I woke at 7.30am, feeling immediately queasy and tummy cramps again. Great. But I get on with starting to pack. Leon’s buzzing round, as he does in the mornings, killing my attempt to be calm. So I ask him if he minds chilling out a bit, and he pops himself on the balcony.
I now realise I find the packing for and leaving places probably the worst bit about travel. It seems to set off anxiety easily. But I sit and eat my last Greek yoghurt and granola to try to have a chance of keeping calm.
My tummy kicks off big time, and I have some pale foulliquid to throw at the porcelain throne. With 5hr to go until I have to be on a metal cabin hurtling through the sky, with limited toilet access. Marvellous prospect. This does nothing for the preparation anxiety, and it’s a bit of a vicious cycle. Thank goodness I have a mini- first aid kit with aspirin & Ibuprofen to ease my banging head and hopefully help the tummy pain too, fingers crossed.
We finish feeding the kittens the remaining dreamies, which they go bezerk for, and get into our final journey in the hire car. Next slight stress of Will they try say we’ve caused any of the numerous scratches, and will fuelling up go ok? It all went absolutely flawlessly, but I did see the hire car company try to tell another man he’d caused a dent in the car. Lucky he’d taken photos, at the hire car companies suggestion, and managed to prove them wrong.
The sense of relief when the car was gone, was substantial. Next, get shuttle bus to the airport. We missed one by a few minutes, due to a need to pee. We stopped back at Tsambika bay for me, and then Leon had to find a bush near the car hire as their toilet closed due to Covid *rolls eyes. So pissing up the side of your building is more hygienic than using a lavatory? And we are going in the shuttle mini bus with one of your staff? We’ve used one of your cars for 10 days? Really irritates me when Covid is used as an excuse for ridiculous things. Takes the piss. Quite literally!
The airport is nice and easy. As we go through security, they now stamp our passports as non-EU, but no delays. And the only Covid thing that was mentioned was going through final boarding pass checks, they asked if we’d shown proof of vaccines downstairs. Leon chimed in and said yes (even though we had no idea what she was on about with this ‘downstairs’ check!). I just stayed quiet, as I couldn’t be arsed with any rigmarole.
We get on the plane almost last, as we like to! I’ve had a nap and read some book, and now that leads me to this moment writing up today and yesterday’s blog.
I feel it’s too soon to comment on my tummy, as still 1.5hr to go flying, but so far, not too bad. A few ‘bowts’ in the airport loos, but other than that, we are behaving.