Lost and found

Couldn't sleep last night. H-etc. recently came into some money, and treated herself to a week in Crete via a cheap travel website. She was supposed to arrive back yesterday morning, but by 6 pm still hadn't shown up, when poor Peter Ballocks started to get worried and phone round her friends to try to piece together her travel plans. Last night I was searching airport websites to try to trace which flight she might have booked (hampered by the fact it was probably a charter), Peter was phoning the British consulate in Athens, cracking her email account to try to find booking details and eventually calling the local polis to report her missing. Her close group of friends and family (inc. her son in Germany) were active on the phone lines again from 8 am this morning, worried sick about her and imagining her languishing in a Cretan hospital, or worse. She showed up about 10 am this morning, blissfully unaware that there was an APB out for her and that at least seven people were desperately involved in multi-pronged detective work.

The story was that she'd simply misremembered her travel dates. Rather than spending a few drachmas on a phone card to let her loved ones know, she sent postcards to tell us she'd be back a day late, which (of course) are yet to be delivered. This grown, responsible woman who has roamed four continents as a solo traveller, had relied on the Greek postal service to reassure us. While relieved that she's safe and well, I've had to phone her twice already to give her a verbal spanking. Don't do that again, H-etc.! Just make a call!

On a happier note, the Firth of Forth SeaFari was a big hit with me and the wee wan. Hard to tell with the Big Wan, as he'd had his face vandalised with waterproof make-up by his friend Emily overnight, and was therefore hiding behind his hair on the trip. The shipmaster took us out to Inchmickerie (?sp) to see common seals and pups basking on the rocks, although the puffins had moved on the week before. Herring gulls, fulmars and shags in abundance on the island, along with a fat, torpedo-shaped guillemot. The noise is cacophanous! The boat can only go so close (it's a RSPB sanctuary), so the old but powerful binoculars I'd brought were a boon for watching the colonies. They're coming with us to Kirkcudbright tomorrow, for sure.