Monday 16th November

The ferry crossing from Santander to Portsmouth took 28 hours - leaving Santander at 17.45 yesterday and getting into Portsmouth at 20.45 today (one hour time difference). The sea was really quite rough last night and though we had comfortable beds in our cabin we didn't sleep much. As we left the Bay of Biscay and rounded the Brest Peninsula into the English Channel the sea got much calmer and we were able to catch up on lost sleep.

It was all pretty grey as we travelled towards Britain. It got dark long before we reached Portsmouth. We are parked for the night in a car park close to the ferry port but had a bit of a problem finding it so travelled (excluding the ferry crossing) 3 miles (5 kilometres) today. It is raining and blowing a gale. We've got our TV reception back and have been catching up on the appallingly tragic events in Paris on Friday.