September 13th – Four Seasons in One Day in Falmouth

Up until 20 years ago, the Cornish port of Falmouth used to have a bit of a reputation for being a bit rough around the edges. But, there's been a lot of work in the last few years to improve the appearance of Cornwall's biggest town. The waterfront has been cleaned up, the National Maritime Museum Cornwall has been added, and there's now lots of independent boutiques and restaurants added to the high street. It can't compete on beauty with the archetypal Cornwall towns like St Ives, Polperro or Mousehole, but from the sea, when the sun's shining, Falmouth looks pretty good.

That's the crucial bit – when the sun's shining. When we woke up, the day started depressingly grey, then some black clouds rolled in and it started raining horizontally. At this point, we took shelter in the town's Art Gallery before deciding to give up and head back to the ship. All of a sudden the sun came out, raincoats and jumpers were removed, and it became boiling hot. That's the British weather for you.

So, we made proverbial hay while the sun was shining and headed to the beach. In the blink of an eye, people were swimming and the seas had turned a Caribbean shade of blue – the beach was stunning. So, we continued on the coastal path, and had a good ramble to another beach, coming to the conclusion that when the weather's good, there's few better places on earth than Cornwall.

Sunny Falmouth was a lovely, gentle start to this cruise – let's hope the weather holds for the rest of it!

September 14th – A Sort of Homecoming in Waterford

As I've tried to trace my Irish ancestry, the only fact that I had to start on was that my Grandmother was from Waterford, so today was a sort of homecoming for me. Subsequent research has shown that although Waterford was her last home before she came to England, she was born further north, so there wasn't too much chance of finding lots of people looking the same as me wandering around Waterford's streets.

But, Waterford's a nice little town to explore. When I came here last a couple of years ago, the town was still struggling with effects of the Credit Crunch and the closure of its famous Crystal factory, so there was a slightly depressed air to it. This time, thankfully the economy is on the up, and a scaled-down version of Waterford Crystal still seemed to be packing in the tourists. The advent of the dishwasher, changing tastes, and cheaper glassware from places like Ikea (so cheap to the point where they're almost disposable), has clearly affected sales here, so it's difficult to say how many of those tourists were buying.

What also made Waterford seem a bit more upbeat, was the beautiful weather – blue skies are a rarity on my visits to this part of the world, and the city's largely grey buildings need a bit of sun to lighten them up. It was good to get back to my roots in Waterford.

September 12th – Back to Sea at Southampton

After a wonderful summer off, with trips to Mykonos, Seville, Cadiz, Slovenia, Stresa, and Shropshire(!), it was time to get back to the day job and back on the ocean wave. In spite of our taxi driver trying to take us the wrong way around the M25 (it was a good thing that we knew the way!), we made it to Southampton in plenty of time to join Silversea's newest ship, the Silver Muse.

So, we will be stopping in at a few British and Irish ports, before crossing the tempestuous Atlantic to Canada, and then sailing up the St Lawrence to Montreal. After that, we'll be doing the following cruise down the East Coast of the US, to finish in Florida.

A lot of lectures to give, but should be fun!