A Week of Farewells

 Lists, Boxes, Tests and Jabs

The home is packed and boxes taken in to storage.  The house feels different with the reduced amount of furniture and personal touches gone, but it’s ready for our friends moving in once Jack has joined us in Canada.  As the week has gone on the lists have been ticked off; the two most important items coming at the end of the week.

We had given up hope of getting a second Covid jab after our doctors surgery informed us it was against the guidelines to have a Covid jab for going “on holiday”!!!  We’re not sure where their communication went wrong.  

The last hurdle was our pre-flight Covid tests and a trip to Boots.  ‘It could take 48 hours to get the tests back and it is possible they could come back as inconclusive’ we were told, which would mean a later flight.  The negative tests came back in less than 24 hours.  Relief all round!

At the same time we got the news from the surgery, a close friend who was going for a Covid jab asked if we’d like him to enquire if we’d be able to take advantage of any surplus jabs at the end of the day.  A few phone calls later (the NHS team at the huge Tidworth vaccination centre could not get hold of us initially), we were booked in for 1430 and job done.  An amazingly efficient service from the army of volunteers, NHS staff and army, who made it all work.  And all because a friend thought to ask on our behalf. 

It has been friends who have been a large part of our week as we have said our farewells.  Friends who have been a major feature of our lives in Burbage and before.  So it’s au revoir, rather than goodbyes.  Zoom calls, the odd glass of something in a garden and chats while out dog walking.  Bookings for BC vacations will be opening in due course. 

So as the brain fog of the last few weeks fades, the rollercoaster of challenges, emotions and curved balls gives way to excitement.

Only the final steps of being let out of one country and into another in this complex Covid world remain tomorrow.  Watch this space!

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