Back to Blighty - How was it in this post-Covid world?

 

Finally!  

After several months of stop - start planning, largely down to the prohibitive costs and restrictions BoJo's amateur Government chose to apply to travellers to and from the UK, I managed to get back to my homeland after almost exactly 2 years.  Getting to see my grandkids, especially the lad born last year during Lockdown, and visiting my ailing elderly sisters has been a target since early this year, when restrictions began lifting, but it's taken much grief, stress and expense to finally achieve it.

And how was it?

In a word....interesting.

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I'm fully inoculated, as is my wife and my daughter who accompanied me to England.  We have our EU Covid passport documents.  Last month, I visited Switzerland for a couple of weeks, solo, and it was a painless travel experience, no different from a pre-Pandemic Schengen hop.  The only extra document I needed to complete was the online Swiss locator form.  It took two minutes to do, and within 5 minutes I received an email from the Swiss authorities that included a QR code as admission approval.  No-one asked to see it at the Check In and Baggage drop at Warsaw airport.  At Zurich we parked as usual at a Schengen gate, I walked up the jet-bridge into the terminal, collected my bags and strolled out into the Arrivals Hall, where I met my host and off we went.  In fact at no time during the entire two weeks was I asked to show the QR code and only twice the EU Covid passport (when I went into restaurants).

Contrast to a proposed visit to England, and the service provided by the relevant agencies in Switzerland.  The Swiss, pragmatically, adopted the EU Covid passport immediately, and waived the need for a pre-travel test in either direction.  There were no concerns about the efficacy of the Polish vaccination program.  No additional information was needed.  But England?  No.

When I first started planning a trip to bring my kids over, back in May, Poland was Amber listed (as it remained until the traffic light system was finally dumped this month) despite rates of infection and death being significantly lower in Poland than in the UK. This meant we would have to quarantine for 10 days out of the 14 in the trip.  We would have to have PCR tests before departure (so in Poland) and provide written proof we were clear. We would then have to take further tests on Days 2, 5 and 8 while in quarantine, using private Government approved clinics.  There are over 450 of them listed on the Government's website, with test prices ranging from £50 to over £200 each.  Our EU Covid passports were not accepted in the UK: we were told by the Home Office (after half an hour on the phone listening to the worst muzack I have heard anywhere) the only ones acceptable were those issued by the NHS.  I pointed out I couldn't provide those as our inoculations had been carried out in Warsaw - what did the Home Office suggest?  The answer:  "I have no idea.  Try the NHS Help Line.  Or look on the website."   I had already spent two hours doing that, without success, and decided life was simply too short to repeat the exercise.  With a hire car sitting unused on my sister's drive for 10 days, all of these requirements were going to add a good £2000 to the cost of the trip.  I decided to wait until things changed. 

In September, effective October, they did.  A bit.  The EU Covid certificate became acceptable.  The traffic lights disappeared and Poland became an acceptable travel destination again.  I didn't need a pre-departure test nor to provide additional proof, but I would still need a Day 2 test.  I booked the flights, for a brief long weekend - leave Poland Thursday morning, fly home Monday afternoon.  This meant my Day 2 test would be Saturday, and I would be leaving on Day 4, probably before the results were known, but ok.  I filled in my Locator form.  It was not possible to include my wife and daughter on my form, so had to do three.  I had to save the document after every input (Forename - Robert - Save.  Surname - Cooper. Save.  And so on.  And on.  And on.....).  Then you're asked for a Locator reference.  What????  That turns out to be the Order Number issued by the clinic you buy your Day 2 test from.

Back to square one.  I trawled through the endless list of clinics that, according to the Government website, served London and the South East.  They were located in, amongst other Home Counties hotbeds, Manchester, Bolton, Glasgow, Hull and Belfast.  So much for the "Filter by location" option and its South East choice.  In the end I chose one that didn't want to add a Day 8 for good measure, didn't want me to collect the kit in person, provided a return courier envelope and allowed me to select a delivery date and hotel destination.  Nearly sixty quid each plus thirty quid for DHL  Two hundred smackers all in.

That didn't go well.  We arrived at the hotel in Dartford, the Campanile that I have used a dozen or more times over the years, on time but the parcel with our tests didn't.  Nor did it arrive on Day 1 (Friday) when we made our pilgrimage to Edenbridge to the grave and on to my sister and Tunbridge Wells.  Saturday was Day 2, test day and check out day.  Still no package.  I went to the supplier website and called the Help Line.  The number connected me to a different (but similarly named) company who of course knew nothing of my order and could not help.  I asked the hotel for a number of the local DHL depot to call them, and had a row with some twonk who came in a minute or so after me and decided to lecture me on what the hotel staff should and should not be doing - helping customers apparently not on his list.  The hotel couldn't (or wouldn't...) help.  Back to the internet on my phone and excessive roaming costs to try a parcel track on the DHL website.  None of the references quoted on the supplier email were accepted.  Cue a call to my bank in Warsaw to request a reclaim and, inevitably, cancel a possibly compromised credit card.  I'm now locked in a battle to get my money back, difficult when all parties are denying responsibility......

We travelled home without having taken the mandated Day 2 test, so presumably I broke the law. No-one asked to see any paperwork in any case - and the episode goes to show, in my humble opinion, what a mess the Government's travel regulations remain. 

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We packed.  I made up a folder of screen prints for all the Locator Forms (they ran to about 6 pages each) plus hotel and car hire papers.  Off to the airport.  No-one asked to look at the Locators again, and our EU Covid passports were accepted.  We were waved through passport and security.  We boarded.  A 737 MAX, the one that was grounded for two years on safety grounds.  But it was fine: seats very comfortable, very quiet, entertainment streamed to your device rather than on individual seat-back screens. The food was crap, but we're talking LOT here, RyanAir's Polish clone, flag carrier though it is.  We dozed most of the way (early morning flight meaning stupid o'clock alarm calls

At Heathrow, passport control was fine except my daughter's e-passport didn't work (apparently she's too young) but the desk agent rather impressively spoke fluent Polish and they had a nice chat. The car was decent, a Citroen C5 with about 3000 miles on the clock, but because of the fuel shortage only half a tank of unleaded.  We had to take a photo of the fuel gauge, tank wherever we could find a garage selling the stuff, and return the car similarly half empty.  We managed it fine, and had no problems at all finding well-stocked garages.  I wasn't too surprised, since the haulage and petrol industries had spent a week saying there was no fuel shortage, the refinery tanks were full, the issue was in getting the stuff to the retailer garages because of a driver shortage.

Let's consider that.  The Government itself admits to a shortage of 100,000 drivers, which matches what the Road Haulage Association, Shell, BP and other haulage companies were saying.  Everyone, except the Government gave a list of reasons for this shortage, with the industry unanimously stating Brexit as a major contributing factor as many drivers had been forced to go home to Europe as the Government did not consider their trade important enough to grant them visas. Sure, many drivers also left the industry because they retired, or got fed up being away from home for days on end stuck in traffic jams.  Of course Covid played its part with lay-off's and furloughed drivers not coming back.  But hang on a minute: ALL of those were foreseeable (except for Covid, of course) - why has everyone waited until now to start hiring and training (or re-training) replacements?  Such scenarios were, I recall, being mentioned during the pre-Referendum arguments as a reason to Remain, and being branded by Boris and his acolytes as lies, part of Project Fear (which actually never existed - but that's another story entirely).  In any case, the Referendum was over 5 years ago, Brexit itself almost a year - why has no-one done anything in the interim?  As usual, the Boris Johnson It'll Be Alright On The Night rhetoric has seduced an ill-advised and unthinking public and a bevvy of sycophantic rent-a-quote MPs to Do Nothing.  Again.  That's not to say I entirely blame the Government - I don't.  I would have expected the road haulage companies themselves, whether steady Eddie Stobart, Shell's fleet, Asda, whoever, to have been more proactive and taken action themselves to fill their vacancies (as far as possible) with suitably qualified drivers.

Someone has seriously dropped the ball, in my humble opinion, and it's Joe Public who is suffering.  Again.

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Our hotel choices offered another contrast between then and now.  The Campanile, as I wrote earlier, is familiar after years of use.  It's a typical cheap and cheerful transport hotel close to the Dartford Crossing, and thus used primarily as an overnight stay for people - mostly commercial - breaking their journeys on a long haul to the Channel ports.  But the rooms are comfortable if basic, the bar is fine and the restaurant food very good and reasonably priced (especially the Full English breakfast I normally take).  That was before the pandemic.

This time the bar and restaurant were closed, with breakfast limited to a paper bag contained a yoghurt, a cereal bar and a stale croissant.  We found this out when we went down to eat on Friday morning.  There was nothing on the website when I booked and we were not told on check in.  The fabric of the place is desperately in need of some TLC as well.  The room we had was shabby, with a massive crack in the sink.  The hair dryer didn't work. There was no cleaning service - the room was in the same condition (unmade bed, wet towels in the bath) when we got back Friday evening as when we left in the morning.  The staff we had contact with were friendly enough, but unfortunately not very helpful.  I will not stay there again.

In Kings Lynn we booked a room at a Travelodge.  It's a name I'm familiar with but had never used before, and I have to say it was excellent.  From the outside, it looked very similar to the Campanile but perhaps newer, and stood next door to both a very good pub and a Starbucks, so the expected restaurant closure (clearly signposted on the website at booking) was no hardship.  The girl on Reception was Polish, from Olsztyn in the Mazurian lake district, very friendly and very efficient.  The room was spotless, very clean and comfortable, and cleaned and re-stocked with coffee, sugar and milk while we were out on Sunday.  Travelodge caters to a similar market, and is never going to be a Holiday Inn or a Sofitel ot whatever, but doesn't try to be.  It offers a clean comfortable place to spend a night on journey, and in my view hits the spot.  It cost perhaps £10 a night more than the Campanile, so for me represented terrific value: the two hotels were chalk and cheese. 

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The trip itself was fine.  I had no problems at all getting petrol and returned the Citroen with the required half a tank.  We visited many supermarkets because we wanted to stock up on English goods that are simply unavailable in Poland: stuff like proper Walls sausages and bacon, Custard Cream biscuits, Fray Bentos meat pies, Ginsters pasties, and a refreshing tea tree & mint shower gel no longer sold here but that I love.  I will admit to feeling uncomfortable in the supermarkets because of the almost total absence of face masks.  Covid is still with us and will be probably forever, like measles and the common cold or flu, but remains much more virulent.  What seems to be missing from all the Government's "advice" that masking is now optional is the clear warning that there is  no such thing as a 100% effective vaccine, booster or no booster, so that everyone, double jabbed or not, could still catch Covid and pass it on.  Masking probably helps reduce the risk of this, and for that reason alone should be encouraged for the foreseeable future.  Just my opinion......and we kept our masks on, despite the funny looks we were getting all the time.

We ate well on proper English cod and chips with salt and vinegar liberally applied, or a thick gammon steak with fried egg, chips and peas (both in the pub next to our hotel in Kings Lynn) and a superb carvery meal (I took pork with crackling and all the trimmings) at a nearby restaurant where we took my sister for her birthday.  The Abbots and Timothy Thompson ales went down a treat as well, as did my wife's Stella Artois.  As the sun shone on Sunday we went for a stroll around Hunstanton in all its seedy out of season faded glory, the archetypal English seaside resort that remains rooted in its Edwardian heyday.

We visited my old home town to deliver flowers to my mum and dad's grave, a ritual I perform every visit.  After three years' understandable neglect it's covered in stains and dirt, but I couldn't do anything about it because all the watering cans have apparently been stolen: a notice asks visitors to kindly bring their own.  And if that isn't an indictment on how far values have fallen in 21st century Brexit Britain, I don't know what is.  Very sad.

The country itself hasn't changed much.  The countryside remains the green and pleasant land of my childhood, but there are more motorways with more roadworks, and much more traffic (despite the fuel shortage), most of it driving too fast and erratically, especially the big proportion made up of Polish registered freight trucks, I'm afraid to say.  But we managed and my damaged arm held up well - it was the first time I had driven on the correct side of the road and had to use it to change gear since the operation to repair the ruptured bicep, so that was good.  

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In summary, England seems to be coping reasonably well with all the bad stuff of the past couple of years.  The Brexit favouring majority must be satisfied behind their Union Jack patterned dark glasses, but I can't help but feel the worst effects so far have been masked by the recession caused by the pandemic and the money pumped into the economy to support it.  But that can't happen forever, and I suspect the HGV shortage and resulting fuel and food shortages is the first problem to come to light.  More will follow.

The Government, if I can call it that, appears to me more disorganised and chaotic by the day.  Johnson has lost all  sense of reality - that's if he ever had one - sunning himself in Spain (presumably tired after the Tory Party Conference) over the weekend while incompetent Ministers struggled to cope with a gas supply shortage affecting the steel, glass, paper and ceramics industries badly.  There are certainly issues to resolve when the Chancellor directly contradicts the Minister for Trade and Industry, effectively calling him a liar.  A strong Prime Minister would have sacked one or both immediately, but Johnson is not a strong Prime Minister, despite all the bluster and optimistic bullshit so both remain in the Cabinet and the problem rumbles on.  And this should be no surprise, because both are Johnson loyalists to a fault, praising him and Brexit at every opportunity.  He is surrounded by them.

It will probably be three or four months before I go back, as much as I would like it to be sooner, but first I have to pay off the credit cards bills from this trip.  I wonder how things will be then.......