Wednesday 23rd June 2021.  My favourite saying is “Chance favours the prepared mind”, but that hardly covers the dumb luck that means that, all other things being equal, my wife and I will be travelling to Iceland next Monday, 28th June, there to spend a fortnight travelling around with a dedicated guide to show us the sights and help me with my photography.

It may seem that we’ve simply and possibly even cynically taken advantage of travelling to virtually the only country [Jeremy Clarkson voice ON] in the WORLD [Jeremy Clarkson voice OFF] which will (a) accept us without putting us into quarantine and (b) allow us to return without quarantine or self-isolation.*

For us to travel so soon after the international travel gates were opened looks like we were sitting poised at our terminals to book the first possible international holiday. Let me correct this misapprehension.  We originally planned to go in June 2020, and contacted Iceland Personal Tours as far back as November 2019. There were no 2020 dates available  to suit us, so we simply said, “OK, we’ll go in 2021”.  It is a matter of staggeringly good fortune that the dates, travel restrictions and vaccination programmes came together such that we will almost have to duck our heads under the lifting gates as we depart. (I just hope nothing goes wrong between now and next Monday!)

So, after nearly two years of not travelling, we have a whole raft of new and exciting things we need to do:

• Register with the Iceandic authorities
• Organise tests and fill in passenger locator forms for our return
• Get vaccinated and prove that this has happened (fortunately, we’re old enough, and the UK NHS is well-organised enough, that this was arranged automatically).

As well, we also have to try to remember all the things that were once second nature but which have now become strange and new:

• Finding passports
• Arranging taxis
• Worrying about Heathrow Airport departure procedures (e.g. is the Champagne Bar going to be open?)
• Running the food supplies in the house down
• Arranging people to come in and check the house over whilst we’re away
• Working out what clothes are appropriate
• (For me) Agonising about the selection of camera gear
• Organising foreign currency

And this last was the point at which the reality of what we’re proposing really struck home – i.e. it actually cost money; the rest has been just an intellectual exercise.  And today, courtesy of the good offices of Royal Mail and Currency Online Group, we received four Icelandic £30 notes, like this:

(The local currency is the Crown, hence the title of the page.)

We may not need them – Iceland is spectacularly online – but I feel exposed not having something to hand to offer as bribes if need be.

So – the adventure is perilously close to being real!  We’re both unreasonably excited about the novelty of travelling again and the possibilities of being able to see the wonderful range of sights that Iceland will have to offer, if we can see them through the mist and rain.  Please stay tuned to this blog and I will update it with our experiences and images when I can.

* Any readers of this blog in the far-distant future (hah!) will need to know, for historic context, that the planet has been “ravaged” by a respiratory virus (SARS-Covid-2) pandemic and has been in lockdown for effectively 15 months with international travel for such trivial purposes as gawping at scenery largely forbidden.  UK Lockdown started March 23, 2020, and (with a tiny intermission) international travel was only permitted starting on 17th May 2021.

Well, you know how it is – nearly a full year of restricted freedoms. The third lockdown, particularly, has been a draconian curtailment of liberty combined with utterly shite weather. This has led to a build-up of frustration – drowning in mud on local walks, too horrid and icily unsafe for running or cycling, and not being able to go further afield.

So, when we found out about this Nice Little Barn Conversion which offered a cosy weekend away, we thought how nice it would be to celebrate one of our many anniversaries with a change of scenery. I have to say that we only gave the lockdown restrictions a second’s thought before setting out on the journey to investigate the place where we could celebrate 32 years as a couple.

And very nice it was, too. Tastefully decorated and with an appropriate welcome laid out for us as we arrived.

And the hosts had kindly laid out the necessities for the morning, too!

So, all was set for a pleasant celebratory evening.

There was one essential duty we had to perform, of course, which was the next in a series of posts we started before Christmas.  Saturday night is Cocktail Night (#saturdaycocktails), and so we had to cobble up a post from the available resources, since our normal cocktail cabinet wasn’t available to us.

 

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The place is very comfortable for a weekend away.  I didn’t sleep all that well, but that was more to do with a strange bed and too much booze. The bedroom itself was very comfy.

So, all in all, we can declare our discreet little weekend away to be a success – we had a nice time, and were able to celebrate our 32 years together in a pleasant variation from the Lockdown 3 norm of being slumped in the lounge reading or doing the crossword.

You might think I took what might be thought of as a little risk in posting about our excursion on social media as I did; and I was quite surprised that only a couple of friends spotted that we were apparently breaking the law.  I was frankly hoping for a little more outrage (beyond someone arguing that I’d posted a photo of food, something I normally abominate).

So, once I’d got the reaction, I was going to show the video of the journey to our little tryst.

Yes, we didn’t really go all that far!  We had just finished setting up the outbuilding which used to be the garage, and which was where Jane’s mother lived for the 10 or so years she spent with us.  Now we want to use it as guest accommodation for friends when they come to stay.  So, our “weekend away” was just a test run.  Well done to Kate, who spotted that we might just be spending the night in the shed! 😊

However, the exercise showed that we have a viable guest suite now, so here’s to the real end of Lockdown and we can once again enjoy face-to-face socialising with friends and offer them somewhere comfortable to recover from the cocktails that seem to be becoming an ineluctable part of our life these days.

Cheers!