So glad you finally got home wish you could have flown to TX for your four day wait to visit us but we were getting ready to leave so it would have been a tight visit. Glad you had a wonderful trip to New Zealand and Australia. Hugs, from Ann and Bob

Thanks, Amo. I hope some of those folk will get back before May. We arrived in the baggage hall at Heathrow at 6am very tired. I recognised David Taylor the quilter there. I met him at Houston last year so was certain it was him. Was tired and didn't have the nerve to approach him. When I got home I checked his diary and he was obviously en route to France to teach at a quilt show there.
What a small world we live in.

Glad you're home safe and well Pam. I hear some people are having return flight dates well into May!

How about those on the brand new Celebrity Eclispe cruise liner being brough home though! Everything on it is so new, it squeaks! Not even had it's inaugural celebrations. I guess they have just won themselves a huge new following of passengers to be!

DH and I got home yesterday after 4 nights stuck in Los Angeles. It was very frustrating. We had to go to the airport every day to get any imformation as you couldn't get through on the phone. It meant that you couldn't have a day out and enjoy the extra time in LA. When flights were resumed it was unbelievable to have to watch scheduled passengers board a flight for that day while hundreds of us were stranded running up hotel bills which no one except possibly our imsurance company would help us pay for it. Fortunately Air New Zealand provided a rescue flight for us eventually, an empty jumbo jet which took all those needing to get to London. I never thought I'd be pleased to see Heathrow Airport. LOL.

We count ourselves lucky as this was at the end of an AMAZING trip to Australia and New Zealand. If it had been at the beginning of our holiday it would have ruined our plans. I feel sad for all those whose holidays never got started.

Perhaps OH's Dad wasn't so wrong. I just posted this on my blog and remembered I said about it here too!

Sunrise today. And the haze will stay for most of the day like it has every other day since they started flying again.

We still have closed airways until at least 1900 today.

We have woken to another beautifully clear day but there is a polution haze on the horizon that is not usually there. The cars are too wet with dew to see any dust though.

It's still strange not having any vapour trails, only small light aircraft have been going over and no rotary wings at all either. Daughter is pleased, she is military air tech and has extra days off for the weekend!!

OH just laughed and said his Dad always blamed aircraft for making it cloudy. We've had the best weather in months this past week!!

Saturday has been sunny and warm here, bang in the middle of England. Nothing unusual to report, except that the local airport (East Midlands, just outside of Nottingham) is still closed.

Lorchen

The wind switched around for us today and it was warmer but a little hazy. The map here http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/volcano/timeline.html shows actual dust at Met Office sites and we're about 20 miles south of the Boscombe Down one (the southest one on Saturday).

The Met Office's other page is more up to date than the BBC one. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/volcano.html

From what I understand that dust is supposed to dissapate in the upper levels of the atmosphere - true what goes up must come down but it should come down spread out enough that me may not notice it at all. However up in those upper levels the dust is still thick enough to clog the jet engines, so until that upper level plume dissapates they can't fly. My cousin's husband is due to return from deployment in Germany next week and she is frantic that he may not make it home - here is to hoping it dissipates before then

You're not wrong there Judy!!!! I'll do just that!!

Another beautifully clear day has dawned. The wind down here is still from the North North West and cold.

I'm not quite sure what we are supposed to expect in a dust cloud. Something thick like a fog or invisible and dispersed. More the latter I think.

I do know that a 2 day strike by a few cabin crew caused major panic and disruption. The total and complete cancellation of all air traffic over most of Europe and everyone seems calm! I guess when it's a natural event there's not a lot you can do about it.

Looking at the map, it is spreading southeast across lower Sweden, all of Denmark, northern Germany. Travel has been disrupted all over. Trains and car rentals going through the roof. Best to stay home and quilt. Judy in AZ

I keep wondering what is going to happen when that ash finally falls down to earth.

From what I understand, it is like powdered glass (lava melting glacier ice = glass). It doesn't sound very health to breathe!

And it can't stay up there forever!

BethMI

Reporting from North of Nottingham in the UK: Still no planes flying around here. The day has been dry and sunny, and the sky was clear. That ash cloud must be very high indeed. The school nurse had no increase in distressed asthmatic kids today.

For me personally, the best thing that has come out of this: One of the UK tv channels showed a special documentary last night about vulcanos - fascinating programme.

Lorchen

Nothing noticable down here on the south coast.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8621407.stm