I spent hours last week trying to calculate the best way to stretch some Air Miles from London to Aberdeen, to be with my mother on her birthday.
All the pictures on the website were of, frankly, more exotic destinations: Greek villages overlooking the deep blue of the Aegean, the aqua of the Caribbean lapping a palm-fringed beach, beautiful people partying in Ibiza.
I am an island obsessive. I love one in the sun, but also a wind-blown craggy northern one. There is something about crossing water to get to land — ideally aboard a ferry — that instils a spirit of adventure.