Things are getting really stressful now- we are booked with Virgin Holidays to travel 14 january with thai airways to bangkok on one of the Heathrow strike closure days. After several days of angst, we have contacted Virgin and rebooked flights for sunday night instead (for an additional £188) so hopefully we will be able to get away before it all happens Monday morning. so much for being organised and getting a hotel booked at heathrow for sunday night! Things will be tight as my husband is a vicar and will need to do the sunday morning services here in swansea, finishing midday, then we will make the 200 mile dash to heathrow, check into the Thistle (not) and register the car for parking there for 3 weeks, then shuttle to T3 and hopefully make the evening flight. An extra night in bangkok won't kill us, and seems better than spending a few days at Heathrow.

Still looking for phuket hotel, does anyone know anything about the royal phawadee in patong, or green mountain? Otherwise I think we'll check into the burasari.

Looking forward to getting new glasses in Bkk. Mine are falling apart and I am now a regular at boots opticians for repairs. We got new sunglasses in samui last time but not going there this trip. Can anyone recommend a good optician near the bel aire princess in bangkok? We will be there for 4 nights, and another 1 just before flying home, so thought we would do this first thing on arrival, so if there are problems, we can pick them up at the end- my husband has quite complicated lenses which can take some time. That's if we make it out of the country.

Sue