11th March 2013 Mother’s Day 2013 began with a decadent lie-in until the shocking hour of 8 am. Sue opened her cards and gifts from Charlotte and Sarah, which I’d been faithfully lugging around in my suitcase like some clandestine courier. I’m not entirely sure why I’d bothered with the secrecy; Sue later admitted she’d… Continue Reading

11th March 2013 By 6:30 a.m., the ship had already docked in Salvador, the old capital of Brazil. We rose early, demolished breakfast by 7:30 am, and were ashore by 9 am, ready to explore. At the foot of the gangplank, chaos reigned. A Brazilian film crew was busily shooting what appeared to be an… Continue Reading

11th March 2013 The alarm was set for 7 a.m., but we managed to wake ourselves 15 minutes early, proof that even on holiday, the body refuses to let you sleep in when there’s an excursion planned. A proper breakfast was required before our jaunt to Ilhéus, so we fortified ourselves accordingly while the ship… Continue Reading

Though the sea was calm and the ship vast enough to host a small nation, I still felt a peculiar movement during the night. Not the soothing cradle-rock one might hope for, but rather an unpredictable shudder, like sleeping atop a washing machine on its spin cycle. Eventually, sheer exhaustion won, and I drifted off,… Continue Reading

11th March 2013 Despite last night’s biblical downpour, we awoke to sunshine and a sky so blue it could have been painted by Dulux. Like proper mariners (albeit ones without a ship, a compass, or any idea of star navigation), we enjoyed a hearty breakfast before setting off to bid farewell to Copacabana’s famous beach.… Continue Reading

6th March 2013 Today’s mission: Christ the Redeemer. You can see him from almost anywhere in Rio, arms outstretched like he’s trying to hug the entire city, so it felt only polite to pop up and say hello in person. We bravely boarded another Rio bus, which turned out to be more theme-park ride than… Continue Reading

5th March 2013 Having finally conquered my battle with technology last night (copying posts from the tablet to WordPress nearly finished me off), I wrote this entry directly into WordPress. Progress! Now all I need to do is crack the art of embedding photos into the blog. Watch this space, I’ll get there before the… Continue Reading

4th March 2013 My body clock, still stubbornly stuck on UK time, decided that 5 a.m. was the perfect hour to wake me up. Back home, I’d probably have been pedalling furiously on the bike, but here I was wide awake in Rio, sulking at the ceiling. After a few futile attempts at drifting back… Continue Reading

2nd May 2010 Our early departure from Shanghai left us both feeling a bit glum, cut short before we’d had our fill of dumplings and neon skylines. But landing at Heathrow brought a strange sort of relief, especially knowing we could finally relieve Charlotte of her saintly watch over Jamie and Sarah. Parenting by proxy… Continue Reading

24th April 2010 As has now become tradition, I rise early and left Sue to enjoy her beauty sleep while I trotted off to the Crowne Plaza for a quiet breakfast and the Shanghai Times. Crossword completed (with only minimal cheating), I return to find Sue mid-toast and deep in conversation with fellow guests. It… Continue Reading