If it’s Wednesday.... PHOTO ADDED

....it must be Barcelona.   

Monday (later).   We’ve had the ‘are you twins?’ question twice today from fellow residents on the floating care home.  These days we just flash left knuckles and smile.

I tried Mr Cunard’s kedgeree at breakfast, and can pronounce it edible, if less good than Ma’s version, which was made with Arbroath smokies.  Lots of vegetables with lunch, and no pudding.  Supper was a bit less healthy: I started with pork cheeks done in a sort of breaded fish cake (delicious) and continued with veal scallopine, which also came breaded and fried.

We repaired to the Commodore Club after supper to hear Lisa Harman play the piano again.  While we were up there, we saw a pod of probably a couple of dozen dolphins, the most I’ve ever seen.  They were swimming towards the bows, so I hope they steered clear of the propellers.  We dropped in on the evening concert in time for the last number, a Piaf song delivered very well by Eve Sherratt.

We sat on the balcony for a while, hoping to see the rock of Gibraltar on our way east, but darkness and tiredness prevailed.  We had walked a fair bit - indeed, my iPhone tells me that the day’s total came to over 11000 steps.  That should have dealt with some of the excess consumption, I hope.  

Tuesday.   A propos phones, although I haven’t used any data or telephony, the iPhone tends to seize a Telenor satellite service.  Even though I haven’t actually used it, BT appears to have charged upwards of £25 just for seizing the network.  So the iPhone will stay switched off while we’re out of range of terrestrial networks.  My ancient Nokia phone picked up a strong Vodafone signal a moment ago, but the iPhone couldn’t see any network.  But using the iPhone yesterday to catch up on Facebook, email, and the blog used up a quarter of my monthly data allowance.  So from now on, I’ll try to use onshore WiFi where possible.

Nice idle day: we neither of us felt much like painting, so sat and had a leisurely breakfast with our dinner neighbours, who happened to arrive soon after us.  A few more dolphin sightings as the day ambled along.  The guitarist we heard doing Bach and Villa-Lobos the other day gave a more mixed - and slightly less appealing - recital in the afternoon.  I suspect some of the pieces were more interesting to play than to listen to!

One of the amusing things one notices on board ship is the curvature of the horizon.  If you duck down so that each end of the balcony rail aligns with the horizon, the curvature of the earth is clearly visible.  Your trivial fact for the day.

Chilli & garlic, Boqueria

Wednesday.   A nice revisit to Barcelona, however brief.  We have logged up a good five miles footslogging up to the Miramar at Montjuic, a good stroll round the old city, including the wonderful Boqueria market, and a quick inspection of works at the Sagrada Familia.  Tapas and drinks at the foot of the Rambla before joining the shuttle bus back to the big tub.  There are four or five cruise ships in port, and the very smart terminal shows how serious Barcelona’s ambition is to become a cruise hub.  As I write, one siesta is audibly in progress, soon to be followed by another.