Clouds gather over Santorini

 How quickly does honey turn to ashes. We are stuck in Santorini, and though the sun still shines it has turned into a cold and malevolent prison. This afternoon, we had a phone call from the vet in Haverhill to let us know that our dog, Bronte, was seriously ill with a large sarcoma in the spleen. There was already evidence of metastases, and she was considered to have but a short time to live. Mary-Ann is going to pick her up and look after her. But BA have just rung to say their flight home tomorrow has been cancelled, and we will be stuck here until Friday at the earliest. Edwin has been looking for other flights, but nothing is available, all alternative flights have already been booked or cancelled by the other airlines. It is as though war has been declaired, and we are caught behind the lines, desperate to get out.

STOP PRESS: We now learn that the Air Traffic Controllers are going on 24hour strike tomorrow (Thursday) and that's why the flight's cancelled. All flights have been cancelled from Santorini, and Athens, so no one is leaving Greece until Friday. Apparantly, the strike is because they haven't been paid their wages - Greece is nearly bankrupt, so we can't even blame their greed. Everyone needs to be paid for the work they do, but it's the poor travelling public who are paying. It is certainly not the way to encourage a return of tourists to Greece. We have had to fight for one more night in the hotel: everyone who should have left needs an extra day too, and they've run out of rooms. We've managed to keep ours, but poor Edwin has to change rooms early tomorrow morning.