There are so many on board activities on the Seabourn Ovation it can be difficult to make a choice. I began today with a swim for half an hour and then five minutes in the jacuzzi. As the day continued there were a number of possibilities on offer, among them, Team Trivia, the Health Seminar: Secrets to a Flatter Stomach, Shuffleboard, Table Tennis, Advanced Facial Rejuvenation, Afternoon Tea & Melodies, the Casino for slots or tables, a lecture entitled Columbus: Extraordinary Explorer or Sinful Sailor, and Social Bridge. All this and more before Pre-Dinner Dancing with the Quartet at 7.00pm.

I was asked if I would join a group for social bridge and I explained that I wouldn’t because I couldn’t -play bridge that is. My mother took up bridge when she was eighty having heard it was good for keeping the brain active. I was then fifty and asked if she thought I should learn. She said kindly and with a smile, ‘No, I don’t think so. You need three things to play bridge, patience, a memory and intelligence. You have none of them.’ She was quite right, at least as far as bridge was concerned.

I do think that while it is almost always good to try something new and to take risks it is also important to recognise and take into account one’s own limitations. Table tennis and pre dinner dancing are also out.

Life on the ocean waves has been greatly enhanced by John Julius Norwich’s anthology ‘A Taste For Travel.’ His introduction begins:

‘There’s no doubt about it: the easier it becomes to travel, the harder it is to be a traveller. Half a century ago, any young Englishman prepared to venture beyond the shores of Western Europe could claim to the title; patience, resourcefulness, robustness of digestion were the only qualities he needed. A year or two later he would could return, the pride of his family, the envy of his friends: a trail-blazer. Alas, those days are over.’

Alas perhaps, for some. This ‘traveller’, not worthy of the name, is enjoying hugely reading of the adventures and exploits of those of the past in the comfort of my suite in Seabourn’s ‘Ovation’ moored in Syracusa’s harbour. Soon I must struggle to make the decision, ‘In which of the ship’s restaurants will I choose to dine?’

The sky is blue, the waters of the Mediterranean clear, the company enjoyable and I have managed to paint a watercolour or two. At least I share that occupation with some of the travellers of the past.

What has proved to be a profoundly satisfying Trilogy concluded triumphantly neither in the vastness of the Royal Albert Hall or the intimacy of my sitting room with a Concert of English Music in the glorious English Baroque of Thomas Archer’s St John’s Smith Square.

The conductor, the extraordinarily talented Jack Gonzales Harding, is, among many things, also Director of Music of our Church, St Agnes Kennington. His newly-formed Barbican Sinfonia and Lux Aeterna joined superb young soloists Fenella Humphreys (Violin) and George Robarts (Baritone) in Parry, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Live music-making in yet another shape and  context again worked  her magic.

And then from the reading at mass at St Agnes this morning, Ecclesiastes 1:8 No man can say that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their fill of hearing.

This time there were only thirty of us; not in the Royal Albert Hall but in my sitting room for a Musical Evening. Not, of course, an orchestra, simply a flute and a guitar, Flutes and Frets, Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy playing at an evening of music, wine and sandwiches, and friends. I enjoy listening to recorded music when on my own however listening with others to live performance gives an additional dimension. While it isn’t simply the company I am sure having company has a great deal to do with it. It was a very good evening.

At the conclusion of Mahler’s sixth symphony at the Royal Albert Hall last Friday the conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, held his right hand outstretched, high and still. Only after many seconds did he slowly lower his arm and then after a total, attentive, silence did the more than five thousand people in the packed hall begin their rapturous applause. The conductor returned to the podium again and again to receive on his, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s behalf, the gratitude of the audience.

Years ago I met an Anglican priest who had spent twelve years living in a Christian ashram, a type of community, in India. He talked to me about the annual gathering in which Christians living in similar communities and different parts of India shared.

 ‘They came,’ he said, ‘from all over India, some walking for many weeks to share silence together.’

‘And then they had a meeting to discuss things, I suppose,’ I commented.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Having shared silence in the presence of God they went home again.’

‘No talking at all?’

‘No talking at all, simply being together in the healing presence of God.’