It's been gloriously sunny most of the weekend here in central England, a bit hazy yesterday, but it was hard to believe that there was a huge ash cloud up there making it impossible for planes to fly. When we first heard the news we expected Hollywood-style, black roiling clouds. All we've got so far here is a fine sprinkling of dust on cars, like the accumulated effect of not washing your car in a 3-4 weeks, but nothing more dramatic.
Everybody knows someone who's been affected by this. In my case, my Spanish friend had her mum visiting for a week, but it looks like it's going to be at least a 2-week visit. Nothing to complain about, though - more Spanish homemade cooking and free babysitting.
Funnily, Spain is one of the few European countries that is not covered by the ash cloud, so there are plans to fly stranded Britons to Spain and send a large boat to pick them up there. A relatively famous guy took three inflatable boats to Calais during the weekend and started ferrying stranded people across the Channel, but the French authorities were a bit unsure about this and told him he couldn't repeat the stunt.