Tag Archives: lateral flow tests

Iceland: The One Day Out…

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Husband was finally free of our hotel room after 3 days isolation. With only one day left, we were set to make the best of it…

It was our last day in Iceland. And at last we could go down to the restaurant and have breakfast together, instead of me dining alone and parcelling up breakfast items for him. I wondered what our fellow diners would think of my appearance with a man- Had I picked him up somewhere during my lone travel escapade? Bonded on a bus or in a bar and shacked up together in the hotel room?

We’d one more task to complete for the return to the UK and I was determined to get it over and done with before our day out. We’d to fill out a ‘passenger locator form’ for each of us. I sat down with my laptop and found the form. To begin with it seemed simple and I began to congratulate myself [always a bad idea]. I got almost to the end, to the request for the serial numbers of our return-to-UK, lateral flow test kits, which were resting on a cupboard top in our house, ready for our return. Horrors! Who knew? I tried various numbers on forms, to no avail, gnashing my teeth and groaning. Then I had a brainwave. I could ring our neighbour to go in and look at the boxes in our house. Hooray! I rang her, and she, kind soul that she is, dropped everything and went upstairs in the house to look at the kits. She talked me through her search, a number here, a number there…I tried all the numbers. None of them was correct.

The time ticked away. Soon we’d need to be in the lobby to await our bus for the tour. In desperation, I turned to Monsieur Google for help and got an answer. The numbers would have been on the invoice email. I looked at my inbox, which yielded no correspondence from the company, Randox. I looked in the trash. There! There it was- an email with some serial numbers! I keyed them in and pressed submit, holding my breath. And it went. Phew. We had to do it all again, of course, for Husband, but then we were done.

We began donning layers for our day out. The outside temperature was set to drop to -9. I was glad of my thermal tops and fleecy walking trousers. We were ferrried to the bus station as I’d been the previous day and went to the counter to pay for the day’s tour. At this point things went in our favour. The fact that I’d already taken the tour alone and Husband had missed it was known to the ticket clark. She looked at me. ‘There’s no charge’ she said. ‘Forget it’. After all the trouble I felt tearful when faced with her kindness.

We boarded the bus- together this time- . Our tour guide was not the world-weary Johanna of the previous day but Albert, a mature, jovial character who began with his -clearly much practised] jokes as we swung out of the bus park. The day was bitterly cold but the sky was a sparkling blue and not a cloud in it. And we were out together…

Grace is also known as the novelist, Jane Deans. Her new novel, The Conways at Earthsend is now out and available from Amazon, Waterstones, Goodreads, W H Smith, Pegasus Publishing and many more sites. Visit my website: janedeans.com or my author page on Facebook: (1) Jane Deans, Novellist, Short Fiction and Blog | Facebook.

Travel Travails Continued-

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Last week I described the tangled web of bureaucracy involved in preparations for travel in these plague-ridden times. I’d ploughed through the covid vaccination pass instructions, overcome the troubling and confusing business of ordering tests and ascertained the whereabouts of the mysterious ‘drop boxes’. I’d purchased our tests for return. I’d written a timetable for us to ensure we do the correct things in the right order on the appropriate days leading up to departure and on our return. I was not feeling confident or smug, but I was feeling I’d done as much as I was able to get us prepared.

The plague feels like it’s lasted a long time, now. Does anyone elase out there long for the days when, if we wished to step beyond the confines of our own, squidgy little island we could just bag a passport and go? It’s bad enough for Husband and me, that we also have to be mindful of carting along the correct medications and in the right quantities [as contingency, you understand] as we get older and more decrepit.

This is all before we even begin to think about packing anything. Normally, at this time of year we’d be jetting off somewhere hot, for winter sun, a chance to loll about on a lounger sipping something cool and delicious. It’s always tricky packing for an extreme temperature change and we’ve come adrift before on our return, freezing to death on a frosty station, waiting for a train to come. This time, because we’re travelling to a notoriously cold place we’ll be all prepared, or at least I do hope so!

News today [Tuesday] has it that the return-from-abroad tests are being dropped. I begin to feel incensed that I’ve bought them, until I see they’re to be dropped from the day we return. We’ll still need to do pre-flight PCR tests and find out about the pre-return ‘passenger locator forms’.

Owing to changes to our flights by that highly-rated, luxurious airline, Easyjet, we’ve had to jiggle the dates of our trip. Easyjet saw fit to change our return flights to a different airport from our departure one. I wonder which operative thought this would be a good idea? Fly from Gatwick, London and return to Luton, many miles away…Suppose we’d opted to drive to airport?

Our flights on Monday morning are indecently early, at 8.00am, meaning Sunday trains, a hotel stay and a rude awakening, which provokes a frisson of anxiety. The time window for the PCR fit-to-fly tests is 72 hours, but 48 hours needs to be reserved for the results to come back to us. I’ve worked out that if we do the tests, register them and drop them off at the fabled ‘drop-off’ box nearest to us we should just about get the results before we depart for the airport- provided everything goes as the company, Randox, suggests. Hmmm…

For now, though I’m turning my attention towards all things warn and cosy. My Peruvian hat with flaps has arrived, I have my fleecy lined walking trousers and sufficient thermal layers for the ascent of Everest [no, we’re not going there!]. If we don’t get off the ground, one thing is guaranteed- I’ll be warm enough for the journey home!

Travel Travails

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While I’ve never expected to be feted as an intellectual and wouldn’t have attained educational pinnacles, would never have become a brain surgeon or a marine biologist, I consider I’ve enough know-how to read a set of instructions and manage basic technological tasks. In other words, reader, I am average- a judgement that dogged me throughout my school days, stated with monotonous regularity on all of my school reports.

So, armed with my average skills and intelligence I’ve plunged into the murky melange of preparations we need to undertake before we set off on some foreign travel. The raft of covid precautions necessary before taking off anywhere is said to have become ‘easier’, which leads me to wonder who on Earth managed to go anywhere at all beyond these shores in the last two or three years.

Since the plague began we’ve limited travel to our own borders and wandered throughout the UK only, which has been lovely, of course and there are still many places we’ll be visiting or re-visiting this year and in years to come. Last Autumn, however, in a rush of misguided optimism we booked a trip, an excursion which is now imminent enough for me to have begun departure procedures and to discover just how complex the whole business is.

Simply ascertaining what must be done makes my brain hurt. I begin to read the airline advice, soon getting to the click here and click here and click here parts, until there are so many ‘click heres’ I think I won’t find my way back to the original page.

I know we must get a covid pass, obtained via the NHS app [which, by a miracle I have installed]. I begin to leap the hurdles I must cross: email address, password, [I remember it!], then photo of ID [which I failed last time], then I must send a video of myself saying some numbers or holding them up. I do all of this, only to be told I must wait for verification. By a further miracle I pass the checks. I opt for every version of my vaccination pass, figuring that I’ll cover all eventualities. I trust hard copy more than my phone and my shortcomings with it.

Next: Tests, I know that we must test before flying. I know that this must be PCR and that ‘only government approved companies’ may do it. I won’t go into the government part, or how they are able to approve anything at present [this for UK readers]. I know we must have post-return lateral flow tests and that, again they must be officially approved. We don’t live anywhere near a test site. SIGH. I get online and order said tests. £135. …

The box of tests arrives. On inspection, I can see nothing to indicate that we have PCR tests, although 2 of the boxes do say lateral flow. These are for our return, even though they say ‘fit-to-fly’ on the label [!]. I call the company, Randox and wait while I’m given a series of lectures about what Randox can’t help me with, before I get ‘options’. In fairness, the kind woman who eventually answers does help, and tells me I have the correct test kits as well as mentioning the ‘passenger locator forms’ we must also do. On reading the test instructions I also learn that we must register our tests before sending, or dropping them off.

I get online and search for the ‘drop-off’ locations, which appear to be in some highly improbable locations, our 2 nearest being a] a motorway service station or b] a disused Ryvita factory. Hmmm…

Our departure, should we even get that far, is still a week and a half away. And nothing more can be done until 72 hours before, when we must undertake tests and send [or drop off] the packs.

We’ll be away for just 4 nights, reader…and I’m wondering…is it going to be worth all this effort? I’ll let you know…