We don’t actually sail round the North Cape, its on an island and we sail inside that – we stop at Honningsvag, the most northerly town in Europe, for a few hours and people do various excursions up to the North Cape (the people, that is, who have the odd £2 or £300 to spare for a couple of hours on a coach and, basically visit a museum and a restaurant for even MORE food) or, as I did, amble round the town which makes Ludlow look like a very lively metropolis by comparison. There are many, many souvenir shops and I wandered into a few, partly out of curiosity and partly to pass time on land.

Norway is eye wateringly expensive, you can easily pay £250 or more for an item of (excellent) outdoor clothing or maybe a fiver for a souvenir biro or fridge magnet to take home for friends and family. And then you go into another shop and find really nice down jackets for £45. Managed to resist them, they were a totally vile shade of sickly yellow, or maybe just sick, and not my size anyway, and I don’t need one, already having a very nice one at home. But I did succumb to temptation and bought a very, very nice everyday jacket – one of those things you instinctively know you’ll wear every day for about 10 years and it would be jolly good to replace the somewhat battered and dishevelled one you’ve been wearing for the last 10 years. So brace yourself for a slightly smartened up me when you next see me (assuming we are out of town and its raining….. !!!).

And its raining here, grey and windy, as we round the top of Europe on our lovely graceful ship. I love the way that such a big, modern vessel is nonetheless tethered in port by a couple of ropes round a bollard, and that it’s old tractor tyres that are used to fend her off the quay, and I love the way she slips backwards and turns to head back out to sea afterwards.

I’m EXHAUSTED – keep going to my cabin to get my laptop and do blog and life catchup, and instead falling asleep to the point where it takes a while to come back from. But a while out on deck in the wind and the rain gazing at the sea and the cliffs brings me happily back to the present and joyful immersion in this, my latest adventure.

God I am SO lucky!