As a Greek tragedy played out on Saturday afternoon, it was a Scottish Cup Final reality check which lifted the gloom.
Allow me to set the scene of a first foreign holiday in years and finding the smallest pub on the island to watch the game.
My Rangers daft father-in-law and I were the only guys in a boozer which had opened especially for us.
He was a happy man as his team lifted the trophy but what score would I give Hearts after signing off this season with a defeat at Hampden? Ten out of ten.
This is a club which was in the Championship last season and finished third in the Premiership at a canter.
There are so many positives, the recruitment has been on absolute point and that needs to continue. It needs to be slow and steady and as a club they need to continue what they've been doing.
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Just continue to prove they are the third biggest team in Scotland year in and year out and that will be a huge success.
Winning a trophy is the ultimate aim but defeat at the weekend shouldn't disguise the fact Hearts have had an amazing season.
They did well in the first half, I felt they did enough to earn a lead at the break but the big moment came with the Ellis Simms chance which hit the post when he should really have scored.
It's the old story about not taking the chance when it arrives and not making that dominance they enjoyed in the early part of the game pay.
I always had the feeling that Rangers would come back into it and so it proved, in the end it was that extra bit of quality which told.
Gio van Bronckhorst's side took their chances and that's the difference at this level.
Everything just started to fall away in the second half for Hearts, player after player started to come off the Rangers bench and made an impact and there just wasn't that same standard of player for Robbie Neilson to call on.
He's a realist and he knows that better than anyone and I read his comments about having a five-year plan to try and bridge the gap which exists between his club and the Old Firm.
It was around the 70th minute mark that I turned to my father-in-law and said it was a huge worry for Hearts when you looked at what both clubs had waiting to come off the bench.
That's just a statement of fact, there is no disrespect intended. Boys like Ryan Jack and Scott Wright came on and changed the game, Neilson didn't have an impact player with that extra bit of quality who could come on and nick something.
A five-year plan is all well and good, you should always look to split the Old Firm but the brutal truth is that it's easy to talk about the possibility when it's a near impossibility due to the financial disparity.
Hearts have just lost a final to a Europa League finalist, think about that for a minute. I also believe if Van Bronckhorst had been in place at the start of this season then they'd possibly have gone on to win the league as well.
With the revenue the big two have compared to the rest of Scottish clubs, they are always going to be difficult to catch.
When I was a player at Tynecastle, the aim at the start of every season was to try and run Rangers and Celtic close.
As a professional, you set the bar as high as you can. Every season was approached with a belief that this would be the year when we would split them.
Truth be told and as frustrating as it sounds, it was wishful thinking. Rangers and Celtic are two of the biggest clubs in the world.
I was talking to an English guy I met in Greece, he said Nottingham Forest were bigger than the Old Firm so I put him straight on that idiotic comment and he'd obviously had too much sun.
If either Rangers or Celtic were given four or five years in the English Premier League then I'd back them to win the title and even be contesting the latter knockout stages of the Champions League. That's a measure of how big they are, they are iconic and are huge worldwide.
Hearts should be proud of what's been achieved in a season where I'd have happily settled for a sixth place finish before a ball was kicked.
