This should have been driving down to Southampton in June for a cruise round the British Isles to see Liana and Andy in Skye as we did in 2018. But that cruise was fully booked.

And that should have driving down in October 2020 for a cruise entitled Authentic Andalusia with Lisbon. But that got cancelled due to Covid.

And that in its turn that should have been a cruise before that to Denmark in which we would have seen Lego House. Covid again.

But it is what it is and we're back at the Holiday Inn we usually use when we cruise from Southampton. A reasonably easy drive down, congestion on the M25 until we got onto the M3. We stopped at South Mimms and patronised Burger King instead of KFC. This may have been a mistake - the vanilla shakes turned out to be the consistency of a cement slurry rather than something that could be slurped through a straw. We also stopped at Fleet services, a pleasanter place to stop I felt.

This was our first cruise where we didn't leave a cat behind. Or rather we won't have a cat to come home to. The house is not quite a home without Tabitha or Amelia.

We did another lateral flow test this morning. I developed a cold on Wednesday and immediately started worrying if this meant I had contracted Covid myself. My brother-in-law Phillip caught Covid and experienced it as a cold. But so Virginia and I only have one line showing on the testing device.

We ate at the Holiday Inn as the Pizza Hut we used to go to closed. They didn't have any pizzas (odd as the place publicised pizza available around the clock). Dry chips instead of mash for the Chicken Kiev. The arrival time of dishes was variable - we waited ages, other people seemed to get theirs within minutes of ordering. But it was food and welcome in that. It was busy in the cafeteria area, there were loads of families with young children there. I hoped not all bound for our cruise!