It.1 The Best Laid Plans

We set off from London on 11th April to pick up our Mercedes Sprinter in France and to see if we could fix a few final glitches before setting off for Georgia on our trial trip. We had 10 days in France to do a few chores and enjoy Easter with Jim’s sister Nora.

Our last day in London was wonderful as we had a home full of family and friends of my daughter Jessica who was celebrating her 30th birthday.

We were blessed with a sunny Spring day and fab views over the Thames from our balcony.
The following morning we set off early to cross the channel by train in the hope of avoiding the horrendous traffic queues into Dover resulting from ferry port chaos! (We succeeded).
We planned a few days in Beaubery, where we had stored the van and hoped to iron out a few final Sprinter glitches and pack up around the Easter break. I even found a space for my electric Brompton.

On arrival at our French home, I turned up the speaker and sang loudly to road trip music on Spotify, to get into the mood. We had friends round for drinks and the van had a final celebratory polish. Fortunately we had speedily got the car into a Mercedes garage in Macon to fix the air conditioning, which was a major relief.
However, our smug tranquility was slightly shattered by a call from our eldest daughter in London, to say she had Covid which was threatening to ruin her Easter plans. (It didn’t).
Little did we know how this was going to affect us too! Needless to say days later, I discovered that I had caught it too and a week or so later on, so had Jim. (This was now all a bit tight). Fortunately, we were both infected with Covid lite and were able to do most things we needed to do. Jim had shopped for Easter before being ill and we had already substantially stocked up the van. So with a bit of help from Jim’s sister who arrived from Geneva having just recovered from Covid, we were able to minimise the immediate impact.

However as our planned departure date approached and we were not entirely virus free, we had to decide whether to abandon the whole trip or to hunker down and isolate in a campsite in Turin until we were both totally in the clear.
As I write this, we have tackled our first mountain pass and we are snuggly deposited in a peaceful Italian spot in our mobile home reading books, playing cards, blogging and cooking.

Fortunately the car was stocked up with ample food and beverages! We have had to cancel the coming weeks visits and we will continue to journey in isolation until we are both virus free.