Dear Iceland,

It's been quite an interesting couple of days due to an unnamed volcano deciding to start spewing over in Iceland. Actually it does have a name, but I wouldn't dare try to pronounce it: Eyjafjallajokull. Honestly... Apparently part of the problem is that Eyjafjallajokull is sitting on a glacier, so aside from shooting scorching lava into the air there's also deadly ice chunks the size of houses being shot into the sky. The past few days have been quite hazy, and we're told to be on the lookout for ash clouds....is this real?

One of the Corrymeela volunteers is stuck alone in France, one is stuck at home in England, one has had her trip to Sweden cancelled for Monday, and two more are waiting to hear if their flights are cancelled for Thursday. We're told it isn't safe to go outside if it begins to rain, and some parts of the UK people are being told to wear masks to protect their lungs.

It would help if certain news reports stopped overexaggerating and saying things like "Volcanoes can erupt for up to periods of six months" and "There's a larger volcano next to this one, and volcanoes are known to affect each other's eruption patterns", blah blah blah. I'm banking on things being sorted in four weeks time. I'd like to see my mother and although I'm loving it here, I'm not quite ready to prepare for a Northern Irish summer. Things to do at home!

Anyway, the group that was coming to stay at Corrymeela for a week had to cancel their trip due to the natural disaster issues, so all of a sudden all the volunteers (who are here anyway) get the weekend off. At least there's one instance of a positive situation in the whole horrible volcano plague!

Ta,
Karen