Planning Our Return Flights To Spain

Last week we said our final goodbye to Jay’s Mum. The funeral was small with just immediate family due to Covid-19. It was a very difficult day for all of us, but as the celebrant who led the ceremony said, quoting Winnie the Pooh, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”. Jay and I had stayed in quarantine for 18 days so we knew we would be Covid free, enabling us to hold hands and hug Jay’s Dad as well as each other which was very much needed.

Since the funeral we’ve been free to go out and about, but the weather hasn’t been great and some days it feels like it never really gets light. I did get a little bit giddy on my first trip to our local supermarket, especially as it’s now full of Christmas goodies. We’ve managed to devour quite a few Quality Street between us, thank goodness we left our weighing scales in Spain! We keep the telly switched off until around 6pm, filling our days with running, reading and writing. At this point I must say a huge thank you to Ian who wrote to us after reading our latest book – The Non-Trepreneurs. He spotted that we’d managed to miss out the middle r in the word Non-Trepreneurs quite a few times, including on the description of it on Amazon! We had read it sooooo many times we had clearly gone word blind. We’ve now corrected and republished it, so if you were one of the few who bought the ‘first edition’ apologies for the typo and hopefully because it’s a very limited edition it might be worth a lot of money in the future.

I have spent far too much time scrolling through the BBC news website, several Spanish news sites as well as the fantastic N332 Facebook page, to keep up to date with the latest travel restrictions. When we flew home we knew we wouldn’t be able to go back to Zagan until the lockdown had ended in England and restrictions on travel between municipalities in Andalusia were lifted. We had our fingers crossed that this might happen around Christmas time to allow families to reunite. When the UK lockdown ended our county went into Tier 3, this meant we could travel abroad even though we aren’t supposed to stay overnight away from home in the UK.

We checked the dates and times for flights from East Midlands to Malaga and worked out which ones we’d be able to catch and get the required PCR tests 72 hours before flying. We assumed that the test labs would close over Christmas which would mean flying either before Christmas or in the New Year, after speaking to Jay’s Dad we booked flights for the 21st December. It has been a tough decision to go back to Spain just a couple of weeks after the funeral. Our parents are all in high risk categories due to illness or age, so we aren’t able to meet up with them inside or outside their homes, and it’s been so cold and wet here lately meeting up anywhere else puts them at risk of cold. The restrictions are being relaxed in the UK so families can spend Christmas together and I would love nothing more than to pull a cracker with my Mum and Dad, but the scientific advice says don’t do it. With a vaccine so close Christmas can wait.

Over the past couple of weeks the Spanish Government and several autonomous communities have been revising their travel restrictions for the festive period which in Spain runs from 23rd December to 6 January. Yesterday the Andalusian Junta set out their plans and we breathed a huge sigh of relief. As we arrive ahead of the festive period we thought we might have to spend a couple of nights in Malaga before we could travel to Nerja, however they are opening up the municipality borders from this Saturday so we can travel straight there.

This week Spain also changed it’s entry requirements. Instead of a PCR test, which is tricky to get within the 72 hour time limit especially if you need to use a postal service, you can now get a TMA test which turns around a result in a couple of hours and is a bit cheaper. At the moment we can’t find anywhere that offers a TMA test (hopefully it’s called something else here in the UK and they’ll be advertised soon) so we have a place locally that does PCR tests as a back up. As long as we both stay negative for our Covid test, we should be reunited with Zagan in Spain in time for Christmas.

Ju x

Update: After much searching we couldn’t find anywhere offering TMA tests in the UK, I suspect they will all pop up soon but not soon enough for our flight. With so so many reports of Royal Mail struggling in this Christmas rush and the window for these tests being so tight, we didn’t want to risk using a postal service. We’ve reserved two Covid PCR test kits with a company called Medicspot and will collect them, next Friday at the start of our 72 hour window. Medicspot dispense the tests from pharmacies around the UK, you perform the test yourself and return it to the pharmacy. If you drop if off before 2pm they guarantee you’ll get results by 11pm the following day. I did some research and spotted a lot of trust pilot reviews from people complaining they hadn’t received their results but it appears you need to register the kit online before you send it back, that way they know who to send the results certificate to and which passport number to include with it – now we’ve been forewarned we’ll be sure to follow the instructions to the letter. The tests cost £149 each, however last week we put the tests in our basket and added our email address, then we didn’t check out because we were waiting to see if the restrictions in Andalusia would be lifted. A few hours later we got an email offering 10% off, so we made sure we did the same thing again when we bought the tests to save ourselves £30. Medicspot have also sent us a referral code, so if anyone buys their tests using these links they will get 10% discount on their order (to save you trying the ‘not checking out’ trick) and we will get an Amazon voucher.