Hotel California

"You can check out, but you can never leave"*

It took us three check-outs before we were able to leave - it was that kind of a weekend.

For various reasons, we had to be away on Thursday and Friday, and I found myself temporarily unconnected. "No matter", I thought, as I had the weekend to catch-up. We went away on Friday night for a relaxing family break, but hadn't read the weather forecast very well.

We found ourselves storm-bound for three days, in a very nice hotel, but with no connectivity, no phones, no news (due to the telly being commandeered for a selection of Disney videos) and only excellent food and wine to keep us sane.

This morning the storms lifted long enough for CalMac to allow us to leave and, half-an-hour before the departure time, booked us onto a ferry that wasn't sailing leaving us nearly stranded again. A very quick bit of thinking and speedy driving got us out of this mess, but this was despite CalMac's best efforts.

I have long claimed that CalMac see the passengers as an impediment to the smooth operation of the ferries, and today fully confirmed my view.

The Loch Portain has an public wireless network to allow commuters, tourists and business people to log-on and avoid having to have a life and talk to people, which is innovative of CalMac. These two words don't seem to go together for all sorts of reasons. Not least as it is impossible to actually log onto the network or get anything other than wildly frustrated by your technical incompetence, until you realise it is actually not your fault.

It is good to be home - not least as I was out of clean underwear - and contrary to wild rumour, I have not been interred in Berneray for the mortal sin of not eating the home baking that I was offered. Look, I'm eternally sorry to my very kind hosts, but it was 10am, I had been up since 4am with the baby and I never eat breakfast except in hotels, and if I start on cakes at that time in the morning I'll get a sugar rush and not stop eating them until bed time**, and I wasn't feeling that great anyway with the crappy crossing of Sound of Harris.

* This is not to be taken in any way to assume that I like The Eagles. Quite the contrary. As a veteran of the Punk Wars we fought against gratuitous guitar solos.

** A female pensioner client said "I saw you on the telly and thought 'God, you've put on the weight'". In an effort to remedy the situation she then added, "But you don't look as bad as you did on TV." Hence the cake ban.