Tuesday 22 December

Another journey from hell, although not quite as  bad as last February. It started straightaway at 6.30 am, when I was advised by text that my Glasgow to London flight had been cancelled. Trying to get through to BA by phone was impossible, and their website did not permit me to change the flight. The taxi took me to Stornoway Airport, where the check-in staff wished me good luck on my journey. An elderly lady, from the same street in Stornoway where I stay, was talking to me as she was due to go on the same cancelled flight. Her destination was Dusseldorf in Germany; mine was Amsterdam, 150 miles to the west. After due consideration and discussion, she decided to abandon the journey; her age did not look kindly upon waiting at airports for long periods of time. My 8.30 flight did not take off until 10.00, as the aircraft had been snowbound at Inverness the night before. After a 50 minute across snowcovered Scotland, we landed in Glasgow. I immediately went to the BA desk to reschedule my journey. I was now going to Birmingham (England) at 15.10, thence on to Amsterdam, where I could arrive at 20.00. Well, after having lunch and reading my paper, I went to the gate. There I was able to look outside, where it was snowing hard. The flight, with FlyBe, was put off until 18.35. That would land me in Birmingham, without any onward connection to Amsterdam. So, I rescheduled again (try to get your baggage back out of the system) and was now flying KLM to Amsterdam at 19.35. The snow closed the airport until about 7 pm. In the meantime, I had some dinner (chili con carne). I sat down at gate 27C, where Easyjet passengers were effing and blinding about their delayed flight, which was finally transferred to gate 10. That was not easy on the elderly and the infirm who needed a wheelchair. The airport obliged. My plane took off at 8.15, 9 hours after I had been due to take off from Glasgow. The runway and apron had been cleared of snow, and the journey to Amsterdam proceeded well. We landed at 10.20 local time, just over an hour after departing Glasgow. You pass along the east coast of England, able to discern Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Norwich, with London a distant glimmer on the horizon, 120 miles to the south. At Schiphol, there was no onward train to Arnhem, so I rang up my sister, who lives a few miles away, and jumped on the bus there. After catching up on events, I bedded down on an inflatable mattress, surrounded by bemused cats.