This, folks, is the thing to do in winter. The weather’s fabulous down here in the islands, mon. It’s currently Wednesday evening. We’ve been at sea the last couple of days, but we spent today on St. Maarten. I’m not a huge fan of the planned excursions that all cruise lines offer, so we rented a car and drove to the beach for the day. I swam and walked and generally tried to soak up enough warm sun to get me through January.

We’re all generally having a grand time. Delaney isn’t getting enough sleep, and Lee and I are eating WAY more than we should, and Toby was bored out of his mind at the beach today (the topless women held his attention for a while, but after an hour or so, bare breasts weren’t even interesting anymore. We tried to convince him to walk down to the nude end of the beach, but he couldn’t be bothered. Hmm. Now that I look back at that last sentence, I wonder if maybe we’re dreadful parents, after all. Oh dear.), but otherwise, it’s quite fabulous. Yesterday, by the adult pool, I found these giant, two person lounge chairs, with separate backs so that each person can adjust the angle just so, and great deep mattresses. That was a particularly nice nap, although I did manage to sleep right through our reservation for tea with Wendy Darling. Whoops.

I’ve been going to the gym–they’ve expanded it since our last cruise two years ago, and there’s an upright stationary bike that works perfectly well for interval workouts. And I’ve been doing lots of core work, and running the track that goes all the way around the ship on Deck 4. And I am trying desperately to maintain my resolve not to set foot in an elevator a single time. So far, so good. The children have given up, though. They don’t seem to want to go up 4 or 5 flights of stairs at a time. I can’t imagine why.

Tomorrow, St. Lucia. I bowed to popular opinion, and signed myself and the children up for a “Pirate” excursion. Last time we were on St. Lucia, we rented a cab for the day, and saw more than we thought possible on a tiny little island. But for some reason the children flat-out refuse to go back to that volcano again–okay, boiling sulfur is not the nicest smell on earth, but we all learned a LOT that day. So this time we’ll go do the hokey stuff on the boat that was used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie (not that I saw it), and they’ll be happy as clams. Hopefully I’ll get in a good swim, and Lee can stay on the ship and vegetate, and all needs will have been met.

In the meantime, I need some sleep. All this fun is wearing me out!