I'm ashamed to say that, despite all the wonderful things going off last night, as a huge welcome to the newly-boarded passengers; welcome showtime in the Neptune Lounge; Entertainment & Quiz Night in the Lido Lounge, not to mention Late-night buffet, disco and quiz, I had an early night.

I watched abit of the Cruise Director's Introductions, but drifted back to my cabin struggling to keep my eyes open. 'Changeling' was playing on the TV's in-house movie channel, which I watched a bit of, but then finally gave up the struggle and lay down to sleep.

I've never been put in  a single, internal cabin before. I don't know if it's because of its positioning on the ship (deck 4, near the back, portside), but it seems particularly noisy. The air-conditioning is noisy, and there are other, unidentifiable noises too. It made for a bit of a broken night, exaccerbated by my constant coughing and spluttering (goodness knows what the people in the neighbouring cabins must think).

The biggest bind about being in an internal cabin is that the only point of reference as to what the weather is doing outside, or in fact whether it is even light or not, is the TV channel which shows a contstant view from the front of the ship.

Having made the effort of setting my alarm clock for 8am (clocks went forward one hour last night), I actually made it to breakfast, despite not being terribly hungry; I rarely eat breakfast at home, but I figured I'd check it out anyway... After a hearty bowl of cornflakes, I poked my head out into the open air only to retreat quickly; outside was grey, wet, windy and very very cold, so I went back to my cabin and dosed until almost lunchtime. It's easy to fall into a sort of dosy half-life on board a boat - the option to do nothing but relax and snooze is always very tempting.

At lunchtime, I pulled myself together and went for a stroll out on deck. It's still windy out there, and many parts of the deck are closed off as a consequence, but it was nice to get some fresh air and blow away the cbwebs - did my cough the world of good; I was coughing and spluttering much louder and stronger when I came back inside!

This afternoon at 3 o'clock, I have to give the first of my workshops. I'm hoping the voice is going to hold out, of course, and am anxious as to how many folks are going to turn up (last time on the Boudicca, I had 40 people turn up), but generally, I'm prepared, and looking forward to it.

We have two more consecutive sea days after this one, on each of which I will be giving a workshop. Tonight is our first formal night, so I'll be making an effort and putting on the old dinner jacket and dicky bow (the name's Bond... James Bond), and I've just found out that I've been assigned tour escort duties for Friday, when we arrive in Malaga, Spain; our first port-of-call - Woo Hooooo!!!! I'm going to visit Picasso's house!!!!!!!

Hi Peter,
Rule 5 could be tricky without a port hole, but then there are benefits, such as you're unlikely to get a surprise attack from pirates or jelly fish, or ducks etc.......
Hopefuuly the weather will pick up the further south you get, we have had a mini monsoon season here today, so you're not mising anything.
Have a soooooooooooooooper time
Cheers
Pip