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Old 27 Aug 20, 11:26 PM  
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smithlane
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Hello everyone, long time no see

I thought I would do a little update as it’s been a while. So it’s fairly obvious that we had to cancel this amazing holiday , I was trying to be positive for as long as I could be that we would get away and America would open up to us. When it became clear that we would not be going I contacted BA and got a voucher for the £300 deposit we had paid.

As Hope and Sam have 2 weeks off of school for the October half term I had found some very reasonable flights to Charlotte flying October 17th to the 31st.
I moved our Air BnB on Hilton Head Island and our cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Both owners were more than happy to change our dates free of charge as they understood we couldn’t physically get there! As we could only go for 2 weeks instead of 3 we dropped the panhandle area of Florida but still added in a night in Atlanta and 2 nights at Sawgrass. I cancelled the original hotel stays and rebooked for our October stay.

When I was going through the whole rebooking process I honestly thought there would be a chance of us going but we have finally admitted defeat and have decided to move the whole thing to next Summer.

This should be easier said than done but as Hope will be sitting her A Levels and Sam his GCSEs we still haven’t been told a firm date of when these have been rescheduled to so need to wait before I go ahead and book. It’s typical that the one year we can take advantage of cheap term time flights, we’ll probably end up having to go within the Summer holidays! Never mind, hopefully we’ll hear something soon as BA have some very reasonable prices for the beginning of July.

In more personal news we are now both back at work. With both Jim and I self employed and not able to work during lockdown it was a bit of a worry for a while but we survived it and as a bonus didn’t end up killing each other . In the 8 years we have been together we had not nearly spent that much time together in close quarters so I was preempting some kind of major fall out
I kept myself busy with decorating anything that didn’t move, the dog was lucky he runs fast .
As this is turning out to be a very dull update I’ll bore you with some photos of my painting achievements











Jim eventually went back to work on the 20th May which was wonderful news as it meant we had money coming in again and I had the house back to myself (well plus the kids and dog!) . I did have to chuckle as typically the golf courses reopened the day before he went back so he was cursing the gods that they hadn’t announced it for the week earlier so he could get back to his Golf Club to play a few mid week rounds. Being off work it would have been the ideal time!
He is a Project Manager on the Battersea Power Station project which is a huge construction site with roughly 3500 bodies in at any one time. There were massive changes that needed to be made and his office went from 8 people down to just him, he really hated this as he is naturally a social person so he wasn’t loving being back at work. There was obviously the added stress of the project being even further delayed plus needing to work out how his men could carry on within the government guidelines. We were however grateful he had a job!
The good news is that the company he was contracting for wanted him permanently so he started as an employee on the 1st July. Annoyingly it should have gone through in February but they were still negotiating salary so typically he could have been furloughed!

I eventually went back to work on the 18th July which was the longest I have ever had off work since I was 17, not even both of my maternity leaves were this long
I have LOVED being back and seeing my wonderful clients again, I’m not loving the mask wearing though. It makes my job that much harder but hopefully it won’t be a forever change.
Unfortunately for me I’m still not back to my previous capacity as I have some clients still shielding and others who are still too nervous to have any treatments done. I hope in time they will have me back over but I do totally understand their position.

Hope and Sam have been complete troopers during the entire lockdown, they both took it in their stride and never complained. They took to online learning well but they really missed the social element of school and college. Hope is very introverted with only a small group of friends so is really looking forward to seeing them again as she has only been out a handful of times since lockdown ended. She much prefers being at home with Jim and I most of the time.
Sam actually went back to school in June and I have to say they have been fantastic from the start. As he goes to a specialist Studio school there are only 48 children in his year group so they could go back 4 days a week, if he was at his prior Secondary school he would only have gone in for half a day once a week so we are really pleased he moved school. The amount of work these exam year kids have missed is enormous but Sam is one of the lucky ones in that he’s had more learning time than most, albeit nothing like he should have.
Like I said earlier, we are waiting for the revised exam dates for next year but even if they move them back by 2-3 weeks it will only scratch the surface of what has been missed. I really feel for any child sitting important exams next year, if it’s anything like this years cohort then I don’t hold out much hope
For Hope we are needing to sort out her University application but having only an online guide for most choices it’s rather tricky and this is a huge decision for her future. At the moment it’s looking like she wants to do a Physiotherapy degree at our local University as she doesn’t feel ready to leave home yet.

So onto more happier news and more in keeping with a trip report we are 12 hours away from leaving for the airport as we have booked a cheeky week away to Turkey .
When the ‘air bridge’ idea was first bandied about we discussed going away with Jim’s sister and family who some of you may recognise from last years holiday. Helen has been working flat out throughout as she is a senior midwife and has been working on the busiest ward of the hospital so is in desperate need of a break. She wasn’t fussed where we went as long as it was All Inclusive and on the beach, our first choice was Portugal as we really love it there.
Once the announcement was made of which countries were added to ‘the list’ it was a shame that Portugal wasn’t one of them . Instead we booked a lovely looking hotel in Rhodes. It was a smaller property than most others which I preferred as it didn’t look too kid friendly, I really didn’t want to spend a week surrounded by screaming kids (sorry ).
However once Greece opened up to U.K. residents they announced they would do random testing on arrival. We weren't too keen on this as you apparently had to self isolate at your hotel until the results came through then if you were very unfortunate and tested positive you would then have to go into a government quarantine facility for 14 days. As we were only there for a week this just wouldn’t work.
Thankfully we had booked with Free Amendments so after a rather stressful few days trying to get in contact with anyone at Love Holidays (who I will never book with again, shockingly bad!) we finally managed to change it to Turkey and the Lykia World Resort. A bit larger than I would have liked but it’s on a golf course to keep Jim happy, on the beach for Helen and as long as there is a sun bed and a cocktail with my name on then I’m happy







The last couple of weeks have been a bit stressful as we weren’t sure whether the govt would put Turkey on the naughty list as none of us can quarantine when we return. It put a bit of a dampener on the excitement and build up to the holiday as we just weren't sure if we’d get there! I only packed my suitcase tonight after I heard the announcement that Switzerland and Czech Republic are the latest countries, phew! I do feel for anyone now having to race back before 4am on Saturday to make it back in time.

So here I am finally sat down after a whirlwind packing session, sorting the kids out with theirs, doing Hope’s nails and eyebrows plus Jim and Sam’s eyebrows (don’t ask!) then doing my own beauty prep. I can’t go to bed yet as my fake tan is still wet

I’m not sure if I should do a trip report or not? I will really miss not doing one this year but I’m not sure how interesting it will be although we are going White Water Rafting on Monday so that could be hilarious

I may write up some notes and bore you all with a mini report when we get back. I always take a gazillion photos wherever we go so at least it’ll be picture heavy!

Apologies for the mammoth read of which most of it wasn’t that interesting . I hope everyone has a lovely bank holiday weekend and this weather perks up a bit, this rain is far too depressing!
__________________
All my previous reports can be found HERE

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Old 30 Aug 20, 07:13 AM  
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#32
Sparksy72
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Originally Posted by smithlane View Post
Hello everyone, long time no see

I thought I would do a little update as it’s been a while. So it’s fairly obvious that we had to cancel this amazing holiday , I was trying to be positive for as long as I could be that we would get away and America would open up to us. When it became clear that we would not be going I contacted BA and got a voucher for the £300 deposit we had paid.

As Hope and Sam have 2 weeks off of school for the October half term I had found some very reasonable flights to Charlotte flying October 17th to the 31st.
I moved our Air BnB on Hilton Head Island and our cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Both owners were more than happy to change our dates free of charge as they understood we couldn’t physically get there! As we could only go for 2 weeks instead of 3 we dropped the panhandle area of Florida but still added in a night in Atlanta and 2 nights at Sawgrass. I cancelled the original hotel stays and rebooked for our October stay.

When I was going through the whole rebooking process I honestly thought there would be a chance of us going but we have finally admitted defeat and have decided to move the whole thing to next Summer.

This should be easier said than done but as Hope will be sitting her A Levels and Sam his GCSEs we still haven’t been told a firm date of when these have been rescheduled to so need to wait before I go ahead and book. It’s typical that the one year we can take advantage of cheap term time flights, we’ll probably end up having to go within the Summer holidays! Never mind, hopefully we’ll hear something soon as BA have some very reasonable prices for the beginning of July.

In more personal news we are now both back at work. With both Jim and I self employed and not able to work during lockdown it was a bit of a worry for a while but we survived it and as a bonus didn’t end up killing each other . In the 8 years we have been together we had not nearly spent that much time together in close quarters so I was preempting some kind of major fall out
I kept myself busy with decorating anything that didn’t move, the dog was lucky he runs fast .
As this is turning out to be a very dull update I’ll bore you with some photos of my painting achievements











Jim eventually went back to work on the 20th May which was wonderful news as it meant we had money coming in again and I had the house back to myself (well plus the kids and dog!) . I did have to chuckle as typically the golf courses reopened the day before he went back so he was cursing the gods that they hadn’t announced it for the week earlier so he could get back to his Golf Club to play a few mid week rounds. Being off work it would have been the ideal time!
He is a Project Manager on the Battersea Power Station project which is a huge construction site with roughly 3500 bodies in at any one time. There were massive changes that needed to be made and his office went from 8 people down to just him, he really hated this as he is naturally a social person so he wasn’t loving being back at work. There was obviously the added stress of the project being even further delayed plus needing to work out how his men could carry on within the government guidelines. We were however grateful he had a job!
The good news is that the company he was contracting for wanted him permanently so he started as an employee on the 1st July. Annoyingly it should have gone through in February but they were still negotiating salary so typically he could have been furloughed!

I eventually went back to work on the 18th July which was the longest I have ever had off work since I was 17, not even both of my maternity leaves were this long
I have LOVED being back and seeing my wonderful clients again, I’m not loving the mask wearing though. It makes my job that much harder but hopefully it won’t be a forever change.
Unfortunately for me I’m still not back to my previous capacity as I have some clients still shielding and others who are still too nervous to have any treatments done. I hope in time they will have me back over but I do totally understand their position.

Hope and Sam have been complete troopers during the entire lockdown, they both took it in their stride and never complained. They took to online learning well but they really missed the social element of school and college. Hope is very introverted with only a small group of friends so is really looking forward to seeing them again as she has only been out a handful of times since lockdown ended. She much prefers being at home with Jim and I most of the time.
Sam actually went back to school in June and I have to say they have been fantastic from the start. As he goes to a specialist Studio school there are only 48 children in his year group so they could go back 4 days a week, if he was at his prior Secondary school he would only have gone in for half a day once a week so we are really pleased he moved school. The amount of work these exam year kids have missed is enormous but Sam is one of the lucky ones in that he’s had more learning time than most, albeit nothing like he should have.
Like I said earlier, we are waiting for the revised exam dates for next year but even if they move them back by 2-3 weeks it will only scratch the surface of what has been missed. I really feel for any child sitting important exams next year, if it’s anything like this years cohort then I don’t hold out much hope
For Hope we are needing to sort out her University application but having only an online guide for most choices it’s rather tricky and this is a huge decision for her future. At the moment it’s looking like she wants to do a Physiotherapy degree at our local University as she doesn’t feel ready to leave home yet.

So onto more happier news and more in keeping with a trip report we are 12 hours away from leaving for the airport as we have booked a cheeky week away to Turkey .
When the ‘air bridge’ idea was first bandied about we discussed going away with Jim’s sister and family who some of you may recognise from last years holiday. Helen has been working flat out throughout as she is a senior midwife and has been working on the busiest ward of the hospital so is in desperate need of a break. She wasn’t fussed where we went as long as it was All Inclusive and on the beach, our first choice was Portugal as we really love it there.
Once the announcement was made of which countries were added to ‘the list’ it was a shame that Portugal wasn’t one of them . Instead we booked a lovely looking hotel in Rhodes. It was a smaller property than most others which I preferred as it didn’t look too kid friendly, I really didn’t want to spend a week surrounded by screaming kids (sorry ).
However once Greece opened up to U.K. residents they announced they would do random testing on arrival. We weren't too keen on this as you apparently had to self isolate at your hotel until the results came through then if you were very unfortunate and tested positive you would then have to go into a government quarantine facility for 14 days. As we were only there for a week this just wouldn’t work.
Thankfully we had booked with Free Amendments so after a rather stressful few days trying to get in contact with anyone at Love Holidays (who I will never book with again, shockingly bad!) we finally managed to change it to Turkey and the Lykia World Resort. A bit larger than I would have liked but it’s on a golf course to keep Jim happy, on the beach for Helen and as long as there is a sun bed and a cocktail with my name on then I’m happy







The last couple of weeks have been a bit stressful as we weren’t sure whether the govt would put Turkey on the naughty list as none of us can quarantine when we return. It put a bit of a dampener on the excitement and build up to the holiday as we just weren't sure if we’d get there! I only packed my suitcase tonight after I heard the announcement that Switzerland and Czech Republic are the latest countries, phew! I do feel for anyone now having to race back before 4am on Saturday to make it back in time.

So here I am finally sat down after a whirlwind packing session, sorting the kids out with theirs, doing Hope’s nails and eyebrows plus Jim and Sam’s eyebrows (don’t ask!) then doing my own beauty prep. I can’t go to bed yet as my fake tan is still wet

I’m not sure if I should do a trip report or not? I will really miss not doing one this year but I’m not sure how interesting it will be although we are going White Water Rafting on Monday so that could be hilarious

I may write up some notes and bore you all with a mini report when we get back. I always take a gazillion photos wherever we go so at least it’ll be picture heavy!

Apologies for the mammoth read of which most of it wasn’t that interesting . I hope everyone has a lovely bank holiday weekend and this weather perks up a bit, this rain is far too depressing!
Well done on the painting, it looks so lovely and fresh. I’m sorry to hear about all your holiday plans changing but yay for your trip to Turkey! Have a wonderful time and please do write a trip report I need to live vicariously through you as we have now had our 4th trip for this year postponed. I have everything crossed for a busy and safe travel year in 2021! Have a great holiday
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