In the last nine days I’ve been to five countries – six if you count England. A sort of smorgasbord of Christmas. Tinsel, fairy lights, Christmas markets and a surprising number of Santa sightings. I’ve sampled all the obligatory festive fare: Swedish sausages, Danish cinnamon buns, Norwegian gingerbread, Belgian waffles (with chocolate, naturally) and French patisserie items galore. I’ve been hurled about: voluntarily at the best theme park ever, and involuntarily thanks to the combination of a severe storm and a cruise ship. I’ve done all the standard Christmas activities: carols, presents, panto, turkey… and a few slightly more unusual ones. I’ve never played bingo on Christmas Day before, for example. I might make it one of my standard activities in future though.

I’ve had a lovely time. I struggle to see how anyone couldn’t have enjoyed it. But unless they just really, really enjoy complaining, it seems several passengers didn’t have quite such a good time as I did. There really was an awful lot of complaining. People were unhappy about the stormy weather, but dissatisfied when the route was changed to avoid it. They were unhappy about the risk of gastroenteritis, but objected to the rules that were there to reduce risk of infection. There were complaints about the destinations we visited, complaints about the food, in fact there were complaints about pretty much everything. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things. I think a good number of complaints were as a result of people having done absolutely no research whatsoever into what they could expect, and a load more were probably down to people being completely inflexible and unwilling to accept any changes to the plans they had made. The rest I’ll put down to some people’s genuine enjoyment of a good old moan. Incidentally, these people seemed happiest when standing in a long queue, preferably one with a slightly ambiguous system, tutting periodically.

So, other than discovering some fantastic cities, and enjoying the most Christmassy Christmas imaginable, I think I’ve learned two things from this trip. Firstly, (and I think this applies to most things in life) that it’s usually a pretty good idea to find out as much as possible in advance, but still to be open to change and to the possibility of enjoying the unexpected. Secondly, that the secret to good gingerbread is golden syrup. Both of which life lessons I will strive to take with me into 2017.