Contrary to appearances ...

The swimmer is me, but the sea is not the Adriatic, in case you thought that by some miracle I'd been transported to Croatia (where I should be tonight, sailing down the coast), but the Firth of Clyde as it passes Toward in Argyll - ie, at home.

A brief summary of today had us up not long after 5am, standing outside the Renaissance Hotel in a thunderstorm, complete with visuals and torrential rain, helped onto an airport Hoppa bus by a tall young man who heaved our big cases up the step for us, and having breakfast in the Club Lounge in Terminal 5. There was a brief moment of doubt as our ticket receipts were scanned, but we had seats - not together, but in the same section - on the correct BA flight home. We had a second breakfast/early lunch on the plane, where I was sitting next to a young American man who with his friend had put my small case in the overhead for me (I'm just too wee to lift it high enough these days) and who turned out to be an out-and-out supporter of Trump ("I vote with my head, not my heart"), a conspiracy theorist with ideas about Covid, a Christian who kept telling me this (I think because of the expression on my face) and the very first such person I had ever met. I told him this at the end of a considerable conversation and we parted amicably...

Our luggage made it, our taxi was waiting. (Clyde Taxis, from Dunoon - we couldn't divert our cruise-line arranged limo, merely cancel it for a week from now.) As we headed down the motorway towards home, the slight mists round the airport cleared and the emerged into bright sunlight. 

The rest of the day? I went for a swim. It was hotter than any day so far this summer, and the sea was heart-attack cold but satisfied a need in me to redeem something. I found some food in the freezer and made dinner. And now I'm heading for bed and we're both totally exhausted. 

But think how it might have been had we gone for the suggested alternative:
Fly to Vienna, checking in at 3am in Heathrow T2.  (We received an update from BA warning us that morning flights might well be delayed by the weather, so the following might not have happened ...). Wait for 2 hours in Vienna then fly on to some unknown (to me!) airport in Croatia. Be met by an agent of Silversea (really?) and be driven by car for 3 hours and 30 minutes over "difficult" roads to the coast to be reunited with our ship on its first port of call after Venice. 

We'd have missed a whole day out of a seven-day cruise, we'd be exhausted and ill with stress (already affecting Himself), and we might not have managed to get there in time and then what? 

So instead we're home in Dunoon with the chaos of unpacking all around. 

To be continued ...