curiouser. I will need to test this again, I think, to be sure… but free melon seems like a wonderful perk to have only just discovered after 16 years of travelling with the same company!

Tomorrow: Isafjordur.

Today, someone gave me this statistic. The Nazis stole one fifth of all the art ever made (at the time). I am dubious. Maybe one fifth of the art in Europe, but not the whole world, I don’t think.  They never got to the US, or Australia or New Zealand or South America or China or Japan or any of the East, come to that. There must be lots of art they never got near. But the more I think about it, one fifth may not be that far beyond the realms of possibility. It’s a curious statistic indeed.

A quick line just for my cousin. “Sea Day Special. Full body aromatherapy massage, scalp massage, foot and ankle massage and rehydrating facial. 90 minutes for £73”. </smug> Oh, and the Haribo on board comes in 500g packets. Yes, that is twice the size of the biggest bag I have ever seen on sale in the shops.

Today has been a quiet day. It’s quite bumpy, so I slept quite well. On and off for about eleven hours, I think! Had a massage. No more now until after our three port days in a row.

Very bumpy night indeed, although it eased off at about 2am, as we got into the lee of the island. The evening was bumpy enough that some people didn’t make it to dinner.

Oriana looks like I feel. Really, really tired. Her chair upholstery is fraying, the carpet is in holes in so many places, it constitutes a genuine trip hazard in some corridors, and the rust is definitely winning the war against the white paint of the window sills. She is due for a refit soon and, frankly, she needs it. By rather stark contrast, all the shower heads appear to be brand new. They are deluge-style, big, flat heads, but on handles, if that makes sense, so you can move them about. They also seem to have a raindrop effect, whereby the water flow is not constant, but comes out in big droplets, so you feel like you’re in a tropical rain shower. It really is rather lovely.

Today I found a Terry Pratchett book in the library that I don’t think I’ve read. I have borrowed it, but I haven’t started it yet.

Things I have learned today #1: On average, 13 people die every day on the Mumbai rail network. Feel free to read that again. 13 people each day. That’s over 4700 people a year.  You think your public transport is bad? However, crowded, smelly or late it may be, at least it isn’t actually killing you.

If you listen to the Shipping Forecast, you’ll probably be far more excited by the coming paragraph than my readers who do not.

Things I have learned today #2: The record for the longest period of habitation on Rockall is 45 consecutive days. Rockall is British territory, but it is, quite literally, just a large rock about 80 miles from the mainland. Whoever named it did not lack for imagination, just material. We passed it today at about 3pm ship’s time (4pm BST).  I tried to take a photo, but it was very misty, so i don’t know how well it will come out.  In view of my love of the Shipping Forecast, I was quite unbecomingly excited about seeing a place I had heard of for so many years. It was a magical moment, for me at least.

On the up side, the mist is holding down the water and we aren’t moving about as much as before. Although we do have the stabilisers out, so I’m not sure how much credit can really be given to the weather alone. In case you are imagining little wheels like you had on your first bike, and wondering what use those would be at sea, our stabilisers are triangular wings that extend out at the sides at sea level, which fill with water and prevent the ship from leaning over too far in either direction. Rather like the little wheels stopped your bike from tipping over too far and pitching you to the pavement.

On the downside, my next door cabin neighbour is a singer and she is performing for the second time later today. Last time, she did scales and warm-ups in her cabin for over three hours, and she has just started up again now.  So much for my afternoon nap plans! Although as I slept for ten hours last night, I don’t actually think I need one. I feel positively perky. Well, by my standards, anyway.

Having typed the above, I then slept for two hours straight. Well, to be fair, a little bit of ship movement just feels like you are being rocked like a baby, so everyone is sleeping a lot. It’s very soothing. Honest.

Things I have learned today #3: The herd immunity level of vaccination necessary to eradicate rabies in dogs is 70%. Now you know.

Donegal is in Eire, although it actually runs up the left-hand side of Northern Ireland. Killybegs is a tiny little fishing village whose population is slightly less than the number of passengers on Oriana. And remember, you have to add 800 crew to that, as well. Killybegs means ‘little cells’ and is thought to have been coined in respect of the monks who lived here, although there are ruins and burial mounds going back to the Neolithic.  The cliffs are the highest accessible sea cliffs in Europe, at around 600m above the Atlantic. We were the biggest cruise ship ever to dock in this natural deepwater harbour, but they are hoping we will be the first of many. They put on Irish dancing displays, and pipers on the quayside to send us on our way (oddly, by repeated renditions of Scotland the Brave…). The people were very friendly and welcoming and gave us a 10% discount in their shops, which was a nice touch. There is only one shopping street. In fact, I think I got the whole place into my photo.  The weather forecast was supposed to be dreadful, but I managed to catch the sun, so they got that rather wrong. My nose is officially the wrong colour when you can trace where my sunglasses sat.  The moral of the story apparently is that even Sky News gives a more accurate weather forecast than P&O.

Back on board, they had a special offer on full body massages (a pound a minute plus a free facial), so it would have been rude not to, although Shona did such a good job on my back yesterday, that parts of me were still a bit sore. Note to self: Massages two days running are not a good idea, especially not if done really rather well on both occasions.

Very freaked out by something in the news today, and there was a lot of horrible stuff to choose from. Severed heads on factory gates in Lyon, tourists being mowed down by gunfire while sunbathing in Tunisia, Greece continues to rail against the increasingly likely prospect of Grexit, and the shocking news that it took 89 years for Elizabeth II to visit a Nazi concentration camp. But the one that upset me personally the most was one that may not have even made it onto your news bulletin. It concerned the crash of a small seaplane in Ketchikan in Alaska. I think nine people died – almost all cruise ship passengers off the Holland America Westerdam. I’ve done that trip. You’ve seen the photo of me, out on the lake, standing on the plane float, clinging to the wing strut. That was the company I flew with. It may even have been my plane – I think they had two – and/or my pilot – I think there were two, and I think I met them both.  I am quite shaken by this, I have to tell you. Whatever else I have done this evening, my mind keeps going back to Ketchikan and the sadness is much deeper and pervasive than I would have expected.

On the up side, the US Supreme Court has stated that same sex marriage is legal and constitutional in all 50 states.  And just before Pride weekend, which was a nice touch.

Tonight we begin our crossing towards Iceland, which makes things a little more interesting as regards ship movement, although nothing dramatic – just enough to separate the landlubbers from the sailors – and the clocks go back an hour. Whether these things will improve my sleep pattern or make things worse, I have no idea. Will have to wait and see.

I now believe there may be as many as five other people on board who are under 60, including two seemingly very young married couples.