Saturday 3rd July – Friday 16h July 2021

Being back in the UK, my home since 1997, for some reason I feel like a visitor or a tourist in my own country, as we have nowhere to go; a family of 4, our friends, are living in our house and with the majority of the population holidaying at home because of Covid-19, suitable hotels were fully booked.

We were lucky as Steve’s lovely aunty Di let us have her apartment for the first 15 days of our UK stay as we had to quarantine after our arrival and so needed a self-contained place to be.

Steve picked us up from Heathrow taking it via motorway services for ham and cheese sandwich and via our home village for the boys to jump on the motorbike, all meeting up in Cheltenham; a 3-bedroom apartment right in the centre, walking distance from the promenade. How lucky we were – well, not-so the first 5 days stuck in the apartment unable to even go and take the rubbish out as Steve took the keys when he went away for a few days!

Once the “test to release” on day 5 came back negative we went for a long evening walk.  6 days being stuck in the apartment – what a strange feeling being out and free – I actually felt I should not be out at all.

During the first 3 days we chilled and watched Tv as we had no internet. All we did was walking from the bedroom to the sitting room, to the kitchen and the fridge and back to the sitting room and bedroom – how unhealthy and how tedious. Steve was trying to work while shopping for us, sorting other issues such as internet, no keys for the post box where all PCR test kits were sitting, and arranging new passports for kids with face to face appointments.

Once we were free on day 6, we were able to see people who came to visit us (parents in law, our neighbors from our village Ali and son Alex, Emilka’s best friend Eleanor and her mummy, and my best friend Veronika). We explored the beautiful town of Cheltenham with all the shops on offer – we were like Alice in Wonderland to be honest. Cheltenham Music Festival was happening over the weekend, so we had a small taste of that too.  I cooked and baked and washed and cleaned – like any other day; no change there.

We had to take day 2 and day 8 PCR tests and send it for processing to a private company – all results were negative, which was reassuring.

On our 13^th day we had to pack up and move out of our lovely apartment into a not so exciting Travelodge in Stratford upon Avon, our next destination for 7 nights.

Rennie