In my previous post I mentioned that I was writing it in the local library in the main town in Shetland, Lerwick   and that i would then head for the airport to fly home to Edinburgh. That was at about 11.30 on Thursday 29th May ( that piece of information is important).

Over the previous week I had spent time in the Orkney Islands and had flown up to Shetland on Monday. The weather in the North of Scotland and the islands has been particularly good in May with long sunny days ( it gets dark very late in the evening and light very early in the morning) and although it felt a bit colder in Shetland it was still very pleasant. On my journey to the airport by the regular bus I realised that there was some low cloud settling and it would be fair to say that by the time I had reached the airport in the extreme south tip it was covered in fog.

Now of course we live in times where air tracking systems and planes can land and take off in all sorts of weather conditions but the added dimension in getting out of Sumburgh airport is that you can’t go anywhere if the plane you are travelling in does not get in first. And planes approach the runway from out at sea – which according to the lovely chap I spoke to at Kirkwall airport – is why they can take the planes that have to be rerouted.

Even though the planes that fly in and out of Shetland are only 35 seaters a few running late mean that the numbers of passengers clogging up the small airport terminal quickly grow. By about 4 hours after I had arrived 2 flights had already been cancelled and it did not look good for the flight to Edinburgh.

We were indeed cancelled along with those hoping to fly to Aberdeen and Inverness. Having to cope with really poor cell phone signal coverage which led to a series of disjointed calls and texts that arrived in the wrong order and also having rejected a 12 hour overnight ferry journey with no cabins available a mottley crew of us were left to be shipped back to Lerwick to stay in a hotel ( at British Airways expense – they were great throughout this whole saga).

During dinner ( also paid for) I learned that I was to be picked up at 6.30am to head back to the airport. When I got there I had a seat on a flight – to Kirkwall ( in the Orkney Islands so still not mainland Scotland) and then onto Glasgow. The observant amongst you will realise that I originally was heading for Edinburgh! But by this stage getting going was a really attractive option.

The flight to Kirkwall took 20 minutes – it was bright and sunny all the way. At the airport I now had a 4 hour wait til my flight to Glasgow. In the meantime all of those who were connecting to flights to Edinburgh ( there was one but it was fully booked), Inverness and Aberdeen headed off. The Glasgow flight was the last to go. We got to the departure lounge – and were told that there was a technical fault with our plane and we were delayed.

I have to say that at that point I felt I could take no more. 24 hours after first arriving at an airport to fly home I was once again waiting to see if indeed I would be able to. Because of the backlog of passengers from the day before and those who were always travelling on the Friday there were no spare seats to shift us to.

The little plane took off for a test flight and we kept our fingers crossed that it would come back safely – which it did – thankfully for the crew!

BA caved in and provided transport for me and the one other passenger who was trying to get back to Edinburgh and – having had to travel through Glasgow in the rush hour – I eventually got home at 6 pm on Friday – 26 hours later than I should have.

I have travelled a lot on business in my time. There have of course been delays and hitches – but nothing on this scale. But you know I learned a load from my this trip

• the people who live and work on remote islands have to build this into every trip they make. They take it in their stride
• and on that vein – divas take note – if you can’t get off the island you can’t get off the island! Full stop. Everybody has their reasons for needing to be somewhere else.
• at times of trouble it is easy to make new friends – I met a bunch of interesting people and we all clicked into “supporting each other ” mode. We even managed a few laughs.
• British Airways is taking a bit of stick right now for a whole load of reasons but their staff in Shetland and Orkney were great in really tough circumstances. Maybe they are used to it – but this was my only experience of delays on the islands.