Phew, back in Harderwijk
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Nicki and I had made our plans to travel back on 30th December to our much-loved barge before the end of 2020 so that we could squeeze into the EU before Brexit happened. (After Brexit it could mean that we would struggle to get Casper back because of all the rule changes.)
Our original intention was that we would head back at the end of December but the government/Covid had other ideas and as Christmas came along we ended up scrabbling around to reorganise our return … we absolutely still needed to be in the Netherlands before midnight on 31st December, but recent changes to Covid restrictions across the UK meant that we had ended up in a tier 4 area – and travel across the channel from a tier 4 wasn’t technically allowed. Still, we decided to give it a go … provided we could fulfill the requirement to travel, ie we’d need to get a Covid PCR test (£170 each). However, booking gave us only one viable option, 30th December (with a guarantee of the result being with us by 18.30 on 31st – that would be pushing it but still do-able even at that late hour). To give us a further travel advantage we also chose to upgrade our tunnel booking to the more expensive Flexi-pass (£106 over and above the original ticket cost!) with the hope that if our test results were negative we could get on the next available train without any delay.
Hooray … as it turned out, our NEGATIVE Covid results came through at 5.30 in the morning (31st) – first hurdle over, thank goodness. We still had a few things to sort out before actually driving off, but managed to reach the tunnel terminal by 14.30 with surprisingly little traffic on the roads, then rolled on seamlessly through UK passport control, onto French passport control who checked our passports, our PCR results (pleased about that considering how much they cost us) and our completed self-attestation forms, before waving us on our way. We didn’t even have to explain why we were traveling across the channel.
Fortunately our decision to pay extra for the Flexi-pass worked out, as it meant we headed straight into the queue (of one), hung around for 20 minutes before boarding the train, and 30+ minutes later we were on French soil, heading through Belgium, into the Netherlands and then back to Harderwijk and home. There was very little passenger traffic but probably not surprising considering all the hurdles.
So here we are, a day late maybe but nonetheless just as we had planned – in our cosy saloon, glass in hand, bellies full, Casper settled in our laps and TV on and fireworks going of all around us as if to celebrate our return. Next, ten days of self isolation before our 2021 can properly begin.
