Stuck in Stockholm for the weekend, do you eventually become bored of gorgeous blondes ?

Think of Abba – half blonde, half brunette – it's a bit like that here. Actually when I first started working out here I was surprised that there were so few blondes, gorgeous or otherwise. In fact there are more in Holland (where the blonde Mrs Higgo comes from).

Maybe they do what my s-i-l does and dyes her blonde hair brown? She calls it 'artificial intelligence'.

You can smell it here now in Surrey. A faint bad egg sort of smell everywhere, and the viz is rubbish.

I'm In Farnham right now (Well just outside) and when I went outside I thought I was imagining a faint odd smell……

Been stuck in Delhi for 30 plus hours now where it's 43 degrees. Thank God for air conditioning!

Internals of a Finnish F/A-18 from a flight just before the Airspace closure 🙂

Any updated (informed) views on how long this is going to go on?

From what little I've seen on the BBC News (and Stockholm taxi drivers translations of radio news) I'm beginning to view my chances of being on a flight early on Sunday as <50%.

And that means there's little or no point going home at all as I've got meetings out here starting Tuesday morning.

p.s. I'm not a nervous flyer by any means but if that ^^ is a picture of bits of an engine (missing) then I'm quite happy to stay on the ground for now.

I certainly won't be stepping forward to be on the first plane to fly through it, just for a day with the kids, a night with the wife and some clean shirts.

there's little or no point going home at all as I've got meetings out here starting Tuesday morning.

MHO – forget it. It would be a hassle of a journey even if the planes were flying, it's gonna be a nightmare now. Just buy/dry clean a couple of shirts and relax so you don't have to worry about it. (And maybe book an overnight sleeper ferry for next week 😉 ).

Well if that's anything to you lil matt is stuck at mine at least until sunday
Which mean the girl won't be staying in for another 2 days :'(

Lovely sunny day in Gothenburg. Sadly I was supposed to fly home this evening. Bugger. Have borrowed a car and a bunch of us will be driving to France then Eurotunnel. What fun…

I'm just across from you Higgo – stuck in Göteberg.
Booked on a flight to Amsterdam tomorrow lunchtime but don't see much chance of that happening!

From my colleagues, I've got 1 stuck in Paris, 1 in Warwick & 1 in Roma… What a mess.

(but rather stuck in a hotel than dropping out the sky over Denmark)

Wow Fopster
that's spooky.

I'm at the airport currently. That's a long drive back. 1400km to Calais from here!
Fancy dropping me in Belgium on the way through 😀

My olds are currently in Ibiza and stupidly went out with Ryan air. Meant to be coming back today and RA has just announced no flights until Monday PM at the earliest. Dad stupidly only took enough of the drugs that keep him alive for the trip, so it'll be off to local hospital to scrounge some extras. Am assuming even crappy airlines like RA have to put a bit of effort into repatriating you when they get the all clear if your flight gets cancelled? I've had them cancel my outgoing flight and just shrug their shoulders about getting me on a replacement, but hoping they try a bit harder when you are stranded abroad…

I predict early May for a full normal service.

My boss should be flying home from LA tomorrow but weve just been told the airline cant bring him back before next weekend

Does this sound right?

PS Hes a cheapskate so has prob booked onto the transatlantic equivalent of Ryanair

Cheers

Given the volcano is still erupting this isn't going to end soon. I've decided to cut my losses and eurostar it back tomorrow sans hold luggage (nowt in it I can't replace if they never find it again). Hopefully I'll get the chance to go biking on Sunday anyway! 😀

The big question….
Is it worth washing the car this weekend or is gonna end up covered in ash?

I'm noticing a smell of rotten eggs here in my bedroom.
Time to give the mrs a dutch oven

[/quote]That's a long drive back. 1400km to Calais from here!
Fancy dropping me in Belgium on the way through

Would love to Marge but got a car full already. Five of us, but a nice Saab Estate so should not be too bad a a trip I hope. Good luck getting back!

i thought the big question was… what tyres for ash? 😀

Well some collegues have a car and attempting to escape Germany by heading for the French ferry ports (panzers in persuit). good luck to them . I'm holed up in Munich and was lucky to get a bed because the big spring beer festival has started. Oh well I will get drunk to stave off boredom. Hic!

Icelanders loose our money, we get a cloud of ash!!!!!!!!!!

It's a pity that Yellowstone hasn't blown it's lid. We'd have a lot more to worry about than whether we could go away/get home in the next couple of days.

Good old Mum Nature trying to give us petty humans a bit of a warning as to what she can do to us at anytime. I know it must be very frustrating if you are affected, but would you like to be on a Jumbo with no engines or stuck in an airport?

My return flight from Cameroon is now scheduled for Sunday night, with early am landing at Heathrow……

I withdraw my pop at smug old bugger earlier. Unless we hear something it looks like Friday for a return home. Fortunatley we have three bikes and free accommodation 3 hours away, in the big Spanish hills. Willie Walsh/BA travel insurance will be picking up the bill for everything from this point on.

Willie Walsh/BA travel insurance will be picking up the bill for everything from this point on.

I'd check that before you start spending big.
Unless you've already checked and you're covered, in which case… have a ball.

From my colleagues, I've got 1 stuck in Paris, 1 in Warwick & 1 in Roma… What a mess.

The guy in Warwick got the worst deal by bar.

Restrictions extended for whole UK till 19:00 today. This could last a while yet. I fear for the Kumquats.

Restrictions extended for whole UK till 19:00 today.

Joy.

Although I'm due to fly early tomorrow so this restriction doesn't affect me per se, I can see the way this is going. It's not just UK restrictions either. Everyone's different but, for me I need not just UK but Swedish and Danish restrictions lift.

p.s. this is just a mini-moan – I do realise there are people in the world worse off than me, stuck in a nice hotel in a great city on expenses. Maybe if I hadn't left my mobile alarm on, I'd still be asleep and considerably less grouchy.

THE WORST THING IS THAT THIS IS FURTHER DELAYING MY NEW PIPEDREAM 👿

Apologies to all those stuck abroad without loved ones

Nick.
A certain Mr DezB is also in France , a few hundred KM from you.
As all flights cancelled till tonight why not hire a car , go get him and get to Calais. If you can get a one way hire and foot passenger ferry to Dover, I possibly can come over to pick you all up tomorrow early evening.
I am not sure which ski resort he's in but he has his phone on all the time.
He is supposed to fly home tomorrow ( Sunday am ) but as alot of the planes will be at the wrong airports it will be a week of disruption till they can clear the back log and snd thats if and when the dust settles.

I reckon those Icelandic bankers stole all of our money, and hid it in a cave, up a mountain. Rather than give it back to us they have now burnt it, like the KLF did. So we can have it back in particulate form.
I blame Kerry Catona myself. Friggen Iceland party food.

My wife was due to fly back from Zambia on Thursday (from a school trip) she's stuck in a hotel in Lusaka with BA picking up the tab and no idea when she'll be coming home.
Worse still I wasted Wednesday tidying the house for her return, when I could have gone out riding instead 😀
Now I'll have to waste another day.

All airports now closed until 01:00 am tomorrow morning. I think even if/when they do open it's going to be pandemonium. I'm supposed to be heading off to Anchorage tomorrow morning, just about to cancel my flights as it will be nuts.

I'm supposed to be off to South Africa on Tuesday for a 9 day mountain bike race. I kind of doubt it will be sorted by then.

Makes me feel lucky that mr. b.h. was unable to join his friends last weekend for a last minute ski trip. The friends are all stuck in the Alps and he's home with me on 'our birthday weekend'.

Prices are on the rise. It would now cost 2000 euros to get three of us and bikes to central London and then we'd still have to get North. Look like we're sticking with BA until further notice.

flying to new zealand on my honeymoon? looking unlikely.

ever getting my epic bags from alaska? not holding my breath!

Mrs PixelMix and I got back from our New York honeymoon this morning, only 24 hours late. We were the first flight from Newark to be delayed (should have left Thursday evening) so BA stuck us in a hotel overnight and said we would be leaving the next day. We all clambered out of bed at 5am expecting to leave Friday morning, only to be told it would be Friday night. We were then told that there were no flights, but BA's own website confirmed that a plane was leaving for Prestwick (rather than the scheduled Heathrow destination). Unfortunately, BA HQ decided that rather than letting the Thursday night passengers know (as the local crew had expected and insinuated), the Friday night passengers would have their bookings honoured instead.

We had to rebook for a flight on the 22nd (a week later than expected) but thought we would try a lift to the airport and chance stand by just in case. Glad we did, as we walked straight on to the flight (most of the Friday passengers presumably thought it was cancelled or didn't want to go to Prestwick instead of Heathrow) and the plane left with dozens of empty seats. Cabin and local crew were furious that they were flying half empty when if it had been left up to them, they could have filled the plane with Thursday's passengers, most of whom are still in a hotel.

We count ourselves very lucky, as no idea when we would get back otherwise. At least BA are paying for hotels and food for non locals, but a whole week in a hotel in the middle of nowhere would have been a bit grin.

To cut a long story short, worth keeping an eye on the various websites and don't assume you won't get a stand by seat on any flights that do leave – in our experience, there is virtually no-one sitting in the airport. Ground and cabin crews have been incredibly helpful in difficult circumstances.

Convert – just a word of warning about Ryanair. They won't help.
They cancelled a return flight for us in Morocco last year (poor visibility, they said, except other Ryanair flights had landed as well as other airlines) and all they offered were free seats on the next flight with available spaces…

Which happened to be 4 weeks away.
We did get our fares back after a long long wait, but we'd had to pay for full-fares on another airline, plus 150 mile taxi ride.

The P and O website is now saying do not turn up as a foot passenger and expect to get on a ferry. You might have to wait a few days as they are filling the boats with cars and passengers . I guess even a huge ferry does have a load capacity.

BA have said that as of breakfast tomorrow we're on our own. Left standing at the hotel door with nothing. Fortunately we can head back to the house we used for biking. We are entitled to "up to £100 per room per night and £25 per person per day for 3 days" then it's……..well i don't know what it is. We have bookings for next Saturday, so potentially 4 days out of pocket.