In Limbo

Chimp pic found HERE

I seem to have spent the past weekend hanging around, just wondering, watching and waiting...

Wondering what will be the outcome of the UK's hung parliament - with no one party taking the majority of seats, what will happen next? A LibDem - Tory coalition (they're unlikely bedfellows) or a LibDem - Labour - Minority Parties alliance (on paper more likely but possibly not the best outcome for anyone wanting significant change, and likely to hit funding for England, of all the nations, hardest)? Or possibly an attempt by the Tories to rule without a majority, resulting in power breakdown and another election likely within a year?

This sudden obsession with politics means I spent the most part of the weekend glued to 24-hour news channels, desperate for any bit of information....why did I bother when in reality what's going on behind closed doors is probably so far removed from what's being reported? Still, the need to keep watching could not be stifled by the regurgitation of news-that's-not-really news-just-replays...and not helped by a wet and cold weekend, with not much to tempt me out and away from the telly.

And so I waited. Waited on the political game to play out....and watched helplessly while that infernal Icelandic volcano decided to spew more ash our way and put paid to my travel plans, yet again! I'm due to fly to Portugal early tomorrow for a jolly very important and serious medical writers' conference with five of my colleagues...but, suprise!suprise! ....good old Eyjafjallajökull has started up again, this time disrupting Transatlantic flights (this does not bode well for my Canadian trip next month!) and shutting down southern European airspace.

Up until this morning, Lisbon airport was closed for business....it seems to have just re-opened, but for how long? And if we do make it to the Iberian Peninsula, will we ever get back home again? I don't fancy an epic train trip through Spain to France to get a ferry back to Dover. More importantly, given my serious and uncontrollable  fear of flying, I'm not 100% comfortable with the thought of flying through any ash, dense or not....and there will still be some lurking in the skies above! 

Who knows what the week will bring....