I write this from the bed of our cabin. I have no idea what time it’s supposed to be. The time on the Kindle says it’s almost 11pm, but as we are probably closer to France right now, I don’t know what time zone we are in.

It has been a busy day. Claire’s parents kindly drove us from Bath to the port in Southampton, where we embarked on our cruise. The ship terminal was madness.people were everywhere.

We eventually got aboard. There were two check in desks on the ship. It should normally take a few seconds to get through. Typically we got stuck behind someone whose check in card had broken, so had to wait ages!

When we did get to our cabin, I was more than impressed. Such luxury! They even gave us complimentary champagne and chocolates. The luxury was short lived, as we were ordered downstairs to carry out a safety drill and be shown how to wear our life jackets, should anything unfortunate happen. I can’t complain. I don’t remember such a demonstration happening in the movie ‘Titanic’, and we all know what happened there.

The whole thing was a bit of a farce. There were more people than chairs, and there was a delay in starting, thanks to some travellers getting on-board late. How difficult is it to get to your holiday on time? If I was the captain, I’d have left without them!

We were eventually shown all the health and safety mumbo jumbo, so returned to our cabin, before finding something to eat and strolling around the ship. The sea is rather rough tonight – it must be because we’re in the English Channel.

I should really get to sleep now. I’m tired – almost certainly because due to my long day and nothing to do we with the two glasses of free bubbly I’ve drank.

[Photos from the day]