Up at 05.30 to find a calm and windless morning, so the Flying Cat was able to set off from Skopelos, and we were saved the dash round the coast to Agnonta. The weather deteriorated steadily during the crossing, so by the time we found ourselves back in Volos we were in the rain, waiting in a queue for taxis to take us round to a typically depressing coach station.

The 200km drive in the coach was slower, but considerably less stressful than our taxi journey in the opposite direction at the start of the week. The idea of killing over twelve hours in a damp Thessaloniki before the flight departed was pretty dreadful. Andy’s Rough Guide (courtesy Glasgow Public Libraries) suggested a city centre hotel where we could rent a room to dump luggage and possibly let the more exhausted have a kip. At 75 € it must be a record price for a left luggage facility.

However, everyone brightened up considerably during an amazingly good and cheap lunch/dinner. Robert and Andy finally abandoned the attempt to herd the cats and the party split up as people went off to do movies, sightseeing, or Starbucks, using the hotel as a base. By midnight the sewers in the Hotel Atlas had collapsed under the collective volume of British excrement and a series of taxis hurriedly ferried everyone out the airport.

Not much more to say really: 04:04 from Thessaloniki to Zurich; 07:10 from Zurich to Manchester – an opportunity to catch up on some sleep. Good old Northern Rail did their best to round off the week by replacing the Manchester Airport trains with a bus service, but by 14:20 the last of the party dragged themselves off the train at Waverley.

Robert and Rachel, it was an amazing week: your families are great and your friends are wonderful; and we wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Just don’t do it again

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