Every volcanic ash cloud has a silver lining. Just because you are 'stranded' in a nice country, you don't need to react like a crazed lemming chanting..."must get home...must get home"

“Yes, it was a complete nightmare.

We were enjoying a wonderful time with friends in Cape town in Camps Bay enjoying some delectably fine wines from the locality and quite simply the finest Ostrich meat I have ever tasted, when someone mentioned the volcano-induced shutdown of European airspace.

We figured that by the Monday everything would turn out fine. Alas this wearisome pimple in Iceland had other plans, and continued to issue forth it’s eruptive disruptions and our passage home was cancelled. So we had to act and think fast. And thus started the worst kind of travel nightmare.

I managed to secure the last two seats on a flight to Dubai. We then had to quickly turnaround on a flight to Casablanca. After a torturous night in the worst kind of last minute hotel lodgings we found a flight to Bordeaux. From Bordeaux we made swift haste to Cherbourg. And finally and most exhaustedly made our escape by ferry back home some 56 hours and £4,278 later.”

Did you find that intensely irritating?

I have been reading that type of story for the last week. This blasted (excuse the pun) volcano has a lot to answer for. People have turned nutty and been acting irrationally.

Do you agree that this was one ridiculous over reaction?

Let me put it another way…

If I am in Cape town, The Canary Islands, New York, Dusseldorf, Vladivostok or Merthyr Tidvil and suddenly I hear that my flight is cancelled due to a rogue volcano, here’s what I do.

I stay calm.

I listen to what ‘the man’ says. And if flights are cancelled until further notice, well then guess what - flights are cancelled until further notice, and I note that the airline will keep me posted.

Armed with this factual information, I phone my family and then I phone or email my boss.

I tell them that I am effectively isolated physically until further notice, but that I will keep them posted via regular contact.

This is not the end of the world, and this does not need to spark a mad scramble for buses, ferries, rickshaws, roller-skates, segways, hire cars and trains.

Why does this so called ‘crisis’ turn people into crazed lunatics who ‘must get home’. Of course some people have legitimate reasons for getting home, young children, elderly relatives to return to are obvious examples. However in the other 90% of cases, if you really look at the situation, there should be no earthly reason for such a panic to ‘get home’. Especially considering the favourite moan when we are at home is "Oh I just never manage to get away enough".

Kick back. Make the most of it. Yes the volcano erupted, and yes it was an ‘Act of God’. But guess what, an extra 7 days holiday is also an Act of God.

And if it so happened that your hotel are trying to fleece you with higher charges for your unplanned extra stay, well that was just opportunistic baloney. If you moved out of your hotel in the Canary Islands, who was going to move in? No tourists were landing. Money talks. In all cases you should be securing equivalent or cheaper nightly lodgings, and I take no excuses on that.

So kick back, enjoy, use your credit card, and get the reimbursement for the reasonable expense of food and lodgings that are your basic European consumer rights. Hit the pool every day. Read some. Add to the tan. Skype your friends and family (for free) every evening. And either wait for your travel agent to tell you when everything is back to normal, or check on your airline’s website as to what the latest is happening.

And as a famous ad for a famous soft drink in the USA might say. “What was the worse that happened?”

Your family missed you loads. Maybe your work colleagues missed you loads. You had an extra break, and you are now tanned and healthy.

Can your boss fire you? No.

Is it your fault? No.

So anyone who is now safely back in the bosom of family and who says something like:

“It’s great to be back, but to be honest I quite enjoyed the extra few days in Tallinn/Budapest/Tenerife/Wexford/Iceland, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing…”

I salute your perspective, your maturity and calmness, and in the true spirit of money.co.uk, I salute the fact that you didn’t needlessly fritter away the guts of £5,000 on the cannonball run of Orient Express, Camel back, Rickshaw, Ferry, Roller skate and thumbing a lift for the last leg of your journey in an amphibious vehicle driven by Jeremy Clarkson to frantically get home - to do what....leave the bins out, watch the leadership debate, hear about the latest asbo on some 8 year old vampire from Huddersfield?

And finally as a secretly signed up member of the Michael O’Leary fan club, I would also like to salute the ‘Smart Casual Straight Talking Dynamo’. In the midst of the ‘crisis’ he quite simple hogged the airways, providing constant commentary about how much Ryanair was losing on a daily basis, on how much he would or would not compensate the unfortunate travellers who were snookered by the volcano bother. Sometimes he contradicted or backtracked. But none of this matters.

What matters is that subconsciously, or subliminally, muggins here (yours truly) logged onto the Ryanair website and booked three return flights with Ryanair that cost me the grand total of £48 (total money paid i.e. £16 per return trip) which included all administration fees etc.

So while some people might not agree with me, I say:

Let us be thankful for Volcanoes!