"Hi, Rebecca?. It's Peter, on Tour 2B; Sintra and Cascais..... yes.... um.... we've lost someone...."

It was windy and cold when we arrived alongside the dock in Lisbon this morning. As predicted by the Captain, the delays suffered with the strong headwind and heavy swells meant we were much later arriving than planned; it was 11am.

Because of this, all tours had been rescheduled to the afternoon, with the one I was on moved to a 1pm departure.

Despite the Cruise Director's assurance yesterday that lunchtime would be moved forward by an hour to allow those booked on tours to eat, they weren't, and so the Secret Garden Cafe was mayhem, with folks anxious to be fed before picking up their tickets in the Neptune Lounge.

I would say that Portugal wasn't looking it's best today. The guide on our bus told us that they'd had some wonderful weather right up until the beginning of this week, when the temperature dropped and had turned cold (you want to try living in Britain, love). As we drove along, pausing briefly to look at one of Portugal's biggest surfing beaches (which was nigh on deserted but for a few die-hards), the weather deteriorated, and by the time time we arrived at Cascais (pronounced Cash-Cay-Yeees), it was raining.

One of the the items on a tour itinerary that a tour escort most fears is 'free-time'. At Cascais, our guide told us that we were getting off the bus and everyone would have free time, to wander as they wished, and to meet back at the bus at 2:50pm.

Everybody seemed to disembark wondering quite how they were going to spend their 45 minutes. Cascais isn't an unattractive place, but then there doesn't seem to be a huge amount to do, or look at; less so with the rain coming down as it was. Some people huddled in shop doorways, others bought umbrellas, cafes beckoned for our custom...

I happened upon a place described as an 'Irish Pub', in which I could see a couple I knew from the bus sat at a table having a drink. Hm...I thought.... Guiness..... So I whiled away the remainder of my free-time with this nice couple with said stout until it was time to head back to the coach.

We'd set out from Lisbon with 26 passengers on board. At 10 to 3, when we thought everyone was back, and both the guide and myself did a head-count... we had 25. Both the guide, myself and the driver checked around outside to see if there was anyone waiting around or looking lost; I asked if anyone knew who the missing passenger was; no-one seemed to know exactly. The only description I could get was that he was elderly (but not doddery), wore a baseball cap, smoked a pipe and liked a drink.

By 3:15, everyone was starting to worry, and the likelyhood of our missing passenger turning up started to look increasingly unlikely. Our guide, Ju, went walkabout again and I called it in on my mobile phone, to Rebecca, the Shore Exursions Manager. The guide had insisted that we should press on, short of one passenger, because that was the instruction given to her by her employers. Rebecca, when I finally got hold of her, told me that the rules are very clear; guides should only have to wait a maximum of 10 minutes past an appointed meeting time before continuing with a tour; ours had waited 30 minutes. Quite simply put; it is the responsibility of passengers to make sure that they are back on a bus at the appointed time - if they fail in that, then the tour leaves without them (same goes for the ship).

Everybody was asked to write their name and cabin on a sheet of paper, so that the missing passenger could be identified by a process of elimination when we got back to the ship.

So, the tour continued regardless...

Our next stop, Sintra, is a lovely little village, which seemed all the more inviting now that the rain had finally ceased. It boasts old Moorish architecture and a load of tiny little streets with interesting shops and galleries. Personally, I always find the portugese pottery a little on the garish side. They also go in for lots of ceramic tiles, many of which adorn the outside of buildings.

Another worry as the afternoon progressed was the time factor. Shore-leave for passengers was due to end at 5:15, ready to sail at 6pm. By the time we finally arrived back at the quayside, it was 5:40, the Boudicca's big red funnel was chugging out smoke as it built up a head of steam... we were the last on board ship.

As the gangplank was taken away and the Boudicca  left Lisbon, to head for Portsmouth, the missing passnger remains a bit of a mystery. It seems that no-one is missing; a name and cabin number would have been announced over the PA system, asking that person to please report to reception. No such announcement was made. Whoever it was that missed the bus must have made their way own back to the Boudicca. It's quite possible, of course, that when we arrived in Cascais, with the weather as manky as it was, that the passenger took themselves straight to a taxi rank and headed back to ship without so much as a second glance at Cascais. Who knows?

And so begins the very last leg of our 3-week journey, with just two days sailing to bring us to Portsmouth, where we are due to arrive early Monday morning. The Captain has told us that the weather in our forthcoming passage of the Bay of Biscay should hopefully not be too bad. The forcast is very changeable, though, and he warned us that we might expect a bit of a swell similar to last night (I woke at about 3am this morning feeling like we were on some sort of giant rollercoaster). Fingers crossed....