A head teacher is stranded in Belgium after her idyllic honeymoon turned into a nightmare because of the air travel chaos caused by the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in southern Iceland.
Marion Myles, head teacher at St Joseph’s Primary School, is one of the thousands of UK holidaymakers caught up in the disruption.
The news comes after newlyweds Jon and Tracey Thomson talked to The Courier on Sunday, about how their dream honeymoon plans had been shattered for the same reason.
Mrs Myles married management consultant Bryan Myles (51) at St Joseph’s Church and then flew to Prague for their honeymoon.
However, after a “wonderful” week, they learned their flight home had been cancelled with no prospect of a replacement service until Wednesday at the earliest.
Determined to get back to Dundee before the start of the new school term today, the couple decided to hire a car and drive 1000km to the Belgian port of Ghent and try to get a ferry home.
However, on arriving there they found all the boats fully booked and were forced to accept they will not be able to get home for several days.
“We are being philosophical about it because there is really nothing anybody can do about it,” said Marion (50).
“It is a natural disaster so you just have to put up with it. It is just one of those things.”
Mrs Myles also revealed another two teachers at the Bellfield Street school are stranded abroad.
“I contacted my depute earlier today and there are another two members of staff in a similar situation,” she said.
“Luckily, we have 19 members of staff at the school, so it is not too bad.”Thomson plightMeanwhile, Tracey and Jon Thomson were due to fly to Tenerife for a romantic five-night break following their wedding at the Apex Hotel in Dundee on Friday.
However, the grounding of flights in and out of UK airspace left the pair disappointed.
University administrator Tracey (32) said she and Jon (30) had been well aware of the problem but had been keeping their fingers crossed that the situation would change.
Their worst fears were realised on Saturday morning, when tour operators Thomson got in touch to confirm their flight had been cancelled.
“The plan was that we were meant to be going to Tenerife today and spending five nights there on honeymoon but unfortunately a volcano decided to erupt,” Tracey said.
“We have been down to see Thomson and they have given us a full refund.
“They did give us the option to rebook but because of business commitments we couldn’t do that.
“What we have actually decided to do is take the refund and we are going down to York on Tuesday for three nights so at least we’ve been away.
“We’ll maybe try to do something later in the year but it is disappointing, though.”