Tuesday, 20th January, a sea day, 27 degrees and very humid

I think the planets may have been out of tune this morning. My hair looked like a hat and we heard our first sun bed war break out as we ascended for breakfast. There was obviously a shade issue. In fact there was plenty of sun at this point (and shade) – but later it clouded over and then rained on and off for the rest of the day.

So for the very first time we had an indoors day.

I went off to my ukulele session, with not so many people there. Then our bridge partners were otherwise engaged, so we had a day off from that. Keith decided to use the time usefully by going to a talk on Brazilian football which he wasn’t very impressed with and we both then went to a session on Rio de Janeiro. That was interesting and I made some useful notes for our visit. Keith booked me a helicopter flight over Rio for my birthday last year and we are both beginning to worry as to whether it will take place … or indeed if it does take place, will we see anything? We will have to wait and see…..

After lunch it was silent reading. I think me being in the room makes it too noisy for Keith to do his joined up writing. (Yes it does. Ed) As you know I usually disappear so that he can have some peace without my twittering.

While we are a bit low on information to impart, I would like to draw your attention to a mysterious going on along the corridor from us,

My question – what is going on here? This taping and the notice appeared yesterday. I am intrigued. Rest assured I will keep my eye on the situation and keep you informed.

It is a dressing up night tonight, I think we scrub up nicely. I must adjourn now to polish my tiara and dig out my red suede shoes… I will be back!

After Dinner we went to a slightly odd show in the theatre – a couple sharing their history. She was initially on skates and he was on a bicycle and then they both appeared, alone or together, accompanied by a whole range of paraphernalia to demonstrate amazing circus skills combining incredible balance with phenomenal strength, We will of course be trying a number of these activities in the privacy of our own room – but without the skates, the bicycle or the very large hula hoop.

Or perhaps not as we have to get up early tomorrow … We have to be on parade by 7.00. However, there are one or two issues about tomorrow and the next couple of days. First, as I said, it has been raining for most of the day today. We cannot complain because we have had amazing weather up until now, but regrettably it has deteriorated at a crucial stage of the cruise. Tomorrow we get to Buzios where we have to travel by tender to get into the port and the sea is pretty rough out there at the moment. It could be a bit scary. On Thursday we are due to arrive in Rio de Janeiro where we are booked to take a helicopter ride over the city and around the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. At the moment the forecast is pretty poor and the whole thing could be covered in a thick mist,

I say again, we shall see.