And so the cruising has begun in earnest, and we are en route to our first stop in Gibraltar tomorrow, where hopefully I will be able to send this post.
We left an overcast and occasionally rainy Southampton on Saturday afternoon and we're now on our way down the Iberian peninsular having traversed a splendidly calm Bay of Biscay. With every mile travelled, the sun shines a little bit brighter and the mercury expands some more. Jeans have been relegated to the bottom of the wardrobe and its shorts all the way from now on.
As always with cruise (and lots of other) holidays the first 24 hours or so were a little frenetic, with kids' club registrations, getting unpacked, organising excursions, and, most important of all, leaving the cares of the world behind us for a while. Now the pace is slowing down just so, and as I type we're all happily doing our own thing - I'm diarising away, having just come back to our cabin from a couple of hours of sunbathing and reading up on deck, Nicky and Margaret have returned from their pedicures and are chatting on the balcony, John is snoozing / reading over the way in their cabin, and Jake is off with his new mates Tom and Alex - no idea what exactly they are up to but I would guess a shortlist of table tennis, arcade or ice cream!
Yesterday was John and Margaret's 40th wedding anniversary, and a jolly nice time was had by all with champagne, canapes, chocolates, cake and more champagne.
Other highlights so far - a few games of shuffleboard and table tennis, our first trip to Johnny Rockets and my first, sadly unsuccessful, trip to the casino. Must improve - clearly need more practice.