London

A view from our hotel room window of some iconic buildings on the horizon as the sun rose in London this morning.

The day descended into chaos, however, when we got to Stansted in good time for our flight to Edinburgh only to discover it had been delayed. By how much, no one was telling us. We waited and waited for a gate number. When it came it was an 8 minute walk to Gate 85. Long queues stood waiting impatiently. There was, of course, no one there from Ryanair. Our flight vanished from the board. We grew restive.

J went to a neighbouring gate and asked what was happening. The girl there checked her computer. "Oh, your flight's been moved to Gate 30," she said. It would have been nice if they'd told us! Almost simultaneously came the announcement on the tannoy, sparking a stampede to Gate 30, which was over ten minutes and a train ride away.

When, finally, we all got there to reassemble in our anxious queues, a woman in uniform shouted (not even a tannoy) that the flight had been changed again - to Gate 88, just a few paces from the one we'd been standing at earlier. Mutinous voices raised themselves in protests of disbelief, mine among them.

"Follow me!" Shouted the woman, and like disgruntled sheep we followed her down a flight of steps, where she unlocked two doors, and led us through, unbelievably, to Gates 80 to 88. Our breathless trek and train journey had been totally unnecessary, and taken us almost full circle. A complete waste of time and energy! By now murder was in the air, and strains of https://youtu.be/uVASZ2lCY5Y were running through everyone's head.

We did, in the end, get on the plane - two hours late, with still not a word of why, or an apology for our inconvenience. When we landed. It was clear that we were not going to make our rendezvous for dinner with fellow crime writer Val McDermid. A couple of quick calls rearranged everything for an hour later, and we grabbed our bags and ran outside to discover a huge queue for taxis - and not a taxi in sight. It is, after all, Festival time.

Fortunately a fleet of them, orange lights shining, appeared on the car park horizon, and we managed to drop our bags at the hotel and make our dinner date at the rearranged time - just.

After which, good food and good company helped dispel the horrors of the previous few hours.