After an early start - up at 5.15am, we sat in the airport departures lounge very much as we did yeasterday, listening to messages every 30 minutes about how the plane was delayed due to adverse weather conditions at our destination. One of the women in the group - we had all begun to bond after 24 hours in joint limbo - phoned her mum who lives right beside the runway on Flores, and she reported slight rain and no wind at all. Saggy windsocks. So we began to smell a rat. It had to be some other reason. I caught a news item briefly last night about a strike affecting SATA, the airline we are flying with. Sure enough, it was shenanigans not hurricanes that were getting in the way of the flight. It was however eventually called, and we trooped on to the shuttle bus, fighting back feelings of deja vu, and sat and sat for probably only 10 minutes it just seemed like half an hour. Then we were driven to the very end of the runway where a turbo-prop awaited. The crew wasted no time in getting us started, and the flight, which lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, was mercifully free of drinks, snacks and offers of cheap perfume. We came in to Flores through deep cloud, and had various heart attacks as the plane roared towards the cliffs, clearing them with undercarriage to spare and landed firmly on the runway. We had arrived! So did the cauliflower, still in Sue's backpack (now a no-go area, in case the worst has happened!)

We picked up the hire car and tootled into town to the SATA office to check that our return flight was assured on Saturday, as the strike starts tomorrow, Friday. We were assured that one flight each day would continue through the strike period, and that we were indeed booked on the Saturday flight.

So off to the supermarket to buy the bits necessary to feed and water us for two days, starting with accompaniments to the cauliflower for dinner this evening.

Then off on a drive across the very mountainous island in a deep fog on the tops, to the strange little holiday complex where we are booked in for two nights.

The old stone cottages which have been done up by an enterprising couple for a really old-fashioned country living experience were actually abandoned as recently as the 1960s on the demise of the whaling industry. Our plane was full of American Portuguese expats, on nostalgic visits to the homes of their ancestors on the island. There are lots of direct flights to America and Canada from the Azores.

So tonight's the night the cauliflower meets its culinary end. I think!

Here's Sue pictured in the kitchen of our stone house, with definite designs on the cauliflower!