I wake up at 3.30am. There is a really irritating, periodic, metallic clanging that keeps me awake. I can’t identify its source. At 6.30am I give up any hope of getting any more sleep. A fortnight of this will not be fun. Ah, it turns out that it is probably a wobbly coat-hanger. Empty coat-hangers arranged on wardrobe floor, hopefully problem solved. After breakfast, it is time for my first presentation, this one on women’s occupations. It is a bit of a struggle to stay upright as the ship is rolling in the aftermath of hurricane something or other. Lack of sleep means that we then head for a sun-lounger but it is pretty joy bracing outside, so not as restful as I’d hoped.

After lunch, we listen to Sue Swalwell’s fascinating case study about Elizabeth Swalwell, whose family frequented the eighteenth century chancery courts. Suffering from the after-effects of coat-hanger gate and aware that we have twelve more days to come, in the interests of pacing ourselves, we then go to rest a little, indoors this time. With nine presentations to give, I also have to squeeze in time to run through these. So, no disrespect to the excellent speakers whose sessions I am missing but I need to still be vaguely vertical by day fourteen. Sadly, attempts at sleep were disrupted by what sounded like a heavy trolley running back and forth across the floor of the cabin above, as the ships rolls southwards.

Having eaten too much yet again – pizza for me, more cow for my companion – we listen to Michelle Patient’s excellent presentation, introducing us to DNA testing. We arrive back to the cabin to find a towel sculpture in the form of a monkey suspended from the light fitting, appropriate with Gibraltar as our first port of call.

After a much better night’s sleep, having lost an hour due to the time difference, we take a leisurely breakfast. We are quizzed in depth by the restaurant manager about the food and service. We lavish praise liberally. He has asked for our cabin number. He is welcome to pay us later for our fulsome feedback. We learn more about DNA from Michelle; this time ‘Getting the most out of Ancestry DNA’. We are encouraged to use the, often overlooked, help sections of the website. I now have more ideas to try when I get home.

After lunch, Mia Bennett encourages us to make use of the 300 years’ worth of papers in the British Newspaper Archive. Some of the papers in their care are Indian titles, which was news (oh dear, there’s a pun in there somewhere) to me. I access the archive via Findmypast but a great advantage of a BNA subscription would be the ability to cut and paste the OCRed text. That could save me hours when typing up transcripts.

We play truant from the conference so I can have a swim. It is still a tad breezy on the top deck. I stride purposefully towards a pool, wondering why it is empty. As I begin my descent down the steps, I realise why no one else is swimming here; it is freezing. As I am surrounded by people, I feel obliged to brave this out and act like the sub-zero temperatures were no surprise. I splash about a bit, avoiding the many insects that have met their demise in the pool, just long enough to look convincing, before repairing to the warmth of one of the whirlpool baths.

The next conference session is the help desk but I only have one person who requires my assistance and it is a straightforward and swiftly answered query.

Yet more food in the Windjammer and then our evening session, which is Paul Miner speaking about non-conformists and recusants, explaining the complicated timeline that is the story of British dissent.