Off to Skopelos – the “Mamma Mia island” – for Robert and Rachel’s wedding next Monday. Rachel had gone out to Skopelos a week earlier to make arrangements, and we were expecting to meet up with most of the other guests en route.

Alarm clock went off at 5am. Switched on the radio and heard the news that Exel – the UK’s third largest holiday company had gone bust. We’d booked our flight through one of their subsidiaries, Freedom Flights . The taxi was booked, so we decided to go on to Waverley Station, where we met bridegroom Robert. He hadn’t heard the news, so I broke it to him gently…

He was in a worse position financially as he’d booked his flight directly from the Exel website, which meant his only hope of getting his money back was if he’d paid by credit card. We knew we were ok, as we’d bought ours through an ATOL registered broker, so we’d at least get our flight money back eventually.

We all decided to travel on down to Manchester anyway – as our flight was actually operated by Air Malta on charter to Exel, it wasn’t entirely certain what the position would be. The on-line departure boards at Manchester airport showed any planes owned by Exel were grounded, but our flight was still shown as running.

No-one seemed any the wiser at Manchester. By now there was nearly a dozen of us. It turned out that ATOL didn’t want anyone else flying out to Greece, as there were thousands of stranded tourists already out there. If they could stop more people going out, it meant there would be more empty spaces coming back for people who were stuck. Air Malta would only let people on their flight if they paid again. Some tour operators mannaged to do this for their customers, which meant the Air Malta flight eventually went off to Skiathos half full, but we weren’t on it.

Meanwhile the press were hunting round the airport for sob stories of tourists who hadn’t been able to travel. Once Rachel’s Mum Pat gave them the story about bride Rachel in Skopelos and groom Robert in Manchester the media arrived in force, and Robert and Pat were in great demand. We all had to pose for photos looking suitably miserable. Shame Robert hadn’t called Max Clifford – he’d have made a fortune.

More phone calls from Rachel and co. They had been on the internet and had found a SwissAir flight from Manchester to Zurich, and then Zurich to Thessaloniki, from where it is theoretically possible to get to Skopelos. We’d looked at this route before and decided it was too tedious to be worth considering. Anyway, everyone else was going this way – Rachel’s mum dithered but was persuaded to go – we felt we couldn’t be wet blankets so we threw our lot in with the rest. It would be a long journey.

So we boarded the evening flight from Manchester to Zurich (in flight meal: choice of manky cheese or manky tuna roll), a very short change which would have guaranteed lost baggage anywhere in the world except Switzerland, then on to Thessaloniki (in flight meal: choice of manky tuna or manky cheese roll), arriving at about half two in the morning, with baggage.

Meanwhile Rachel had gone to the travel agent in Skopelos and booked three taxis to take the eleven of us the 200km or so from Thessaloniki airport to the next stage, the port of Volos. She’d also had a call from ITN, who wanted to fly out a reporter from London to cover our journey and the wedding. He was due to arrive in Thessaloniki at half three, so Robert held back one of the taxis for an hour until his plane got in from Gatwick. Rachel thought there was a good chance ITN would pay for our taxis and ferry.

So the first two taxis set off with the first eight of us. The people who were sitting in the front passenger seats immediately regretted it as the two drivers set off at speeds up to 160km/h on the quiet roads. To add to the interest, they’d keep ringing each other up on their mobiles (one hand) while chain smoking (other hand flicking ash out the open window).

There was also something going on with seat belts. Both drivers conspicuously belted up when they reached the toll gates on the motorway – and immediately unbuckled as soon as they were through. They also shot off alarmingly into the countryside at one point. The pessimists thought we were going to be held for ransom in a remote barn – then we realised they had a ‘scenic route’ that bypassed one of the toll gates.

We eventually arrived in Volos at half five-ish. We grabbed some of the chairs from a seafront cafe (closed) and made oursleves comfortable. It was dark but warm. People were getting a bit frayed by this stage… The final taxi arrived about an hour later, with our three, plus Phil the man from ITN who had indeed agreed to pay for a taxi in exchange for the story. Maybe Max would have secured a better deal than Rachel:)

We had an apology for a breakfast at the seafront cafe and got on the ferry just after nine. It sailed at ten, what was supposed to be a four hour crossing. The crossing was fine, but there wasn’t much to eat except toasties with plastic ham and plastic cheese. The ferry was comfortable to sit (but not to sleep) and air-conditioned, which was good as it was very hot and hazy outside.

Phil got some more footage and another interview with Robert. It was interesting to see the economies hitting ITN. Once upon a time it would have been the journalist, a cameraman, and a sound recorder. Now Phil was looking for a volunteer to hold his little Sony camera while he spoke to Robert.

The final indignity came just as we were within swimming distance of Skopelos. We’d all been summoned to the downstairs decks (it was a big car ferry). The lorries had started up their engines, filling the deck with fumes, when it became obvious we weren’t going anywhere. We emerged back on deck to see that another ferry had just nipped in ahead of us, completely blocking the port. So our ferry had to wait, sitting doing nothing, until the ferry moved off. Felt like hours – probably 30 minutes.

Anyway, the eleven of us plus Phil finally got to Skopelos around 3pm local time – 32 hours after we got out of bed at 5am on Friday morning. It’s amazing how long you can go without real food or real sleep if you have to We may never see the final story on ITN, probably broadcast on Monday night after Phil has done some shots of the wedding. Some of the youngsters have had texts to tell them they’d been spotted on Channel 4 and BBC News last night.

So, we’ve just had a quick potter round Skopelos to buy our ferry tickets for the first leg of our return journey. This looks to be pretty grim too, with a 7am catamaran to Volos, bus to Thessaloniki, aim to get as late as bus as possible out to the airport and start our return flights at 4am on Sunday. This time the time difference will work in our favour, so we’ll actually get into Manchester at 8am UK time, after a six hour journey via Zurich. We should be home mid afternoon.

My USB wireless dongle thing doesn’t work here. The hotel’s advertised “internet” actually means they’ll let you use their PC at reception, which is Windows XP in Greek with a painfully slow, useless dial up connection. Other than that the hotel is fine, air con, en suite, little balcony, swimming pool, etc. There is an internet cafe with WiFi though.

Local specialities for dinner on the seafront: Skopelos cheese pie: a coiled sausage made of local feta cheese in filo pastry, which wasn’t anything special. Main course was stiffado (beef, onions, and prunes pot roasted) which was delicious. Bumped into Eildon and Ian who by chance had alreaady booked to be on holiday in Athens and so had a much less painful journey here. They joined us for coffee, which arrived eventually. The restaurant was pretty full, maybe more than they had planned for. I suspect we’ll keep on bumping into other wedding guests during the week – it’s that sort of island.

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