A Question 3.

Sometimes I just seem to lose my way; take me from my desk for a day or two and I'm lost, wandering around, unable to settle, too many things spinning in my head, shouting for attention, distracting me, my concentration shot, my focus gone; I feel at odds with the world, out of step, off-kilter, scratchy and uncomfortable, longing to find a new equilibrium. A morning run can help, writing a list can help, but the ingredient that always helps is time. And thinking about it, I realise that the time it takes for me to get to solid ground is equal to the time spent travelling from my desk, multiplied from hours to days. My recent trip to the midlands took four hours and, unbelievably, it was a good four days before I started to feel normal again. The question is, am I the only person to experience jet-lag without even leaving the ground!?

A Weekend Away.

A beautiful morning here and I couldn't resist this picture of Ventura backing into her berth; Grand Princess is in the foreground, Independence of the Seas in the background and beyond her in the unseen distance is Oceana. I won't be here to wave them off tonight, I'll be a couple of hundred miles away in the midlands at a family get-together for my parents birthdays (both born on the 22nd of the month). Happy birthday for yesterday Dad, happy birthday for last month Mum.

The View From My Window 5.

Well, the rain didn't clear yesterday afternoon and I didn't walk over to the marina, but I did take this picture - a confusion of ships leaving port as another band of rain sweeps in - good isn't it!

The View From My Window 4.

It's wonderfully wet here today and as I look out across Southampton Water I can see six cruise ships. They've been coming in and out of focus all morning, as bands of misty rain sweep across from the south west to obliterate the view and add to the romance. I love a damp day, as I've probably said before; a soft, misty day is so romantic, I somehow feel safe and protected.

The ships are certainly a sight to see and six in one day is probably something of a record for Southampton (I think five is the previous maximum), making for a very busy day in the city. The passenger total for the six ships is 16,290 - Grand Princess 3,100, Ventura 3,092, Celebrity Eclipse 2,852, Artania 2,388, Balmoral 1,778 and Crown Princess 3,080 - that's a lot of people coming and going.

The rain is clearing now, there are patches of blue sky, and the sun is breaking through, so it looks as though it just might be a fine evening when all those ships line up to leave port. Maybe I'll walk over to the marina in a while, to join the crowd and watch and wave and wonder. But first I'll take a picture...

From right to left in the picture, the ships are: Grand Princess (bound for Stavanger), Ventura (also bound for Stavanger), Celebrity Eclipse (bound for Zeebrugge), Artania (not sure where she's going), Balmoral (Gibraltar) and Crown Princess (Le Havre).

Rainbows.

When I looked out across the bay early this morning, the sun was shining, it was spotting with rain and there was a beautiful double rainbow. The photo doesn't quite do it justice, but you'll get the general idea.

Running.

I run for a variety of reasons, not least because I believe it's good for my physical health, but I realise more and more that running helps to clear a space in my head. It usually happens at around ten to fifteen minutes into the run, when I've reached a steady pace, and of all the jumbled thoughts swimming in my head, one will rise to the surface and start to dominate until all the others fall silent, my head clears and I can concentrate on that one idea. More often than not, it will be the one thing that's troubling me, a problem that needs solving, an underlying issue that needs attention. Sometimes the run will fix it, sometimes it fixes itself and sometimes it feels as though nothing will fix it, but for a while, at least, I feel more settled - and of course there's always tomorrow....