Boxing day 2015,Oceana.

Woke up at 8,respectable time,off to the gym.Floor exercises using a ball, my back loves being stretched. I do pull ups and push ups.An hour on a treadmill while listening to music.From there to the Plaza self-service to get some lemon slices to mix with warm water.I am always late for the hot porridge, as the breakfast stops being served at 10,so I scrape the barrel, so to speak, the porridge barely warm. Sometimes I have fruit,melon is my favourite,or tinned peaches,orange segments,figs.Outside is warm, changed into a swimming suit, but after 10 minutes of lying on a deckchair, was too cold and went to have lunch.A good decision.Salad Nicoise with blue cheese dressing was good and the carved slow roast pork belly even better.Crackling, not even on the menu, was on the plate, and was a divine perfection.The tuna in the salad was my first tuna on this cruise. Jamie Oliver's Recipes in Notting Hill serve he best tuna sandwich ever, but they also have the most awful polenta orange cake.Jamie, you are spreading yourself too thinly.Please take your name off this, what is fast becoming the worst hyped-up establishment in the area.It used to be good but has slowly gone down the hill,coffee undrinkable,cakes a great disappointment,the salads a strange mix of ingredients, that do not marry well, go and learn from Mr Ottolenghi,or just forget the fancy footwork and stick to basics,those you do wonderfully well,the sandwiches are still excellent.There was once a Victoria sponge baked to perfection, but I have not seen it since.And talking about Victoria sponges, had a small one today following the salad and the pork.It was, oh la la.Oceana,to date you have not disappointed me. In March, after spending 11 wonderful nights on board with my friend, I said you had provided the best food I had ever had on a ship.No iffs,no butts,no therefores. The best.You are on the way to a repeat accolade. Last nights Christmas dinner was almost a masterpiece,a sad potato let it down,but the rest - turkey with the classic trimmings, was a perfection.Mrs Beeton's pudding not my favourite, I prefer any from Marks and Spencer, but it was beautifully served.There were tiny mince pies, slices of stollen, and a boozy chocolate cake. Dinner was leisurely,my waiters Ismail and Baboolei got their presents and off to the theatre I went to listen to Clem Curtis. Who,you may ask, as did I,until he started to sing all the songs I hear on the radio and like.For the ignorant like myself- Clem was a lead singer in the 60s group The Foundations, one of their songs was at No1 in 1967,but I have forgotten which.His performance was a masterclass in confidence,panache,in the ease, with which a performer should handle his audience.We sang, we clapped,we gave a standing ovation. Alas, he gave one performance only.I suppose at 75 the dog is too old to learn new tricks,even the top dog.My neighbours at dinner were lovely,he more forthcoming than his wife,politely inquisitive. Why are people so interested in me? The queue before dinner was massive,I, as a rule, do not queue.I do not run after a bus and I do not queue.So instead of queuing, I was walking about,observing. Father holding a barely one year old adorable little mite with bare feet, how I hate it when I see toddlers without socks on, poor thing must have been freezing. Anyway, the father was circling around me,I knew the inevitable would happen and it did, he started questioning me, as if feeling sorry to see me alone. I said in the nicest possible way I was happy to be by myself.