Ten hours’ sleep. Now THAT’s more like it.

I am still struggling with the fact that we are now behind the UK, having spent so much of the cruise in front. It’s very odd to wake up and realise you are all already heading home from work. And it makes deadlines very hard to keep! If I say happy birthday to you on the wrong day, be patient with me!

Formal lunch for Round The Worlders. Got the Galley Manager on our table. Difficult to hold a conversation with him, when he is solely responsible for cleaning and equipment! Don’t have any issues with those! I mentioned that they don’t sweep up after deck buffets, and bits get blown into the pool, and he said he would pass that on, but other than that, frankly, we mostly talked around him. The most entertaining thing about him is that he has the same name as our waiter, yet denies knowing who he is. You’re the Galley Manager and you don’t know the waiter with the same name as you?! Seriously?! And I don’t mean just the first name. I mean first AND surname the same. The same entire name. Very odd.

Debra and her husband didn’t go to the San Francisco dinner, so we told them all about that. Then the Captain made a speech about how lovely the San Francisco dinner was. We applauded the bit about the building, but not the mention of the food!

Apparently, the loyalty boy who has been lying in his letters to us, has also got a bit of an attitude in person, and Debra’s husband has had cause to say “I am the passenger. Don’t you ever speak to me like that”.  And yes, it did relate to the SF dinner, but BEFORE the event, not after!

Seriously, this is the LOYALTY desk. Talk about someone being in the wrong job! If you’re prepared to lie to the passengers in writing, AND be rude to their faces, you REALLY need to reconsider your career decisions, because inspiring loyalty and return custom is absolutely definitely NOT your thing.

Outside the dining room, I bumped into Helen, the Hotel Manager, who got off at Sydney and back on at San Francisco. She said that they had tried to source GF bread in Mexico, but to no avail, but were hoping to get some in Panama, which would be loaded at the first lock. Right, I’ll believe that when I see it!

I mentioned to her the thing with the laundry labels and she said she would have a word. In case I haven’t mentioned it (and apols if I have), whereas there used to be iron-on labels with your cabin number in each garment, that were quite easy to remove, they have now taken to writing your cabin number in permanent marker on the clothing label. Which is fine. FOR THE DURATION OF THIS CRUISE. When I get on another ship, and I am in a different cabin, is C188 going to be the recipient of all my clean underwear?! FFS. You fools.

Formal dinner. Sigh. So bored of food now. Don’t even recall what I ate. Nice chat with Scott and Etta and Janet. Cod, I think I had (GF) breaded cod. Anne and Pauline seem to be gone for good from our table. Not gutted, frankly.

I have now seen two Sherlock Holmes/Robert Downey Jnr films in the last week. Entertaining enough bubblegum for the soul, the highlight of the first being the half-built Tower Bridge (although it’s a way longer run from the House of Parliament than they suggested), and the highlight of the second being Stephen Fry with no clothes on.

But I’m afraid I was unable to get past RDJ’s appalling English accent in either instance. Clipped is one thing, positively gunfire-esque is quite another. Horrible sound. Especially next to Jude Law’s natural tones. I would put RDJ’s attempt in the top three Worst American Attempts At An English Accent Ever – second only to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and Angela Lansbury’s various attempts at Cockney in several episodes of Murder, She Wrote. If you have a more execrable offering to proffer by way of bumping RDJ down the rankings, I would be interested to hear it, because I can’t think of any that are nearly so awful.

Tonight I completed the Customer Satisfaction Survey for the Round the World Event at San Francisco. My reward for doing so will apparently be a free glass of champagne. One glass. Steady on. Don’t overdo it, now. Mind you, if you don’t know what went wrong at San Francisco by now, I can’t help you.

Weather forecast for tomorrow. 32 in the shade, with rain. Welcome to the Tropics. We are now only ten degrees north of the Equator, although we won’t cross it again on this trip. Tonight, we are crossing the Guatemala Basin, southwards, if you want to look us up on a map.

27 degrees in the shade at 06.30 hrs, according to the telly. This is going to be hot and sticky, Welcome back to the Tropics.

No internet. All day. Grrrr.

Huatulco (Wah-tool-ko) is not the town – it’s the area. Why P&O don’t call it Santa Cruz, I have no idea. There are about five Cartagenas in the world, so half a dozen or so Santa Cruzes wouldn’t kill us. Anyway, Huatulco is, in fact, nine bays (or is it eight?) of unspoiled sandy beaches, clear water and reefs, and the one we moor in is Santa Cruz. So there you have it.

There is a VERY long concrete quay, so that the ship can moor pointing into town. But I’m not sure it’s long enough for the really big ships, as it currently stands. Yet even now, they run an electric buggy service to get the less mobile from the gangplank to the shore. Lovely touch, that. It is a heck of a walk, mind you.

We were booked on an excursion to Las Brisas resort. We don’t often book excursions, and resorts, even less so, but we’ve been to this one before, and it is very pleasant indeed. It used to be Club Med 18-30, but changed hands in 1992.

At the hotel, they still insist on blaring out dance music by the main pool, whether or not anyone wants it, but it’s still otherwise very pleasant. We don’t use the three private beaches available, but those that did were very happy. We pretty much took over the town when we arrived, so there were other ship people to chat to. And lunch was basic but adequate. And free.

Our excursion brought us back to the port at 2.30, BOB was 4.30, but we did not slip our lines until 6.30, because someone was waiting for an ambulance. Oh dear.

I imagine the Captain will be a bit stressed by now. We have a time slot booked for the Panama Canal on Thursday (it is single alternate lane traffic, so you absolutely cannot miss your slot), and we’ve been chasing to catch up since San Francisco, I think. I am guessing we will be really pegging it overnight tonight.

When we arrived for the first time, in 2005, Santa Cruz was a lovely little town with very few shops or hotels. They were cutting a great scar through the rainforest to build a big road to connect them to the big city. Eleven years later? The scar remains, but now has paving and benches and flower pots. No road. It seems to be a park of some sort. Our tour guide, Jordan, who took excellent care of us all day, assured me the road would be built, but he’s only been here five years, so I knew more about it than he did!

Other than that, the place has barely changed at all. A few more hotels, perhaps, but that’s all, and they are quite in keeping with the area – not big, ugly, modern rubbish. And the bar with the balcony overlooking the square has closed in said balcony and become a nightclub called the Black Cherry. But, other than that, it is still a very beautiful, and remains a resolutely unspoiled, part of the world. I cannot recommend it highly enough. They have some sort of special status to protect the area and the beaches here, so, hopefully, it should stay this way. And they seem to understand the concept of disabled access, too, which is nice.

Try not to laugh out loud at the prices of the wares made from the local silver, though. They find it off-putting.  Although labelling something as 630 USD when I wouldn’t pay 630 MNP for it (there are about 20 pesos to the dollar at the moment, give or take)(AND it was broken!), is so overly-optimistic that your customer is a fool with more money than sense, that I have to give them credit for the sheer chutzpah.

Things I have learned today #1: There is some sort of plumber’s code, whereby they are not allowed to fix a problem in a customer’s bathroom without leaving a piece out when they put everything back together, neatly put on the side, for said customer to discover after the plumber is long gone. Happened in LP a few months ago, happened here today.

When I got back on board, I was hot and sticky and dusty and needed a shower. But this was the moment where my shower decided that I did not merit any cold water, for some reason, and so provided only two options – scalding or scalding. After two desperate calls to Reception, a plumber came, fixed the problem and then announced that my fluctuating temperature issue, that had me swaying in and out of the flow of water (remember?) was actually a faulty thermostat, so he changed it. And left me the apparently obligatory small circle of silver metal by the sink, that I have no idea what do to with. And a continuing fluctuation in temperature (didn’t have the heart to call him again). But at least cold is now an option. My sunburned shoulders were very grateful. It must have occurred when I was swimming, because that was the only time I stepped out of the shade all day.

My sarky email to Southampton about gluten-free bread appears to have hit home, because when I was chatting to the head waiter, Subodh, at dinner, and said I had sent the head of Diet Reservations an email, he said, “Yes, I’ve seen it!”. He told me to bide my time and see what transpires at Aruba. And then he winked.

Watch this space…

Friday 15^th April – Sea Day 1 of 3

Finished my book before bed. Woken by the noon announcement. “The time is now one o’clock”. Oh good, there goes another hour. So by the time I made it to lunch, it was nearly two (locked myself out of the cabin and had to go to reception for a new key on the way – Who? Me? Discombobulated? Nah). Fruit, pasta (very overcooked – had to eat it with a spoon because it just fell apart with a fork!), Sudoku. By the time I had realised I was feeling somewhat chilled – it may be 20 degrees and sunny, but there is quite a strong breeze – it was time to go back to the cabin and get ready for a formal night anyway. So that was the whole day done. Anne and Pauline did not come to dinner. They haven’t said anything positive about the food yet, so maybe they went to try somewhere else instead. Or maybe they just don’t like dressing up for dinner. Wore the teal Gib dress and the cz choker and bracelet. Daphne said the dress made my eyes look so amazingly green, she thought I was wearing coloured contacts. Which was very nice of her. No one else seemed as impressed, mind you.

There was a drinks do tonight. I asked the captain (Trevor Lane) why we are never dressed overall when we are in port. He says he doesn’t have the spare man hours necessary to put it all up and take it all down again. Not sure how satisfied I am with that answer, to be honest. Every other ship we have ever been on has managed. Particularly when we were in port overnight. But, hey, I asked. I think it’s about courtesy, respect to our host city and also pride in the ship and the P&O brand. It saddens me that none of that is considered important.

The captain is aware of the GF bread situation, and said he is trying to sort it out. I made my dig to both him and the Food and Beverages Manager, David Leys, about my 25k self-catering holiday. They both laughed, and promised me they would try and fix it. We will see, won’t we? I have written to the Special Diets lady at Southampton, who made so many promises to me before we boarded, anyway. Maybe she can bang some heads together. Although where you find gluten free bread products in Mexico or the Caribbean, I have no idea. Not really my problem, frankly.

Then accidentally found myself watching the film of Paul Potts’ story on the telly (One Chance) in the cabin. It’s rather a beautiful film, to be fair. Very enjoyable. Wonder what has happened to him since, though. I hope he is making it big somewhere, because I haven’t heard much of him recently. Don’t be too picky about James Corden’s slightly dodgy lip syncing. It’s not his fault he’s not an opera singer! Although any fan of Carpool Karaoke knows the man can actually hold a tune.

Saturday 16^th April 2016 – Sea Day 2 of 3

Not bad night’s kip. Not entirely unbroken, but not bad. Lunch, fruit, pasta, Sudoku. Siesta. Dinner. That’s a good sea day.

It has been eerily calm all day – the Pacific actually managing to live up to its name for a change. You really do have to look out the window to know that you’re moving, today. We have crossed into the Tropics now, so the temperature and humidity are both rising by the hour. It’s all rather pleasant. It’s like being on a cruise!

The Denton ladies failed to show again at dinner. I think they might have moved. Etta and Scott are good company, though, so that’s fine.

As we were leaving, we were treated to the most spectacular sunset. We don’t often manage to line up our meals with the best views, so it was a welcome change. The hours change so often, we can go from eating in daylight to eating in pitch darkness in a matter of days, so actually hitting sunset spot on doesn’t happen very often. I think there is another time change tomorrow, which is a shame.

According to this week’s Click, age and gender are no longer relevant demographics when pitching or planning televisual content. Interesting. Considering the amount of sexism and ageism that persists throughout most parts of our society, the idea that we are not much differentiated as regards tastes or entertainment needs is really rather thought-provoking…

Sunday – Sea Day 3 of 3

Woken by the noon announcement. Lost another hour. Sudoku, pasta, fruit. Pounding headache, so didn’t swim. Paracetamol. Rest. Dinner. Headache became a proper migraine, and spread to my teeth, so I couldn’t chew my food. Back in bed by 7.30. That was Sunday, that was.

Not a good night’s kip. Typical.

I managed to elicit a decent breakfast by ordering the fruit and yoghurt, and, when it was delivered, I gave the room service steward the loaf of bread I bought in San Francisco, and he took it away and got two slices toasted, and brought it all back again about 10 minutes later. Apparently they are allowed to cook it but not store it. *sigh*

Went ashore on time and without problem. Which was nice. Glorious warm and sunny weather. Stewart and Julie, our cousins (well, Stewart is Dad’s nephew, technically), drove down from LA to see us, and they were waiting at the gate. So good to see them.

They drove us to the Hotel Del Coronado. It’s very famous. Google it. I think they filmed Some Like It Hot there. They have an entire steampunk shop. In fact, they have lots of shops, all of which contained lovely stuff, but the prices were eye-watering, so I left empty-handed.

We went out to their café overlooking the beach. Are you serving? Not yet. Ten minutes. Do you serve coffee? No, you have to go into the bakery café for hot drinks. May I order a draught beer? No, the compressor is damaged, so we only have bottled. It was starting to sound a bit like the ship! Still, we had a cold drink and Skyped home. It’s nice to be in a time zone where that is becoming possible again. It’s about three weeks since that has been even conceivable. Interestingly, the wifi is not free here. Pretty cheap, but not free. Still the signal was decent enough. Ish.

Then we drove to the Waterfront area of town, to a restaurant called Seasons 52. This is where we all met up with Kris, Rich and Selena, who used to be my neighbours in Little Paxton, when Rich was stationed in the UK. They moved back to San Diego about six years ago, we reckoned, give or take. I have missed them. We chatted and ate really good food and then, at about half three, it was time to go back to the ship. It was far too short a time, and I really wished we had had longer together.

BOB 4.30pm – I managed to be the last passenger on, today! Never done that before. Nap before dinner. Took my own GF bread roll to dinner. This is what it has come down to. They have simply stopped bothering now. I am now on a self-catering holiday, for pity’s sake. Dinner was very nice, and everyone was cheerful, because absolutely everyone had had a nice day.

After dinner, one of the ladies who was at our table at the San Francisco dinner showed us the letter she had received following her formal complaint about the food. It said that the poor food was because everyone at the table had such complex dietary requirements.  No, you had more than THREE MONTHS to plan this. That’s no excuse! It also said that other people at table 21 had said how lovely the food was. Really? Because there was her and her man, who made the complaint, Gary and Kate – the starved vegan and his wife – who have also already registered a written complaint, the three of us, the P&O girl who ran away and abandoned her dessert uneaten when she realised how annoyed we were all getting, the guy next to me, who said his chicken was cold and dry, and a little old lady, whose name no one knows, but who complained bitterly about her food as well. So where exactly were these allegedly happy campers? If the crew are actually prepared to LIE to us, in response to genuine complaints, then a quiet note to those in charge on board is not going to cut it. Not by a long shot. This is going to have to be emails to Southampton, now. And it’s entirely their own fault.

Then helped Juliet unpack – she has moved cabins. She was going to disembark at San Francisco, but managed to do a deal so that she could stay on for the last leg – hence the move; her cabin had been sold to someone else! Her new cabin is very nice indeed, mind you, so she did quite well.

Three sea days now before Mexico. Time for a rest. Both for me, and my poor credit card, which has taken quite a hit since Hawaii. And maybe some playing on my new pooter. And some reading of my new books (including the sequel to The Assassin’s Apprentice that I read earlier in the cruise). Busy, busy, busy.

Slept. Woken by the noon announcement. Lunch. Back to bed. Utterly shattered.

At dinner, met the new tablemates. Anne and Pauline from Denton in Manchester, and Etta and Scott from Motherwell, via Bath, now living in Worksop. They all seem nice enough, so far.

Woke naturally, which is nice. Slept well, so obviously bought the right sleep aid product yesterday!

Off at 10. Fran met us and we drove to the mall to do the bits of shopping we all forgot yesterday, and post some cards and stuff.

Then we went to the Embarcadero, to a bookshop that we remembered from last time, that we loved. We all came out with armfuls of purchases, as I recall. Not any more. Never go back. They have taken out all the decent books, and filled their shelves with current fiction, children’s books and cookery books. All of which you can get cheaper in Walmart. That’s not what we go to a ‘proper’ bookstore for.

So we gave up and went into The Slanted Door for lunch. This is supposed to be an excellent restaurant. Presidents eat here. I say supposed to be. The noise level was quite high but we thought we had ordered quite easily. The waitress dealt with the no nuts, no gluten nonsense quite well. The lychee iced tea was, however, disgusting. I like lychee tea, so I was very disappointed with this. And she kept refilling my glass! Yuk!

Then the spring rolls arrived for mum. They were supposed to be vegetarian, but she took two bites and said they tasted funny, so I took a closer look. They were NOT vegetarian. They took them away pretty sharpish, and mum refused a replacement – she had soup instead. The waitress came over and apologised – saying she hadn’t heard the word vegetarian. Really? Cos I was pointing at it on the menu at the same time. So, don’t worry, you just probably fed pork and shellfish to a Jewish old lady with known food allergies. No issue there whatsoever. They really could not have cared less. She just said “We won’t charge you for those”. You’re damn bloody right you won’t, dear! Never mind that we didn’t order them, never mind that we didn’t eat them. If she had a fish allergy, which you might not mention when ordering the VEGETARIAN spring rolls, she’d be DEAD BY NOW, you incompetent cow.  They didn’t even bother to send over the manager. So much for the famous American customer service.  (NB. We have NOT told mum what she probably ate. We think she knows, but no one is saying it out loud, so please don’t mention it unless she does first).

So, if you want a recommendation for somewhere to eat in SF, I’m afraid I recommend that you go ANYWHERE BUT The Slanted Door at Embarcadero.

This did not put anyone in a very good mood, perhaps unsurprisingly, and after the bookshop fiasco next door, we decided to give up on Embarcadero and head elsewhere.  At which point, I went to the loo, and the cleaner unlocked the door from the outside while I was in there. Mood improvement quotient: -700,000%

So Fran took us to a proper book store on Van Ness and we all bought LOTS of books – I think mum got four and I got five. That’s more like it. Although, oddly, whilst you can buy absolutely everything Patricia Highsmith has ever written here, they have never even heard of Mary Higgins Clark. Don’t worry. Only one of the world’s top mystery writers. Very odd.

Then we went to the Jewish Community Centre, to see if they had anything nice in their shop. They didn’t, but at least their toilet doors were secure! Adriana Huffington is speaking there tonight. Seventy-five dollars a ticket. Yowzer. She has a book out about how to improve your sleep patterns. I’m not sure what qualifications she has on the subject, mind you… Apparently, she has also been acting as an Uber driver all day, here in SF. Odd, but interesting.

Then we went to City Lights, and I bought some more books. LOVE City Lights. Democracy is a participation sport.

The trouble with all these bookstores is that they are all in areas where there is only a half hour of parking. Have you ever tried to browse an entire bookstore in 30 minutes, including queuing and paying?! Can’t be done. Trust me, I tried. Twice. At both shops, I had to drop something I was considering and just leg it. Oh well, their loss. If they want more custom, they need to negotiate with their city planners. Nothing I can do.

Then Fran drove us around the city for a bit, showing us some of the cool architecture. There are some very pretty and some VERY large houses in some parts of town. And we drove the ‘Wiggle’ (down Lombard Street), because I could not remember doing it last time, although dad swears we did (we didn’t!). They are building a new ‘transport hub’ which will be under the (new) tallest building in SF. A transport hub that the new underground will not link up with. Buses and trains, but not the underground, for which they are currently digging up significant portions of the city streets. Not exactly joined up thinking…

Then we went to a lovely restaurant called Garibaldi’s, where we met up with Rachael and Blake for dinner (Rachael is Fran’s daughter and Blake is her new hubby). She is an architect, and he works for Google. We had a fantastic meal, although the portions were positively monumental in size. We had a great time, and it was sad when it had to end. Blake PROMISED me that Trump will not win the Presidency. You read it here first, folks.

Here endeth day two, with less foot pain, but much more shopping to somehow shoehorn into our luggage at some point. Tomorrow: a well-earned sea day before we get to San Diego. I’m pooped.

I think I was glutened at some point, which is a shame, but it didn’t hit me til after dinner, so it didn’t mar the day itself.

We were not at Pier 33 this time. Since the America’s Cup was last here, there has been a brand new terminal left behind, at Pier 27, which is now used for cruise ships. It has an air bridge, which significantly lengthens the walk to the street, and, of course, P&O made it very difficult to get a wheelchair to help mum over the distance. But eventually, we made it, and, not long after, cousin Fran turned up. It was so good to see her.

I put my dress and bag in the boot/trunk of her car, ready to change into later, and off we went. What ensued can best be summed up as ‘shopping’. We managed to purchase pretty much everything we needed, and also stuff I didn’t need at all, which was nice. One particular purchase consisted of two pairs of shoes in under ten minutes. In fact, I think I spent longer queuing at the till than I did choosing them! So that’s a tick off the list. When in San Fran, DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) has to be done, no matter how little time is available.

We had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory inside Macy’s, including a gluten-free burger for me, which was positively joyful.

Much more shopping later, we took mum and dad, and all the shopping, back to the ship, and then Fran and I headed to her house. She ran some errands, while I used her free wifi to set up my new laptop. Then I got changed ready for our evening ‘do’, and Fran got changed ready to go to the gym (not bad for soon to be 70!).

P&O organised a posh dinner at City Hall for all the Round the Worlders – about 400 of us. City Hall is an astonishingly beautiful building. They certainly don’t build them like that any more. The jazz band was very good, but did not need amplification in a space so small, which meant it was hard to converse, even with the person sat right next to you!

The food was quite good and the service likewise, right up until the main course. At this point, the script changed. Someone had decided that, with several different dietary requirements listed, it would be best to just prepare one dish that covered everything – no nuts, no milk, no cheese, no meat, no fish, no gluten. It was essentially a vegan salad with some gluten free fettucine laid on top. The fettucine was stone cold and tasted like refrigerated boot leather. The salad beneath most closely resembled a (warm) Russian salad in fairly tasteless green mayonnaise with cherry tomatoes instead of carrots. I can’t tell you what was said. But suffice to say, I received something I could swallow on the third try (the Russian salad bit without the pasta – I’m coeliac, not masochistic), at which point the vegan bloke on the other side of the table just gave up and skipped straight to dessert. Which turned out to be quite nice, ironically.

The speeches were abysmal, and our table was hardly in the mood now anyway. By the time we even received our hideous main courses, other tables had completed dessert AND coffee, so we all got cold food and were all pretty miffed. And that was BEFORE we tasted it!

I have no idea who the people were on the other side of the table, but we had the HR Manager from Southampton near us. We talked to her about the training of chefs and cabin stewards. It was pointed out (by someone else) that this is the most expensive cruise they sell, and maybe they should not be hiring chefs who cannot differentiate between ripe avocados and not. Perhaps, just perhaps, for nearly £30,000 a head, the passengers have earned the right to be served by chefs and stewards who have already learned their trade, as the waiters have? She said they are setting up a new training school in Mumbai, so that people can be trained before they board, instead of on the job.

My feet were screaming from all the shopping, walking and late application of heels, but I had my day shoes with me on the bus, so I just changed back into them, and walked back on board in surprising amounts of comfort. Beautiful mauve evening gown, stripey socks and boys’ school shoes. Style is my middle name.

Coach back before pumpkin hour. Just. Will need to take a sleeping tablet tonight – we are stationary.

Sea Day 3 of 4 – Saturday, I think. Probably 9^th April? Maybe?

All I have done today is sleep, pretty much. There was some eating, at various moments, and some Sudoku, but for the most part, it was just sleep. The end.

Sea Day 4 of 4 – Sunday 10^th April. The Early Hours Thereof.

Of course, when the night comes around, I can’t sleep for toffee. Mind you, I slept so soundly at first, that when I woke, I had no idea where I was or when it was, and I still find it hard to believe that that chunk of time was only around one hour after I went to bed. That was some deep sleep, that was.

This is the second waking. It is now 2am for us, but my body clock seems to know it is 9am in the UK, and I should be up and about and doing stuff. Or not, as the case may be.

On the plus side, it looks like today was the last time zone change for now, as there is no mention of one in tomorrow’s paper (which comes out at dinner time). Here’s hoping!

Another wakening. It is now 4am here. Ish.

I have passed some time reading Will Self’s latest opinion piece on the BBC website –it must be the weekend. He talks of how we are all now so regimented in our concept of time that it is impossible to really lose track of what time it is. Well, I’ve got news for you, mate. Try this life for a while.  Never mind knowing what time it is, I’d be content with the certainty as to which way is up, and that’s even with gravity helping me out.

He argues that we are all prisoners of what he calls ‘industrial time’. He may be right. The full piece can be found here, if you’re interested. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35976699 . But I found he was just starting to get interesting when he stopped.  He was suggesting that we are in the End Times of time itself. That science and religion can no longer protect us from the realisation that past, present and future are all in the Now – we don’t have to wait to become someone different, over time, for example, we can create an avatar or different online identity in moments.

So my question is this. Do we need time any more? Yes, we have to get up and go to work (yes, even I), but more and more people work flexi-hours, so that’s not rigid any more. And most sensible bosses are happy to grant you a few minutes leeway at each end of the day to cover the transport shenanigans we encounter on the way. The trains have timetables, but when was the last time you saw one complying with it?! The average minute on a Tube indicator is 96 seconds long. So why not just do what Transport for London does with the buses? The first one is 0600, the last one is 2359 and the others will be every 7-9 minutes in between. That’s literally what is written on the bus stops now. We have no need for anything more specific, do we?

We note down the time of everything – birth, death, doctor’s appointments, wedding ceremony start times – but how precise do we really need to be any more? It feels to me, in my granted somewhat addled and time-stewed state of halfwakefulness, that the more precise our clocks have become, the less we actually need that precision. When will we realise that, whilst the clocks continue to run, we only need the subdivisions for the doctor, dentist and hospital visits? The doctor will see you at 11.20. Flu jab day at my local surgery means you get a 3 minute appointment slot. Who the hell actually keeps that?! You just turn up and they slot in you in next. The ostensible time slots are more about controlling numbers and flow, rather than an actual timetable to live by. Television programmes have start times and end times, so that they don’t overlap, but when was the last time you recorded something only to find the last three minutes missing because the television channel’s definition of ten past is not the same as your DVR’s? More and more of us now stream or download what we want to watch, when we want to watch it, anyway –vis, the box set concept – so we are liberated from that tyranny now as well. I like the idea of setting aside a whole weekend to watch an entire series back to back – I just never have the time to do it!

How rigid is our use of time, and, more important to my current train of thought, how rigid do we NEED it to be? If you’re fifteen minutes late for a birthday party, no one minds. You blame it on traffic or trains and you catch up. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

Now, I am well aware that some of you are sitting there thinking ‘Ah, Emma is simply retrospectively constructing a background for the fact that she is quite often late for stuff’.  Possibly, in part. But that is also partly because I have never really understood the obsessive need for punctuality in the first place. This is just the first time I have written about it. I am aware that some people think it is the height of rudeness to be late for anything, and they become totally obsessed with timekeeping. They are entitled to their viewpoint, of course they are, but I have often wondered if it is simply just another psychological construct to differentiate Me from You and make Me feel better about Myself because I am Punctual and You are a lesser person because You are not. And I dislike people passing judgement on each other at the best of times, never mind over something as trivial as that.

I also wonder if such judgements are the preserve of the Well. If you are old, or infirm, or suffering from any kind of illness, from a common cold upwards (or, as currently, an attack of the time zones), it may simply not be physically possible for you to comply with the rigidity that the Punctilious require. Your body simply may not obey. Does that make you a bad person? I don’t think so. And I find it somewhat unpleasant that some people think it does.

Now, granted, this may all be my brain rebelling at the inexorable tick of the Adobe Flash counter that tells me precisely how many minutes and seconds, at 20p a minute, mind, I am wasting on the internet here (no, I have not typed this whilst connected!). Or maybe it’s the dismal arrival of yet another Sunday, which signifies the passing of another week, and the further demise of this lovely trip. I’ll be home in just over three weeks, and over 500 are getting off on Monday, so they are already talking about planes and left luggage and the opening the post and seeing the grandkids and blah blah blah.

We are all told that time is money, and as someone who is paid per hour, I can certainly see the concept. But even I don’t use minutes. My smallest increment is five minutes. Law firms work on units of six minutes, because then there are ten in an hour and they can use decimals. I can do my twelve times table, so it doesn’t matter to me. But is time really money? Is one minute of your work day ever really calculated? Or do you do it by the hour? Work a seven-hour day, a thirty-seven hour week, a 0.5 shift. Why do minutes matter? Even when people clock in and out, do they really get paid for 37 minutes? I doubt it. Clocking/swiping in and out is about registering your presence, that’s all. It doesn’t actually affect your overall pay packet. Mrs Briggs, you worked 126,122 seconds this week and you have been paid accordingly. Nah.

When was the last time you went to a comedy gig that started bang on time? Or finished on the dot? Of course not. For a start, the interval has to be a moveable feast, because it depends how many toilets there are in the venue as to how quickly it is actually possible for people to be back in their seats. Why does it matter? Does it matter massively if the play you are seeing starts two minutes late? No, not really. Granted, you may have a train home to catch afterwards, but if you’re cutting it that fine, frankly, you probably deserve to miss it anyway!

Who can put their hand on their heart and say that every single lecture and tutorial they attended at college or uni started and finished at the precise time intended? Probably not for lectures – they do tend to go on a bit – and hopefully not for tutorials, otherwise a potentially useful conversation would be cut short. The only use for the seconds and minutes to be measured in exams, is to watch them tick by while your blank mind rummages around, among the packing cases full of penguins, pandas and kittens, for something relevant to write.

A few minutes here or there really does not matter any more. I say any more, but did it ever? Really?

So why are we still bothering with minutes, or seconds, at all? Why don’t we go back to sundial time, church clock chime time? Half past the hour, quarter past the hour. Do we really need smaller increments than that? We would still have minutely accurate timepieces for car racing or quantum physics experiments, but I am really starting to wonder if the rest of us really need them. The clock in the bottom right-hand corner of my field of vision tells me it is 13:54pm. It might be where you are, but it isn’t here. It’s five to six in the morning. The only thing I can think of that would require that level of accuracy is cooking yourself an egg. Get a timer. Watch the sand run. It’s beautiful. You don’t need a clock with a minute hand for that. And as for the second hand, you don’t really need one of those at all, do you?

Was fairly hungry at lunch, so ate everything quite happily. We may finally have cracked it with the food on board. Hopefully. Only took three months.

Woken by the noon announcement again. Apparently, according to one of the stewards, a lot of people are struggling with the time zones and sleeping late as a result. Not my steward, of course. He clocks off on time, which means an hour early when the clocks change, and to hell with his passengers. Others wait, which I think is a minimum level of service. If you’re being paid to make the beds, you should make the beds, shouldn’t you?

Now here’s a thing. Penguins use their guano to melt the ice and snow ready for nesting – essentially gritting the roads like we do, but using their own poo.

Recent observations:

Japan drives on the left, which is odd, because most of the countries that do that are ex-UK colonies and/or Commonwealth, which Japan has never been.

Hawaii has the Union Jack in the corner of its state flag, although no one knows why, because it has never been a UK colony.

Dear blue patch of rain over San Francisco. GO AWAY! I know they want rain – four year drought and all – but you had better be gone by the time I get there. Rain in Hawaii was bad enough. Don’t want it in SF and SD as well, thank you very much. We have generally had excellent weather during this trip – not many associate the Falkland Islands with sunburn – don’t spoil it now.

Dinner was very tasty but veeeeery slooooooow. It took 40 minutes for the hors d’oeuvres to arrive and the main course arrived at the one hour mark. I appreciate it was a gala dinner/formal (black and white) night, but that felt very slow indeed. We had a lovely chat, in the meantime though. The olds talked about radio shows for a while, until someone thought to include me, and then we discussed children’s television, and it transpires that Maggie and Keith’s son works on Waybuloo, which, luckily, I watch and love, so that went well!

UPDATE: BIG row. Huge. You may remember that, when I wrote about Cairns, I mentioned a shop called Wild Sugar by Sajeela, with a link to their lovely website full of amazingly beautiful dresses. Well, turns out that they don’t bother to read the delivery instructions you give them, and then, when the parcel is returned, because they wrote the wrong information on the label, instead of what you told them to write (twice), that’s YOUR fault. And if you ask them to courier it to you to make up for the ONE MONTH delay, they will issue you with a full refund instead. Despite you not having requested any refund. Dameon is so petulant, he would rather bankrupt his wife’s business than admit he made a mistake.

So, there you have it. Lovely dresses, but not worth the hassle. Don’t bother. You won’t get what you asked for, because they just write whatever they like on the parcel and then yell at you when it doesn’t reach the correct destination. So do not go to http://wildsugarbysajeela.com.au – Wild Sugar by Sajeela – you’ll only make yourselves miserable looking at dresses that will never come.

UPDATE: The refund they sent me is still “pending”. It takes time for a credit card refund to go through. His wife seemed more reasonable, and we were on the verge of resurrecting the whole transaction. But then, Sajeela said she would send me the dress, but I would have to pay again, because she can’t send out a dress without having a payment in hand. When I pointed out that it’s hardly my fault she has no payment in hand, maybe her husband should not have sent it back in the first place – because now I can’t get to it either, while it is pending (and I never requested a refund, remember) – she decided that I could not have the dress after all, because it is ‘damaged’, so I can sod off. Delightful people. I do hope karma pays them a visit soon.

WAY too bumpy for a shower this morning. No, sirree, bob.

Clocks forward at 12pm. Rumour has it, they will be doing this EVERY DAY between now and San Francisco. Yuk.

Those who provide my lunch have now grasped that when I request beetroot, I mean cooked and pickled, not RAW! So that was yummy today, too. Dad commented on how much fruit I eat on board. I never buy much at home, because you usually have to buy so much, it goes off before you have a chance to eat it. may have to look into other ways of doing this, when I get back. Have rediscovered my love of apples during this cruise, so that might be a start. They don’t go off too quickly.

Dinner was not only edible, but downright enjoyable. I got an avocado, edible dressing AND a proper GF roll! Result! And the rest of the meal was delicious. Possibly the best meal I have had on this leg of the cruise.

And Kevin, our waiter who has been off with a bad back, was also returned to us, all smiley and happy-looking. I just hope he doesn’t overdo it and undo all his healing. Backs can be fragile things.

Most of this post seems to be about food. It’s all we do on board, is eat. Get up: breakfast. Elevenses? Lunch. Afternoon tea?! Reception/pre-dinner drinks, probably with canapés or nibbles. Dinner. Last night snack buffet. It’s endless. At lunch, I felt like crying; I just did not want to eat anything at all. Dad has given up eating lunch altogether, but now eats breakfast instead.

My new pooter is very shiny and lovely, but pretty much every single aspect of setup requires being attached to the internet – for AGES – so further such stuff will have to wait until San Francisco. Shame, really, otherwise I could have started using it in anger, so to speak. But not destined to be. *sigh*. Still, it’s out of the box, so that a start, I suppose. Dad says that it should be called Max, as it came from Office Max. I’ll play with the name for a while, and see how it goes. Pink baby was much easier, because she was small and pink! Small and silver and a bit heavy doesn’t really click quite so straightforwardly, it seems to me. But it is VERY pretty. We’ll go with Max for now, and see how it goes. Maxi won’t work; not for a SMALL computer! Maxi the Mini? I dunno.