I have decided to write a weekly diary of our time through the Coronavirus pandemic. To keep for the future. It’s such an unprecedented time and full of so many mixed feelings and events we have never encountered before it is hard to process it all.
Back from Holiday
It’s been a couple of weeks since I have added to this diary as we have been away on holiday. I will write about the highlights of our holiday in a separate post. But I wanted to write about what it was like to go on holiday during a pandemic.
We went away to Wales, so the only travelling we had to do was via a car. I wouldn’t have been comfortable travelling abroad, especially in an airplane. I think I was right to think that as the government keep adding quarantine restrictions to countries. As it stands you currently have to quarantine for 14 days when you travel back from the following countries: Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Andorra, Bahamas, France, Netherlands, Malta, Monaco, Turks & Caicos, Aruba, Croatia, Austria, Trinidad and Tobago (plus Switzerland for travellers to Scotland), Czech Republic, Jamaica and Switzerland. They are now going to introduce Greece too.
The government has shown us that this list can change at any time and very short notice, so my personal belief is that it’s just not worth it. It can impact your work and children can’t go to school. I did really feel though for people that found after after they had gone on holiday. Especially people in Spain who were the first people to have this happen to.
However, even in Wales they had different rules and restrictions that we needed to make ourselves aware of. For example they have no masks rule and different rules about who you can meet up with and how many.
It was so lovely to get away, and I am really grateful that we did, just a few weeks ago we thought that we probably wouldn’t be able to. Of course things were different to normal, but that was to be expected.
Self Catering During a Pandemic
So what was different? We were on a self catering holiday. Check in was later and check out earlier, due to cleaning requirements. We were away for two weeks and usually that would mean a clean and change of linen half way through. This time they were not allowed to clean and spare sheets and towels were left in the apartment for us to change everything ourselves. Which wasn’t a big deal, I would happily do that than not have a holiday.
We also had to strip and bag all of our bedding before we left and leave all crockery in the dishwasher and put it on so it was clean. There was also restrictions around waste and how this was taken out.
We spent most of our days outside as we believed it to be safer, so we were definitely out and about and more active than we have been on previous holidays. Lots of walks and days on the beach. But actually is was great and we had a fab time.
Eating Out
We ate out twice on holiday. Once each week, otherwise we mainly ate in or had takeaways. The first place we ate out in was great in terms of social distancing, tables were really spaced out, there was a one way system and lots of hand sanitiser. However, the kitchen was slow. This was obviously because they were only allowed a limited amount of people in the kitchen, but no one seemed to have done a sum on how many people they could have in the restaurants versus how many people they could safely cook for. The staff were lovely and very apologetic and we kind of went with the flow as we were on holiday. But we sat down at 12.30 and our meal came at 2pm, so could have been better.
The second restaurant service was much, much better but it just felt too full and too busy for me. They had no tables closed for social distancing and just the odd perspex screen in place. Again we had a lovely meal, but I wouldn’t go back as it just felt too busy to what I was comfortable with.
UK Holiday
We have decided that our holiday next year will be in the UK too. We just don’t know where the pandemic is going to go. So the option to just get away will be great.
Back to School
Today sees my children going back to school for the first time in 6 months. I have such mixed feelings about it. I think they need it and desperately need to see their friends. They need to catch up with their education, I’m longing for time on my own and know I would be dreading it if it was back to home school. But at the same time, infections are really up at the moment. Children tend to get every bug under the sun after the summer holidays, how is it going to be after 6 months away? And how will that affect self isolation? We shall have to see. And then despite us having some real challenging times, I know that I am also going to miss them terribly too.