As passenger chaos continues, the Travel PR team is trying to stay upbeat about the ‘Eyjafjallajoekull effect’. From a purely selfish perspective, we’ve enjoyed the peace and quiet that a break from being in the Heathrow flight path affords. And, while two of our esteemed colleagues were denied their respective holidays last weekend – one to Marrakech, the other to Slovakia – both agree that a spell of unseasonably sunny weather at home, which continues today, did (kind of) make up for the disappointment.

As for the rest of us? Well, we’ve spent the last few days surrounded by almost deafening decibels of birdsong, and basked in superb spring temperatures: new dad, Rob, spent the weekend introducing his newborn son to the quiet delights of the English countryside and Sarah soaked up the sun in nearby Kew Gardens…while I narrowly avoided ‘lobster legs’ by covering up just in time during a rosé-drenched lunch on the riverbank at Richmond.

Like everyone else, we hope the UK travel industry is soon back in business and appreciate how hard our tour operator clients are working to repatriate and rearrange plans for holidaymakers due to depart during this difficult time.  But we hope, amid all the madness of the last few days, that everyone’s found at least something to marvel at as nature once again shows us who’s really running the country.  Karen Carpenter