INSPIRED by a serpentine queue of Scottish religious devotees all waiting patiently on a flight to Lourdes, I also began praying to God for a miracle. The plane from Glasgow to Frankfurt Airport had been delayed – leaving vanishingly little time for my family and I to sprint through that infamously sprawling German hellscape to reach our interconnecting flight to Athens. Yet at €9 for a small bottle of water, it’s never prudent to spend too much time in European airports that have legitimised extortion.
Bill's daughter Robyn grows impatient waiting for their delayed flight Further delays conclusively disproved the existence of any Judeo-Christian supreme being worshipped by those Lourdes devotees, so I hedged my bets and threw out a psychic plea on the cosmic phonelines to the Greek gods – the ones I could remember anyway. Zeus, obviously. Apollo, avenged by Rocky Balboa.
Athena – her restaurant in Glasgow is fantastic. Hopping on a later plane wasn’t an option – we had a cruise ship waiting for us at the ancient commercial port of Piraeus in Athens and even the clout of a brand as illustrious as The Herald would curry no favour with the punctual captain of the majestic Celestyal Journey. The Celestyal Journey It was on this ship that we were due to embark on a seven-night “Idyllic Aegean” odyssey where our pasty Coatbridge carcasses would be grilled in the exotic climes of Thessaloniki, Kusadasi in Turkey, Crete, Santorini, Mykonos, and Milos.
All familiar .