Wednesday 30^th June – Saturday 3^rd July 2021

After six weeks our time in Krnov was over and we said goodbyes to our friends and family again.

I hate goodbyes.

On Wednesday, we said goodbye to cousin Jaruska and her children after Emilka had a sleepover in their place. In the evening we had a lovely dinner with Nikolka, Martin and Adamek in their house, with the three of us having a dip in their 37.2C warm jacuzzi to top it off with.  

On Thursday, we had our pre-travel PCR in the morning and on our way home walked to say goodbye to family Hradilovi (Magda, Jarek, Oliver and Tamarka), who have been our main source of activities, warm clothes for kids, occasional taxi services and delicious cappuccinos for me. We had met some of my grammar school friends in a coffee shop in town (I realised we are celebrating 30 years since we graduated from grammar school) and in the evening we visited my brother’s house and his lovely garden eating chargrilled potatoes and sausages, harvesting fresh garden green peas and spending last moments with both cousins, aunty and uncle.

I had been slowly packing for the last 4 days, trying to evenly distribute the weight. I didn’t succeed as our suitcases were 20kg, 22kg and 33kg but we can only have 23kg in each one plus 23kg in the generous British Airways hand baggage allowance. My plan therefore changed to repack in our Prague airport hotel at the last minute.

On Friday at 6.45am my brother picked us up (yes, the 33kg suitcase was pretty heavy to lift!) and with my mummy in the passenger seat we drove to Ostrava Svinov to catch a fast train to Prague. We had an emotional goodbye, which I hated especially not knowing when I will see my mummy next. We were hoping she would come with us to the UK for some time, but she feels her health and being in constant pain does not allow her to do so.

The train journey was easy, with only 10 minutes delay. Misa and Emilka enjoyed rolls with ham and the chicken schnitzels their lovely grandma fried for them and I had a coffee and my usual yogurt with fruits.  Once in Prague, we took it slowly and somehow lugged the heavy suitcases to the Airport Express bus stop and using my tiny remaining mobile phone credit I contacted the airport hotel to ask the receptionist for a shuttle bus from the airport station, which came in 10 mins.  Great service.

We had some lunch once checked-in to our room in the Holiday Inn (more rolls and schnitzels) and as it was raining, we chilled waiting for the clouds to go away.  By 4pm the rain stopped, and we were able to take a little sightseeing trip to the city – Charle’s bridge, Old Square with the Astronomical clock and Venceslav Square were a must to see. The kids had McDonald’s for dinner (they regretted that decision as soon as they ate it) and Czech trdelnik – full of sugar! I had noodle soup and a coffee with apple strudel, this combination never disappointing.  Our night in the hotel was restless, but a 2-hour long breakfast with my friend Eva, known  from before my wedding while working in Prague, was a nice end to our stay in Czech Republic.  With ease I managed to repack our 3 suitcases ending up with 20kg, 23.8kg and 22kg, but with heavy kids’ rucksacks to compensate.  A shuttle bus took us to an airport full of holiday makers where we were one of the first in the queue for our British Airways flight.  We had to scramble through passport control unable to maintain social distancing, despite informing a police officer to sort it out. I bought myself a much-needed perfume in duty free and went to sit by gate B2.

We were sitting in row 9 in a nearly-full plane and boarding and unloading was very civilised by 5 rows at a time, with people surprisingly following announcements and being respectful. The flight was only 1.5 hours with a tail wind and at Heathrow Terminal 5 we somehow ended up by pure luck in a short queue for the passport checking and with a very pleasant man to deal with us.  Suitcases were on the belt and kids put them on a trolley by the time I used the toilet and in no time we were cuddling daddy Steve who was waiting for us. A large Costa Coffee cappuccino was bought straight away, and we drove to the motorway services at Beaconsfield for Steve to buy some sandwiches and crisps for the three of them – English lunch!

It was a very strange feeling, and all three of us agreed that it felt like ages since we last sat in our car.  Steve said it felt surreal to be driving the car, collecting his family, all the time as if we had never left England.  We took the journey to our accommodation in Cheltenham via Ettington so that the boys could jump on to Steve’s Honda Hornet motorbike, thus giving us two modes of transport but with care, only needing one parking space in the basement garage.  I drove the car with Emi to our quarantine location, a three bedroom apartment very generously lent to us by Steve’s Uncle David and Auntie Diane; we were very fortunate to have such a perfect place, especially given that we’d struggled to find anywhere else, everywhere being booked up with British citizens taking their summer holidays at home.

Welcome back to the UK. Welcome home.  A very surreal feeling indeed as Steve had commented.

Rennie