Well I suppose it was inevitable in current times. Intricate plans involving lots of travel were never going to be Covid-proof. And so it proved.
Lisa and I were due to land in the UK from Austria on Monday 21st Feb, spend a couple of days staying with my parents in the South East, and then fly off to the Galapagos (via Miami) on Wednesday 23rd.
The first part of that sentence went fine, and we landed at Gatwick on time, collected our bags (23kgs each of washing by now), some lunch, some lateral flow tests, and a rental car.
We sat in the rental car, underneath the scenic Gatwick departures ramp, having a very classy lunch, and agreed we should both do tests before we wafted ourselves around my parents. Two weeks of living in hotels and eating in restaurants, not to mention travelling on planes and passing through airports, made it seem a sensible precaution – even though both of us felt fine.
And then it happened. That little black line popped up alongside the ‘T’. We looked at each other, softly indulged in our preferred compound expletives, and then set to altering our plans.
Cheap hotel booked. 24 hours to mull it all over. Apologetic phone call to parents.
Parents are really pretty great, when it comes to it.
Mine have been suffering me for over 40 years now, and still they manage to put a brave face on all my blunders. They have that amazing ability to smile, make a pot of tea, and convince you that it’s all ok really, in the grand scheme of things. People should put that ability on their CVs. De-catastrophisers. I think the official terms is ‘phlegmatism’. But de-catastrophiser sounds more racy. Which of course is exactly why a de-catastrophiser would opt for ‘phlegmatism’.
I digress. The parents went away and had a think. And then they said ‘Come and stay anyway. You can’t spend a week or more in a hotel just a few miles away.’ Mum said that they’re forever lamenting that they don’t see enough of us. So here was the perfect opportunity. Is that your glass over there? What’s that? No, no, no. If you look more closely, you’ll see quite unmistakeably that it is, in fact, half full.
More shots from a lovely afternoon walk with the parents
So Lisa and I have moved in to my parents’ guest room. We get 3 square meals a day, and thanks to Boris’ announcement, since Thursday we’ve been enjoying some fresh air. Don’t worry – we’re not running amok through towns and cities, licking door-handles and coughing on bus-queues. We’re just going cycling and running and walking in the great outdoors. No interactions, no touching anything, and definitely no stopping for cake or tea. Which is a bind, I will admit – but it’s better than being locked in a closet under the stairs for 10 days.
We’ve rung the airlines (all three of them. Yep – three flights to get to Galapagos, all with different airlines), we’ve messaged my brother, on his boat, to say we’ll be a little bit late (he’s used to me being late…), we returned the car rental, we called our friends in Miami, and we cancelled our hotel in Guayaquil. All a pain, but all done now.
We ummed and ahhed about sharing this not-so-exciting update with you all, but then we thought: life isn’t always sunshine and lollipops – and isn’t it so annoying when people on social media pretend it is? Here’s something which went a bit pear-shaped. There will probably be more stories like this. Hopefully they won’t all involve losing 10 days on a tropical island in exchange for 10 days in a room. But if they do, we’ll make the best of it.
A week of skiing, condensed into 3.5 minutes...
I’m going to finish writing my short story now, and Lisa is going to go for another run.
I shall leave you with the round-up of pictures from our last week of skiing (without our friends 😢 But still skiing 😁). Having some down-time has given me time to put together a little video too. We had some powder, some blue skies, and some freeze-thaw ice-tastic days. But I’d still rather be skiing than working!
