A truly surprising realisation is that it has taken me eighty three years to discover one of the most celebrated quotations of G.K.Chesterton.

That when we choose not to believe in God, we do not thereafter believe in nothing. We then become capable of believing in anything.

Even at this age I have new discoveries to make.

PS And another new discovery is that Chesterton’s celebrated quote is actually by the Belgian Emile Leon Cammaerts who wrote chiefly in French and English and translated Chesterton’s Father Brown books into French. I continue to live and learn.

Yesterday was the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, Doubting Thomas. I have always liked this remembrance as it reminds me that the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. Doubt is at the very heart of faith. Faith, Hope and Charity (or Love if that is preferred) all have this element of doubt or of risk. They are the stuff of life. Not one of them is a dead certainty.

In old age I am finding that planning for the future is primarily about living in the present. Of course I still have a diary and appointments ahead, not all medical, and there are arrangements to be made for tomorrow. However my focus is more than ever on today and relishing the moment. It’s rather good. I suppose some of it is letting tomorrow take care to itself.

Today is polling day in the United Kingdom. A major question for the political prophets has been, ‘How big will Labour’s majority be?’ or ‘How many seats will the Conservatives lose?’ Similar questions put in different ways have such different tones.

There has, understandably, been a good deal in the news about the forthcoming general election in the UK. Some of it has been about gambling in which Members of Parliament from both sides of the House, it seems, have been involved. And I heard, quite distinctly, one news presenter referring to MPs ‘gambolling’. I do hope they have been. News stories and pictures of MPs gambolling in the fields might be good for the country and lighten the atmosphere considerably. The warm weather would be right for it too.

This time in Bilbao I was determined to try and come to terms with the inside spaces of the Frank Ghery designed Guggenheim Museum. I have always enjoyed the outside, the stone, titanium and steel of the construction and the wonderful shapes of the building be it ship or flower. The inside as exhibition space I have found more difficult.

Once inside, following my Basque guide’s suggestion, I went firstly to the vast exhibition space which now is fully occupied by The Matter of Time a steel sculpture by the American Richard Serra. It is a monumental work which was commissioned for the space and it fills it.

It is, ‘a site-specific instillation of unprecedented scale and dimension in recent history. Freed from the traditional pedestal or base, the eight sculptures were conceived to induce a global experience that also engages the exhibition space.’

It consists of huge curved steel plates, each different but associated and arranged so that you can walk between them.

I tried. I walked around and between them and found the experience disconcerting and disturbing. There are no flat surfaces apart from the floor and at times I felt that it was curved as well even though it was not. I have never been good at enclosed spaces and the nightmares of both my childhood and adulthood have involved being trapped in tunnels and the like. Perhaps, if it was meant to do this, it worked.

I did not spend long with the Richard Serra and went and sat down in a different gallery.

There are those who argue that some work is there precisely to cause a reaction, to disconcert and perhaps distress. If it is, that’s fine. I realise more and more that there are films and books, paintings and art in various forms the purpose of which is to engage in this way.

At the age I am now I can choose not to engage. It is not that I only want ‘happy endings’ and ‘comfort food’ but rather that I encounter enough sad endings in life to not deliberately embrace them in art. And as for food I want it to delight my palate as well as feed my body. I am prepared to try something different but I am less prepared to knowingly enter distress.

I am on a cruise. There is Dhan from Nepal who was very patient with me when I wanted calvados as a night cap and there wasn’t any in the Observation Lounge but there was in the Club so he sorted it. Dhan was looking forward to watching the Nepal v Sri Lanka match but it seems it was washed out without a ball being bowled. There is Luz from Peru in the Colonnade Restaurant and she knows about New Zealand wines.

However this is not about alcohol or cricket. There is Marina who looks after my suite and is also from Peru and is married to Lee from Scotland who works in the restaurant but I haven’t met him yet. There is Emmanuel from Nigeria at the deck bar and Akmed from Indonesia at the Patio restaurant. These I’ve met and talked to and I’m only four days into a two week cruise from Dover to Lisbon.

Sadly my friend Jacobs from South Africa, who I met on a previous cruise, is on a different ship but I’ve met his friend from Zimbabwe who laughed when I said I knew him and commented that, “Jacobs is quite someone,” which he is.

I have also had brief conversations with members of staff from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Tunisia, India, the Philippines, Bulgaria and Spain.

There are about 400 crew and staff of this cruise and about the same number of guests. I meet the staff because I need something from them. I know their names because they wear name tags and we talk because they seem to have the time and are polite and friendly.

The passengers don’t wear labels and there’s no need for conversation however I have had a sentence or more with those from the UK, the USA, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and Belgium. I have been invited to dinner tonight by Jenn the Entertainment Manager, British, so I will meet others there.

There can be few other situations where such a diverse group of people meet and are together for fourteen days. Off course the crew and staff are largely young while the passengers are largely not. The first are being paid, the second paying. English is the common language though I’ve heard many others being spoken.

I know being on a cruise is not ‘real life’, however we are real, we are alive, and all this diversity contributes to making a very very pleasant holiday.

P.S. It occurs to me that the worshippers at St Agnes Kennington Park derive from at least ten different countries and that we are alive, real, a community, and are there for the long haul.