Heathrow T5 - 4th Day

Teething troubles at Heathrow's Terminal 5 are continuing, with 37 of Sunday's flights cancelled and 15,000 pieces of luggage waiting to be reunited with their rightful owners.
As the terminal enters its fourth day of operation, British Airways said it expects 85% of incoming and outgoing flights to go ahead, a figure that it hopes will rise to 87% on Monday.
A BA spokeswoman said it hoped things will steadily improve as the week goes on, but admitted: "This is dependent on the performance of the baggage system."
The airline admitted 15,000 bags had gone astray thanks to a glitch with its "complex and sophisticated" luggage handling system.
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"It is 15,000 bags we need to reunite with their owners," said a spokeswoman, adding: "To put this into context, we process 75,000 bags every day.
Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has written to British Airways to ensure that the airline has been complying with European legislation on passengers' rights.
"We wrote to them on Friday and will be contacting them as a matter of urgency this week to ensure they are fulfilling the requirements of the legislation, that all passengers should be treated the same," a spokesman said.
The union Unite said Heathrow workers were frustrated that their long-standing concerns about Terminal 5 (T5) had "fallen on deaf ears".
Unite National Secretary for Civil Aviation Steve Turner said workers had raised concerns about feared problems at T5 "over a long period of time".
Those included issues of access through security gates into the terminal and issues relating to the baggage handling areas.

Hathrow T5 - 2nd Day

Chaos continued to reign at Heathrow's Terminal 5 as long queues built up and more flights were set to be cancelled after a disastrous opening day.

Baggage check-ins at the flagship £4.3billion facility were re-opened but arguments broke out between passengers who started queuing as early as 4am.
But many have already missed their flights with some blaming a lack of desks open to cope with the number of people and the wrong information given out.
British Airways said they had drafted in extra staff and had held meetings through the night to try and ease the problems that wrecked what should have been a landmark day on Thursday.

A spokesman said they hoped that 80% of flights would take off but some cancellations would be inevitable.
By midday ten flights had already been cancelled including those to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. BA were forced to scrap 34 flights on Thursday.
Many passengers were left stranded overnight with some finding hotels, but others forced to sleep on benches of the terminal floor.
Passengers hoping to fly out began arriving early but were met with frustration.

Heathrow T5 - 1st Day

British Airways has apologised to passengers after a disastrous opening day for Heathrow's flagship Terminal 5 ended with the suspension of all baggage check-in at the new facility.

The decision meant travellers could only fly with carry-on hand luggage.

35 outgoing and 28 incoming flights have also been cancelled during a day of chaos at the terminal, dubbed the "Gateway to Britain" by Her Majesty the Queen at its recent unveiling.

British Airways Director of Operations Gareth Kirkwood apologised in a statement for the "short term difficulties" and announced that those with more luggage could seek a refund for their planned flights.
It is believed hold luggage has been allowed on some long haul flights as BA attempt to resolve the travel trouble.

So Near?

Verwood Short Mat went into their final game last Sunday lying in second place in their league needing to win 6 points to distance them from the teams lying in 3rd & 4th who had games in hand.
Unfortunately they only earned 2 points and now stand a chance of being overtaken and losing the chance of promotion.
They have however done themselves proud and will build on their success this season which was much improved over previous seasons. It has also proven that picking the strongest team available rather than letting everybody have a game at some time is the best policy.

Britain braced for storm battering

Sunday 18:30

The worst storm of the winter is on track to batter Britain, causing traffic chaos and coastal flooding, forecasters warned.
Winds of up to 80mph, rain and hailstones are set to hit the country when an intense low pressure system reaches its shores.
South Wales and southern England are expected to bear the brunt of the storm, but the Met Office has severe weather warnings in place for all of England, Wales, northern Ireland and southern and central England.
Power supplies and transport could be disrupted, trees uprooted and buildings damaged when the storm takes hold.
The Environment Agency, which has issued severe flood warnings across Devon and Cornwall, as well as six flood warnings and 31 flood watches, urged people to stay away from coastal areas.
Airports and ferry companies have warned of possible delays and cancellations, while motoring organisations advised drivers to avoid all but essential journeys.

The storm is now visible on satellites, coming directly towards Britain, although it looks as though it is mainly going to affect the more southern parts of England and Wales rather than Scotland. Areas where the most serious damage are the headlands of west Wales, across to the south coasts of Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.
It will move across Sussex and most of the south coast, and we expect winds could reach up to 50 or 60mph in London.
Experts predicted the storm will ease after the first wave of wind, only to gain strength later in the day.

Meedhupparu 2008

One of the highlights of a fabulous 3 weeks in Meedhupparu was taking a one day Scuba Diving course.

The course started off in the resorts swimming pool then a short video covering the various pieces of equipment. Cliff & I and two other participants were then kitted out with wetsuits and all the equipment and taken into shallow water just off the beach to go through emergency procedures in the event that our breathing tubes were dislodged from our mouths.

The next stage was not something I had expected after such a short time. We were taken by boat to an open water dive site just off another island and dived down about 20 metres to the sea bed and then spent 40 minutes swimming amongst the coral reef.

This was an amazing experience and took you into another world. Snorkeling off the beach gives you views of loads of different reef fish but diving to this depth the variety increases considerably as well as seeing the different types of coral. The highlight of the dive for me was the sight of a turtle just swimming by us totally unfazed by us mere humans.