Sunday, July 31

We left Naa and the cat and got the bus and metro to Kamppi where we found a number 9 tram to take us to the harbour.

We have checked in and are boarding the Princess Maria on our way to St Petersburg. The boat is almost as big as the Stockholm ferries. Since we have agreed to use the shuttle bus we can travel without visas, an arrangement that does not exactly smack of logic.

We have a Commodore Deluxe cabin which is 20 square metres and contains a chilled bottle of sparkling wine and a pomelo when we arrive. We discover that the minibar is free and that we are booked into the first buffet. The fun begins.

The buffet will be entirely satisfactory and, filled with as much food as wine as we can ingest in ninety minutes, we will wander round the ship. We will end up watching a cabaret show of sorts and during the interval I will convincingly win a karaoke contest, winning a large screwdriver: the cocktail not the woodworking implement.