It’s Been a While…

Just a little update on our everyday antics since we finished work. My blogs are becoming less frequent as time goes on I’ve noticed. Mainly due to lockdown and our job. We don’t get many opportunities to go away in the caravan these days, so my writing and my blogs seem to be dwindling.

Our 4 day trip in December to Ashridge Farm was our last trip out and my last blog. Quite a bit has happened since then but non of it caravanning related.

Straight back from Ashridge and leaving the caravan in storage was a bit of a wrench. But, we have lots of plans so door locked and off to unpack 8 months worth of caravan paraphernalia.

Christmas came and went in a haze of baubles and gonks. It’s been lovely the last couple of years, we haven’t been home in early December. Our littlest Jellybean has a serious Christmas disorder, she loves it with a passion, which means by the time we get home the house is decked in Christmas cheer and just waiting for the big day.

A quick overnight trip back to Bolton to see the family before the big day puts us all on Santa’s good list and gives us a night in one of Premier Inn’s comfy beds.

New Year arrives, as Big Ben bonged goodbye to 2021, everyone was very positive about saying goodbye to Covid and learning to live with it. Surely 2022 couldn’t be any worse than the last 2 years. If only we knew what the next few months would bring.

With just a couple of weeks until our Lanzarote holiday, we were neither positive or negative as to whether it would actually happen. It’s been booked since January 2020 so it’s well overdue. Lots of tests and form filling before you fly. All to be done within a certain time period, proof of jabs and a clean bill of health all to be displayed in order to fly. As our date of departure inched it’s way closer, we started to panic, it looked like we might actually get out there. With days to go, we ventured into the loft only to realise that we’d thrown our trusty old suitcase out when we moved house. 3 days to go, in January, is not a good time to have to go hunting for the perfect suitcase.

16th January saw us waving goodbye to the Jellybeans and heading to Gatwick, still not quite believing that we might actually fly.

The airport was a breeze, if you had all your paperwork and QR codes ready. Strangely quiet noise wise, everyone moving around without the usual noisy excitement. Still cautious about being in close proximity with each other. We had to get over that quite quickly, every seat was occupied with subdued, mask wearing holiday makers, all probably not quite believing that it was actually happening.

Stepping off that plane in Lanzarote was exhilarating and wet, it was chucking it down and to top it all there was also a calima. Masked in the back of the taxi, squished between a suit and a bike box I drank the wet landscape in. It felt very surreal. It wasn’t until I was actually in our apartment, looking out of the patio doors at the rain that I actually breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself to appreciate that our long awaited holiday was actually happening.

Almost 6 glorious weeks of rest, sun and good food made us realise that we’ve got lots of things that we want to do with the rest of our lives. Time to take stock and make plans so that dreams can come true. Steve cycled 740 miles over the course of holiday, I walked, read, sunbathed and listened to music whilst he was out and about.

We hired a car and revisited all our favourite haunts, spent time with family that live out there and met up with some old friends that we’ve recently got back in touch with. Restrictions were still tight out there with masks required everywhere, even walking down the street. Not something that everyone did, most just kept their eyes open for the local Policia and kept their hand on a mask, just in case. Bars and restaurants were strictly no mask, no entry, with the right to request your Covid pass to enter. The island was quiet, everyone was behaving, everything felt incredibly safe. Outdoor living in sunshine was doing us the world of good.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. Our final week was half term and with Boris lifting certain restrictions the island filled up a bit. The sun shone and the anti maskers appeared. Objecting loudly about being asked to wear one. Mask wearing in the UK had been dropped a couple of weeks earlier, so that didn’t help. Back home after almost 6 glorious weeks, time to get ready to go to work.

Three days after landing I experienced chest pains, indigestion? Took a couple of gaviscon and went to bed hoping to sleep it off. My body had other ideas. Sleep wasn’t happening and at 6am we decided to phone 111 for some guidance, reassurance… their response, sit tight an ambulance is on its way. It’s been 30 years since I sat in the back of an ambulance, not something you want to do regularly. Covid restrictions lifted out on the street but the NHS are still following quite strict procedures. Steve had to stay at home, no visitors allowed, this was a journey I was taking on my own. I was admitted and very quickly went through countless ECGs, blood tests and CT scans. CT scans are something else, having something injected into a cannula in your arm that spreads a strange warmth through your body that makes you feel like you’ve wet yourself is so strange. For my entire stay I was hooked up to machines and monitored very carefully. The outcome, a clean bill of health, a perfectly ticking ticker and clear lungs. No possible explanation for the now fading pains. Discharged with pain killers after a two day stay and advised to rest. The holiday weight was dropping off as NHS food is anything but appetising.

My first two days at home, I slept the sleep of the dead. You don’t get much sleep in hospital. So my return to work, on hospital advice is to be delayed by 4 days.

A week now since the pains first started, they’ve not entirely gone but I’m feeling a lot better. It’s now a mad rush emptying the loft, the shed, under the stairs, trying to find all kind of caravan related items. It’s two years since we actually lived and worked from our caravan so having to try to remember things we last used a Longleat. Now where did we put the awning pegs… Burrs Country Park here we come,