Dear all, please ignore my previous blog post about Cairns. Do not EVER buy anything from https://www.facebook.com/wildsugarbysajeela.
They will not read your delivery instructions, and when there is a problem with the delivery, as a direct result of their cockup, they will get arsey with you and throw your money back in your face, rather than just apologise and fix the problem they caused. A very sad end to a business that made very lovely clothes, but I can’t see them lasting much longer with that kind of attitude. After all, as we all know, it’s not about making mistakes, it’s about how those mistakes are dealt with, and this company would rather go bankrupt than admit making a mistake and fixing it. Shame, really.

Welcome to your new tax year. If you do spreadsheets and stuff, this is the day you need to start a new one.

Decent night’s kip, for a change.

Email from home. Leak definitely stopped, but pretty bad staining, according to the pics. Now the bills start coming in. Wowzer. Oh well, easy come, easy go, I suppose.

Managed to escape the disgusting parts of breakfast, by keeping last night’s roll and carrying it over, so to speak. Melon has now been sneakily added to the options, but the portion size was pretty insulting. Still, better than nothing, which is what you get if you ask for raspberry-flavoured yoghurt. Yes, I know you have banana. That’s because it’s disgusting and no one eats it!

Off the ship and onto the shuttle bus. Well, if there had been one. There apparently are not many vehicles available here, so they were only running every half hour. That’s a long time to ask someone aged over eighty to stand. And wait. In the rain. So we got on the Hoppa On Hoppa Off minibus, which is the local tour bus, and the nice driver took us into town.

There was a market with crafts and antiques, where I spent a surprisingly small amount of money, considering the number of bags I ended up with. Then a taxi to Walmart. Which, oddly, we had to share with the taxi driver’s wife, who was asleep in the front seat! Very odd. The Walmart complex was out of town – ish. Everything here is so spread out, it’s hard to tell if you’re in town or not, to be honest. I think this is really a very small, pleasant town that they have just spread out like an American town, so you have to drive from one shop to the next. If they put them next to each other, this place would probably only be about four streets square, instead of fifteen minutes’ drive square! At this point, it stopped raining, which was nice, cos it meant we got to see a bit of the town as we drove through.

I bought a laptop in Office Max, which is what they seem to call Office World over here. And it speaks English! The sales girl was absolutely lovely, and knew her stuff. She even took Dad’s shrapnel and made 81 cents out of it, which made his pockets much lighter! We have 14 days to take it back, so if I hate it, I have San Francisco and San Diego in reserve. But I doubt I will. But I may have trouble recalling my Office 365 password, which may make things tricky for a while…

I also bought a wireless mouse. I brought one with me, but I picked up the wrong connector, so the pooter and the mouse couldn’t talk to each other. Have spent the past three months using the touchpad. Am now liberated from that little annoyance. Which is nice.

Then we ate in McDonalds. You know what you’re getting and it’s quick. The portions were huge. I had to finish everyone else’s fries. I’m a martyr, I tell you. No one appreciates my suffering.

Then more Walmart shopping fun – t-shirts for less than five dollars. Rude not to, really, if they’re giving them away like that…  (100% cotton, made in Honduras, for the more curious among you).

Then back to the ship on the free shuttle bus (well, we think we were supposed to pay, but no one asked us for any money!). Then I took the bags back to the cabin, before we headed off again. We used to call this “doing a Honolulu” – buying so much, you have to go back and unload halfway – but we might change the name now.

Then we took the Hoppa On Hoppa Off tour of the whole place. It didn’t take long! It was, essentially, a nice drive along the coast and back for an hour. When we looked on the map of the whole island, we reckoned we had pretty much travelled two squares. Barely touched the surface of the place, although granted much of the centre is volcano (yes, active). But we had a lovely day. It’s a truly nice town, the people are lovely, and we couldn’t really fault it in any way. A few more buses might not go amiss, mind you, if they’re going to keep passengers happy. Remember, we are a comparatively small ship, and if they can’t handle us, what will happen when something three times our size pulls in?!

Got a slightly bizarre text message from my bank during the evening, asking if a card payment was genuine. I rang Reception and they said, yes, we requested an authorisation for that amount. Five days ago. So I texted back that, yes, that was real, and they replied “Thank you. We have now unblocked your card”. Don’t be silly, I’ve used my card so much today, the corners are melting. Even the market stalls accepted it. It’s not blocked. All a bit odd. Still, they’ve got four days to get themselves sorted. Not really my problem. As far as I can figure, the worst that will happen is that the payment for my computer will not go through, by which time, I’ll be out of the country! Not worried!

Sorry, no postcards today. No magnets either, come to think of it. Hawaii, you have let us down. Tut.

Avocado at dinner! RIPE avocado, with EDIBLE French dressing. I was like a puppy with two tails. How pathetic can their service have become that those five words are worth celebrating?! The only remaining let down was that the decent GF rolls are all gone, so they are now expecting us to eat dishwashing sponges for dinner AND breakfast. Nope, not happening. The head waiter was mortified. He went to the bakery, he went down to the stores himself, he searched the whole ship. He came back very shamefaced about the fact that there was nothing else available. Oh well, I should probably not be eating bread anyway – GF or otherwise – so it’s not the end of the world. But it’s a bit tough on every other coeliac on the ship – even if he does treat me like I’m the only one aboard!

Didn’t sleep much. Maybe got three hours between being informed there is water coming through my parents’ ceiling and the docking announcements starting. Heroic efforts by friends and relatives to fix the leak. Happy anniversary indeed.

Forced down the disgusting excuse for gluten-free toast on offer, but drew the line at what purported to be bread rolls. I’m not that desperate for sustenance.

Immigration ground to a halt because they turned off the lifts to do a generator test, so none of the excursion people could get down to the restaurant. When we did get immigrated, they were doing crew drills, so the officer couldn’t hear my answers to his questions! He gave up in the end, and just rolled his eyes at me. We didn’t get off til nearly 11.

On the plus side, the shuttle bus into town caused us endless hilarity – the driver was either bitching about traffic and roadworks, or pointing out the pointless. One offering was “For those of you who can’t see why we have stopped, we’re at a traffic light”. Yeah, like we give a rat’s behind! Twit. Entertaining, but a twit. He was very helpful about return pickups and which buses would have wheelchair access (not all), but then we were dumped by a car park, with only an extremely large flight of stairs offered as an option for getting into the (expensive, surprise, surprise) mall they were dumping us in this time. You could not actually see an entrance, or any signage that showed how to get into the mall, at all. We just had to take his word for it! Some wandering through the car park later, we found an elevator. Chess and Sue and I actually went up a travelator, with his electric wheelchair! There’s an experience you don’t have every day.

At the top, I assumed mum and dad would appear from the elevator, but they didn’t, so I went into Macy’s to use their loos. When I came down, mum and dad were plundering the Clinique counter, which was nice. Not very wise to do the heaviest shopping first, though, perhaps…

We wandered through the mall, past shops we didn’t even have the credit limit needed to look in the windows, and then dad let mum and me loose in a drug store, while he had a half hour rest. Turns out, they don’t have my toothpaste in the US. Nor my mouthwash. In fact, I only wanted three items, and they did not have one of them! I got likely-looking alternatives though, so that will have to do.

Then we found a bite to eat. I had planned a restaurant in Waikiki, but I was so tired I could barely stand, so we plumped for something in the mall itself. It once had a beautiful view of the ocean, but that is now blocked by a building under construction. The service was surprisingly lackadaisical for the US. My drink order was actually wrong, and the waiters did both the repeated vanishing thing AND the never looking at you thing as well!  I had a mushroom risotto, which would have been very nice if it had (a) contained any mushrooms (b) contained 90% less oil. But with the addition of a little lime juice, it was quite edible – if only because the lime juice rinsed off the oil and left it in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl. Mum and dad were not particularly impressed with their meals, either, but we were simply refuelling, so we didn’t really care much. Probably the worst meal we have had ashore on this entire cruise, but all plates were pretty much cleared, nonetheless. Like I said – fuel, not gastronomy.

Then we went down to the lower level of what is apparently the Largest Open Air Mall in the USA (not ideal when it’s been drizzling all day!), with a view to walking the two blocks to Walmart. But because it was, by now, raining fairly hard, we got a taxi. Lost mum and dad within the space of about three aisles, but we reconvened at the tills, just in time for mum’s purchases to go onto my credit card bill. There’s handy, then.

Then back in the ship, with a second lovely taxi driver – they are all obliging and lovely and kind and friendly and chatty here. Delightful.

Then I passed out on the bed.

Dad rang me at 6.10pm to remind me to go to dinner. Shame really, I was having a lovely dream.

We chatted about tv mysteries – Bergerac, Midsomer Murders, the extremely high death stats in Oxford. Janet lives in Australia, and hadn’t heard of the Endeavour series, so we filled her in on the sordid underground world of Oxford in the fifties and sixties, and the consequently much higher body count than just the respective Morse, Lewis and Hathaway series might lead you to believe. Keith said he would be too scared to live in Midsomer (which is a real place, of course). I said you would be safer there than in Cabot Cove, which is officially the murder capital of the planet. Then we played “what have we seen Ian McShane in recently” until it was time for the waiters to sing “Congratulations” to mum and dad.

Bed. Never mind that it is only 2115. I’m beyond pooped and dangerously sleep-deprived, and we have another port tomorrow!

I am now so confused, it has ceased to be funny. I have no idea which way is up. Mum and Dad are barely awake either. It’s ludicrous. This many time changes in this few days is not healthy.  if you think it’s tricky doing a whole bunch at once on a flight, that’s nothing compared to this Chinese water torture drip, drip, drip. We have gone from about eight hours ahead in Manila, to 11 hours behind now.  That’s nineteen hours in three weeks. That ain’t healthy.

Another hour forwards, whatever that means. I think it means 4am for you is 5pm for us. Dunno. Beyond caring, frankly.

At dinner, got guacamole with tortilla chips this time, although, sadly, the chips were rather stale/ soft. Still, progress is progress.

Then cold roast beef and salad. Which would have been fine, if they hadn’t supplied that disgusting excuse for dressing that contained only mustard and oil. I really have to learn to taste the dressing before I pour it on, and ruin a perfectly good plate of food. *sigh*

UPDATE: 20:50.  9pm on the 4th for me appears to be 8am on the 5th for you. Probably…

Got very cross today. I am sick and tired of the attitude of my cabin steward. He never replaces the forms in my cabin folder, so I never have what I need when I need it. So I use what I have available, and then he refuses to comply with the request, coming back 12 hours later with the correct form and saying he cannot comply with my request until I complete the correct form. The last time he did this, my laundry was delayed by an entire day due to his recalcitrance. If it was that important, he could have copied the information onto the correct form – all the information was available to him on the ‘wrong’ form, but instead he just dumped the whole lot back in my cabin until I came back in the evening and filled in the correct form. Which annoyed me no end. I am not his skivvy.

Now he has done it for a second time. This time, it was a request for bottled water. He left me no water forms and no generic bar chits either, so I wrote it on the back of an envelope. That was all I had available. Yesterday. Of course, I have failed to clarify that he knocks off an hour early every time the clocks go forward, so he isn’t around to do my cabin until the evening. Apparently, passengers have to choose between a lie-in and a cleaning service. Knowing this, I figured he wouldn’t get the request until 6pm. So today I patiently waited for my water – despite the fact it should have come last night after dinner. It still has not come – 36 hours after I wrote out the request.

When I asked a room service delivery guy who was nearby, he said that there was no request for water outstanding. So, basically, my steward just CHUCKED IT IN THE BIN AND IGNORED IT. My steward came by, when the room service guy found him, and we had a stand-up row. He said that if I wanted the correct form, I should ask him. I told him that I should not have to find him and ask his permission every time I want a bloody piece of paper. I sent him away with a flea in his ear, and he came back quite quickly with my water. I requested to see the Deck Supervisor, but he hasn’t come yet. I am getting heartily sick of this. I am not putting up with this any longer. Once was a misunderstanding. Twice is a pattern of behaviour. I don’t get cabin fever as a rule, but the end of my tether has now been well and truly reached. This ends now.

UPDATE 21:25: Well, I’ll give him his due. Boy, can the Deck Supervisor apologise! Very fulsome. He will deal with it. He had no idea. He will speak to my steward. Etc. etc. Maybe now things will improve. I dunno. We will have to wait and see.

The mineral water that (eventually) arrived in my cabin is now made in Hong Kong. Although, interestingly, the sparkling water served around the ship is still Tarka from Devon. We obviously get through a LOT more still!

By the way, I noticed on re-reading some previously-published posts, that some sort of automatic numbering has been applied in places, without my knowledge or consent (or noticing), and all my time entries at the start of paragraphs are coming through as manifest gibberish. I will go back and amend them so they make more sense, when I can. In the meantime, humour me. They are rarely less than half an hour apart!

Clocks forward at noon. We are now at UK -11, I think. It doesn’t help that the onboard newspaper refers to UTC, which means nothing to me – is that GMT or BST?! Oh my brain. The Britain Today summary newspaper (provided by The Daily Fail, I believe) is out, dated 4^th April. My head is really starting to hurt now. And as to how out of date the news in it might be, I have no clue. Okay, don’t panic. Breathe. If it’s 10pm here, it’s 10am in the UK.  So it’s still the 3^rd April for me, but it’s already the 4^th for you. Sudden desire to lay down and place a duvet over my head. With added whimpering. Need chocolate. And alcohol. Lots of both. No ice. In no fit state to risk dilution.

Djokovic: when they start listing what you HAVEN’T won, you’re doing pretty well, mate…

Utterly bizarre dinner. I said to the head waiters a few days ago that, if they could not find me an edible avocado, guacamole and tortilla chips would do. I got guacamole and chips. French fries. Talk about lost in translation… Quite tasty, nonetheless, but a bit odd.

Saturday 2^nd April – Fit the First

Listen very carefully. I shall say this only twice. Today is Saturday 2^nd April. Tomorrow is also Saturday 2^nd April. Sunday 3^rd April is the day after tomorrow. Still with me?

Spent lunchtime trying to explain it to Dad. How we are going from 11 hours ahead right now, to 13 hours behind tomorrow (which the newspaper has described as putting the clocks back 24 hours), and so, will essentially live the entire day again. It means we ‘get back’ the day we lost in February. It also means that events are referred to as taking place on 2^nd April (first) and 2^nd April (second). No way that is going to get confusing, oh no.

Fruit, Quorn stir-fry, Sudoku, siesta.

Did not swim today. Got into the cozzie, but the roof was closed, due to expected rain (which I don’t think ever actually materialised), and it wasn’t really warm enough for the getting out again part, so I skipped it and went for a siesta. Which overran massively and meant Dad had to come down from dinner to wake me. Oops. Although, in my defence, going from sound asleep to sat at the dinner table on a formal night in under eight minutes was probably a personal best…

Spent dinner also trying to explain the time zone thing. It helps a little that the newspaper for tomorrow is headed Happy Groundhog Day (although they didn’t show the film, which seems a missed opportunity)! Bizarrely, the clocks flip at midnight, but then go forward an hour at lunchtime as well, which seems to be pushing things somewhat. But, hey, what do I know? The fact that we have eight days to do this in would suggest to me that it doesn’t all have to be done at once, but maybe they know better. *shrug*

Call me picky, but could the BBC not find any newsreaders that can actually pronounce the word ‘nuclear’ correctly? What with the current issues of the day (the Nuclear Security conference thingy), it’s being said an awful lot, and very rarely correctly. It’s quite irksome.

I don’t know a great deal about round the world yacht racing, but the deaths of two people on the same boat in the same race would raise eyebrows from where I sit. I hope someone is going to take a look at this. I am aware of the risks, which are pretty self-evident, and, of course, long-term followers of this blog will know that we have taken part in search and rescue for someone knocked overboard from a yacht, but that was an educated amateur. These were both professionals – experts, one would hope. How can it be that they aren’t tethered? How can those in charge be so lax that they can kill two members of the same crew? I hope Sir Robin Knox Johnson will take a long, hard look at this bunch. Telling them you want them to complete the race is all very well and good, but is that really fair on the remaining crew, to be left at the mercies of clearly inadequate management, procedures and systems?

Thank you, Panorama, for doing a bit on Zaha Hadid.

Saturday 2^nd April the Second – I think…

Missing: one noon announcement. All very puzzling. I appreciate today is different to any other day, but still… It eventually turned up six minutes late – for “operational reasons”, apparently.

So, here you all are (well, most of you) waking up to a UK Sunday morning (7am), whereas, I’m sat here, approaching Saturday evening and getting ready for dinner (6pm). This is all very complicated. I THINK we are 13 hours behind, but please don’t quote me on that. I don’t actually have a clue anymore.

Lunch was a special one – green salad, asparagus risotto, fruit. Lovely, and the company was also lovely – Pauline and Geoff, who shared some recent space photos from NASA and Tim Peake.

Free drinky poos at the Round the World do. Not much gin in that tonic, but I had two, so that helped. This followed dinner, oddly – drinks events are usually before dinner – which was, itself, pretty shambolic. Every table is served by a team of two waiters, and they do half a dozen tables or so. Our senior waiter, Kevin, is currently bedridden with back pain, so we have had a stand-in helping out. It was chaos. We got the wrong foods, the wrong cutlery, the woman at the next table had a full glass of wine tipped into her lap and they didn’t even change the tablecloth. She had to go and change, but on the plus side, it was red wine onto a dark red skirt, so it may survive. I don’t know what is going on, but today was embarrassing. I expected chaos at lunch, because the waiters don’t know us, and will undoubtedly not have read our pre-orders, but at dinner, we have regulars and they should be on top of things. Not impressed at all. Still no avocados, so I had vichyssoise to start.

We accidentally discovered at lunch that they have salt beef on board! Dad ordered “cold brisket” and salad, and what arrived was DEFINITELY salt beef. So I had that for dinner. It was very salty indeed, but I have had such bad cramp for the last two nights, I probably need it.

All these Cuba programmes on the BBC have one thing in common, and it’s something you don’t see much anymore – except perhaps recently in China and Japan. And that is that no one speaks English. For a country so close to the mainland United States, this could present a significant limit to the growth potential afforded by the easing of sanctions. Granted, in Florida, many people are bilingual, but I would have thought that it will be difficult to expand your future if you don’t speak the language of your potentially biggest, and definitely richest, and closest, country/ market. I hope I’m wrong, obviously, but I have a horrible feeling that I’m not.

Woken by the noon announcement. Lunch. Roof half open – sunny and warm, but quite windy under the open bit. Meant the smoke from the deck barbecue did not linger, but not quite warm enough for long-term sitting around in short sleeves.

Lunch: fruit, burger, corn on the cob, Sudoku. Oh yes, changing it up. How edgy am I?

Siesta. Proper one, this time, with actual sleep and everything. Dinner – edible (no avocados available). Had a surprisingly pleasant and entertaining discussion, considering we wandered into territory such as the monarchy, republics, independence for Scotland, and Brexit from the EU!

Then got right royally April Fooled by an email from home. It’s 9am there, 8pm here (roughly?!), so I had completely forgotten it was still before noon on the 1^st. I will have my revenge…

Deeply saddened by the death of Dame Zaha Hadid. And I have no doubt she will be thoroughly Huxleyed by Ronnie Corbett, which is also sad. Ever more sad is that no one I have mentioned it to on board has ever even heard of the world’s most prominent female architect. But what this one Iraqi woman has achieved will change the world for all women everywhere forever more.

The mineral water now being delivered to the cabins is Otakiri Springs from New Zealand. It tastes slightly stale from the moment you open it.

A lovely night’s sleep. Marvellous stuff. Bit bumpy this morning, so no way I was having a shower. Clocks went forward an hour at 12pm, which brought teatime into collision with late lunch again, and meant that two hours-worth of people were trying to get lunch at the same time. Which just makes life a bit more interesting than usual. Ahem.

Fruit, pasta, Sudoku. Finished my book. Really enjoyed it. Will have to keep an eye out for other stuff  by the same author.

Then back to the cabin for a lie down (actual sleep evaded me). It’s rude not to, and it’s also hard not to, when the ship is moving about this much. It’s not rough – in fact it is extremely calm on the surface – winds are no more than a Beaufort 4 – but there is a swell that rocks you just enough to make you drowsy – mostly pitching, not much rolling. There is currently a massive low over the north Pacific, according to the telly weather, so we are clearly either skirting it or trying to get out of its way as fast as possible, because our average speed is currently very high indeed. But it was calm enough for a shower by tea-time, so managed to kill two birds with that stone.

Watched Divergent yesterday. Quite an enjoyable film. A bit stressful at times, but the fairly standard Hollywood ending helped.

After dinner, I went to see a film at the cinema advertised as Spooks: The Greater Good. However, the film was apparently called MI-5, which seems to me to be a blatant attempt to trick people into coming to see it, thinking they are going to see Tom Cruise hanging off the side of a building in a latex face mask. It was, nonetheless, a very good film, and used a lot of the same music, graphics, etc. as the television series. However, they didn’t use the actual MI5 building (Thames House?) for their outside shots, which, bearing in mind that almost everyone on Earth knows what it looks like and which side of the river it is on, seems an odd thing to change. Granted, it was blown to smithereens in the last James Bond movie but one, but that might be taking the concept of continuity a little too far…

It is not yet warming up, weather-wise, where we are, but I am hopeful that in the next day or so, the sun will come out from behind the clouds and it will be warm enough to go back in the pool. I’m not in the mood for the ‘yelping on entry’ thing. Today, the sea was a bluey-grey colour, which, although an improvement on the dark slate of yesterday, is not blue enough for my liking. I want the shiny yellow ball back in view, and I have waited plenty of days for it, thank you kindly. On the plus side, the west coast of the US seems to be warming up nicely. And this week’s averages in Honolulu are in the 80s, which is just fine by me. All we have to do now is get there.

Slept late. Woke up hungry, which is unusual.

It’s a sea day. What do you think happened?! Fruit, pasta, Sudoku and a bit of reading.

Met the new Seco today (Security Commander/Head of Security). Had to report a woman threatening me. Very odd, really. Yesterday, we had a chat with a guy who was whistling on deck. All perfectly pleasant. Just a chat about how it’s unlucky to whistle on a ship and it makes some people nervous. End of. Or so I thought. Today he and a friend were sat at the next table to us, moaning very loudly about the lack of music by the Neptune pool. So I thought I would try and help them, by explaining that if they wanted muzak, that was available at the other pool. They somehow took offence at this, and started singing loudly, and badly, and whistling – which was pretty immature, but easy to ignore. When I suggested, quite politely, that some people might want to sleep, including those on the sunloungers less than two feet from them, they said “If you want to sleep, go to the library”.  Which is a level of aggression and rudeness I was definitely not expecting. You can’t dignify that sort of crap with an answer, so I just went back to my book (Narrow Dog to Carcassonne by Terry Darlington). If you want to be an inconsiderate bully and ruin other people’s afternoon, that’s your decision. I’m not mucking up my day dealing with your psychological issues. Mum was quite cross, because she likes quiet, but we calmed her down.

A few minutes later, some woman comes screaming at me about how she is not spending the rest of her expensive cruise with her lips zipped shut and how dare I tell her to shut up and what is my name and cabin number and am I threatening her, am I threatening her, am I threatening her, all the time jabbing her finger in my face and getting louder and louder and louder. I have no idea what she was talking about or where she appeared from or who she even was, for that matter, but there was no way I was leaving that as was. That was assault. So I went down to speak to Martin the Seco. Turns out he has been replaced by a new Seco, also, bizarrely, named Martin. Is this a job requirement?! I reported the incident – I was still shaking – but as I had no idea who the woman was, I couldn’t really give him much information. He came up on deck, but they had all run away by then (turns out they were all together – her and the psycho whistling bullies at the next table). Cowards and bullies. Dad says that he thinks that one of the men is a renowned bully, who is already making such a name for himself on here, bullying both staff and passengers alike, that the officers are considering banning him from all P&O ships in the future. Sadly, we are stuck with them until Southampton, unless something gives in the meantime…

They reappeared about an hour later. But much quieter… We shall see how this progresses.

Then a siesta and an edible dinner, although the guy who now prepares the avocados has yet to figure out how to SQUEEZE them before he slices them, to maybe check whether they are ripe yet or not. Nor has he learned that serving ‘any old shit as long as it looks like an avocado’ is not acceptable to the passenger.

But the rudeness on this ship is starting to really get me down. It’s like everyone who is now on board thinks that only what they want matters. No one else. Whether it’s a disabled woman who won’t allow others to use a dipped kerb, or these obnoxious Scottish people who don’t believe in peace and quiet, for anyone, it’s like the whole ship has gone completely mad. I don’t want to feel unhappy, on a trip this amazing, but it’s hard not to feel disheartened, when this is the best version of humanity you can find.

What it’s going to be like once cabin fever kicks in as well, I dread to think. We have eight sea days, remember. People can start to get a bit bonkers after about four.

Slept late. Lunch, fruit, Sudoku.

I ache all over. From my hairline down to my toes. And that’s after two Paracetamol. I have definitely overdone it over the past few days. It could take me a while to feel better this time. But I am not alone. Janet didn’t make it to dinner the night before last, because she just felt too “under the weather”. Today, Pauline cut short a chat because she feels so rotten. She will come and see us when she feels more “up to it”. We are all of us shattered beyond words. I need a siesta, but we lost an hour putting the clocks forward at lunchtime, so by the time I had finished lunch, some people were starting their afternoon tea.

When a simple thing like a clock is your enemy – has such power over your mood, your energy, your ability to function, and is so totally outside your control – everything becomes a bit weird. It’s like living your life under constant exam conditions. I have only such amount of time left before such and such happens. And then it will be too late.

My siesta lasted all afternoon. I woke one minute before dinnertime (my body clock knew it was time for food again!). That was my whole day. Definitely felt better for it, mind you, so it was obviously badly needed rest. I just hope I can sleep tonight!

But not too much. Adam Shaw is giving a talk tomorrow morning, I need to be up in time for. Yes, so we’ve had Adam Hart-Davis, Jonty Hearnden and now Adam Shaw! V. impressive. And we’re not even on the last leg yet, which is when they normally wheel out the big guns. They are also showing that Spooks film again, that I didn’t get to see last time it was on, the day after tomorrow, so I need to remember to sign up tomorrow before all the seats are taken. Busy, busy, busy.