"Flights on KLM are particularly disrupted." That was the most discouraging part of the 7.00 am news item on fogbound Heathrow.
"Our flight is cancelled," Helena texts me at 7.15 am.
Nevertheless we set off the airport, ever hopeful. There is no answer from our travel agent's emergency hotline. I am not sure that a cancelled flight really counts as an emergency. Still a hotline implies that someone will take an interest.
One hour of queuing at the KLM desk and then we are on standby for an afternoon flight, with confirmed seats for 6.00 pm. We console ourselves at the promotion counter for Bacardi Oakheart (a new blend of vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg) and with a full cooked breakfast.
Our fellow travellers from the UK to Amsterdam for Tuesday's ICIS Aromatics Conference are flying out of other airports - Luton, Gatwick, London City and Manchester - and don't seem at all concerned about fog delays, even though the main problem is actually the fog at Amsterdam, as they will find out later...
Eventually we get our standby seats, in the very back row of the plane, and take off at 1.40 pm, laden down with a fair bit of shopping.
The in-flight lunch, in true Dutch style, is a foil pack of cheese wafer balls, which Helena declares to be delicious.
We land in thick fog in Amsterdam, far worse than in London, seeing the runway only in the last few seconds.
On Tuesday morning, as the Aromatics Conference opens in Amsterdam, the city is still shrouded in thick fog.
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