The mission was to take a holiday outside of the UK for the first time in 2 years and not end up somewhere in Europe squeezed in between other desperate Brits by the side of a swimming pool sweating out your covid fever freshly caught on easyjet. Easier said than done when the USA and Canada were still closed to tourists up until early September.
The next part of the mission was to try and fathom the tests and documentation needed to leave one country and enter another, a very overcomplicated series of multiple apps, backstreet covid testing companies, vaccine certificates and drive through football stadia, having a long cotton bud stuck into the roof of my mouth and then wondering might I actually have the covids? Then two weeks before we leave getting the mega-cold and taking lateral flow tests every day to prove I haven’t got it!
The next mission was getting petrol for the car, so that we can drive to the airport. With the country paralysed by HGV driver shortage and queues through the night to get to an empty pump would we have enough petrol to drive the dog to the dog sitter and back on one day, then the next day have enough remaining petrol to drive up to Heathrow abandon the car and get to the plane?
Finally , and most infuriatingly, the Insulate Britsin protesters currently blocking the M25 motorway around Heathrow on a daily basis causing massive tailbacks and extreme road rage, will our holiday end up being at junction 3 with a flask of coffee and a wagon wheel?
Then there is the recurring nightmare of my previous form at foreign border controls, having the looks of Mohammed Al Fayed comes at a heavy price, as I am the person who is always stopped and given a full body search at customs. Do I have my answers ready for the arrivecan official at the Canadian border? No, I haven’t been near a person coughing in the past 2 weeks, yes I do have somewhere to quarantine for 14 days if the 12 lateral flow tests and 2 PCR tests I’ve taken prove to be faulty and yes I would like to go home on the next flight if the 50 pages of questions have been incorrectly answered and I therefore need to go to jail without passing junction 3….
I wake up from the nightmare to find it’s finally Saturday morning, admittedly 4.30am as this is my new wake up hour caused by covid test stress. The dog is away at his boutique holiday home and we will finally get the chance to point our apps, certificates, visas, double layered masks and nasal sprays at a British Airways official in the hope that they’ll let us on the plane.
We sail up a parallel universe dual carriageway next to the M3 on a full tank of petrol impressively obtained at a Chandlers Ford petrol station that had no queue, shoot along the M25 before insulate Britain have got out of bed and park in the last remaining car parking space in the terminal 5 long stay car park, unbelievably the car park bus is waiting for us at the stop. In the terminal we are through to departures in record time and only 4 hours too early. We board the plane and RELAX, I fall asleep for the first time in 6 weeks with every orafice covered, face mask, eye mask, ear plugs, blanket, pillow and headphones, we made it!
Mark, Toronto, Canada, 02 October 2021
More! I want to know what happens next….