The postal union confirmed today that a national strike will take place on the Friday 29th June. The strike will last 24 hours and will be the first national strike since 1996. During the strike all mail will be processed by PC2Paper and posted within our usual guidelines. However, customer should expect delivery delays during this period.

You might think that a pool is clean because you can smell the chlorine, but this can actually be a sign that its simply reacting with the bacteria in the water. A study on holiday swimming pools has shown that some are no cleaner than a toilet with one in four being identified as a health hazard. Pools often contain sweat, urine, mucas, saliva, dead skin and faecal matter and failure to clean them properly can cause stomach upsets and ear and eye infections. However, children or the elderly these mild infections can be more serious. You just might want to think twice before jumping into that pool.

This weeks travel blog of the week is Nomad4Ever. There are certain sites out there that immediately give you the impression that they've been around for a while and are a constant source of good reading to many readers. Nomad4Ever is one of these sites. Its author, who quit his job as Director of a company decided to follow a nomadic life style backpacking in Asia. His moto "Life is what you make of it!" and "What are you waiting for?" sums it up nicely.

One of his blog entries I found interesting was Is a Nomadic Lifestyle for you?  It goes over all the luxury and digital assets you would usually have to give up when taking on this life style. Funny enough one of the things even nomads can't seem to do without is the good old trusty laptop. Mine's battered and covered in stickers from my past travels, I use it usually to reply and compose emails to friends and family and then send them when I am next able to get a WiFi connection or use GPRS.

This article made me reminisce on how when you're out and about back packing you don't really worry about fashion and gadgets, its all about taking what you need, trying to travel light and having a good time enjoying life's natural beauty.

Mail to the US has been delayed by a day due to heavy storms in the area. Normal service has now been restored.

Whitehaven Maritime Festival is on this weekend. Several historic tall ships will be there including the Grand Turk, The Zebu and The Matthew of Bristol. The festival lasts for three days starting today and entry is free. There are also air displays featuring the red arrows as well as a display deaturing a Spitfire and a Hurrican as well as many other attractions. There are more details on whats on here.

One of the articles on his site I found of particular interest was Avoiding the Shower Menace: Tips For Travelers not Inmates, the article talks about a particular travel menace I am only too familiar with ELECTRICS! Yes out of all the dangers in the travel books this one is not given the attention it deserves, too many times have I stopped at some out of the way hostel or local low cost hotel and almost suffered serious injury from the rather dodgy wiring on the so called power shower! Nathan offers some good advice here, I in particular don't go near any electrical's that don't look safe and try to avoid places like this. In my earlier years back packing I didn't have that option and many of us sometimes don't when we find ourselves in a new city in the middle of the night.

Many of our readers (primarily the backpackers among you) may have heard of Nathan before in travel magazines such as BudgetTravelOnline, Travelmag and BackPackers.com.

There is an interesting article on the Times website showing how the cost of holidays abroad from the UK could go up because British Airways is increasing its fuel surcharge.

Mail will be delayed in the Luton area due to a 24-hour strike which started this morning. Around 150,000 letters a day are handled by the Luton office.

If you are planning a trip to Ireland and like me find it hard to survive with no internet access you might want to visit Carlow. A project run by the council in partnership with E-net has introduced 24 hour wireless access to all of its main streets making it one of the first towns in the EU to offer open air web access.