From a COVID perspective, for travellers arriving in Scotland the UK has rated Canada as an amber list country. (The US is a green list country, even tho Canada is outperforming both the US and the UK in new cases and per capita vaccinations, but now is not the time to start agonizing over areas outside my control.) Amber means 10-day self-isolation upon arrival, either alone or with family. It looks like I will be able to quarantine at my uncle’s hoose (practicing my accent), but for a while I thought I was going to be 10 days in a self-catering unit in the countryside somewhere in Lanarkshire.
Before I realized I’d be staying with my uncle, I got thinking about the fact that I would need food – well, I always need food, obvs – I mean I’d be starting a 10-day pantry in a strange house completely from scratch. So one day I sat down to check if one of the grocery stores would deliver to a cottage in the small village of Carnwath (Tesco does). Then I began imagining the grocery list – I mean I would truly be starting from nothing. So I started filling an online Tesco grocery cart full of the food I would need for 10 days in isolation. Next thing I knew, I had wasted two hours online, cruising the food lists and creating an entirely imaginary shopping basket of groceries. It was quite exciting: eggs by the half-dozen (so sensible); Rolo-flavoured custard; some kind of bread called a ‘bloomer’; and every kind of frozen dinner imaginable, including something called Mr Brain’s Pork Faggots for 99p (really).
I’m not sure that was the highest and best use of a Sunday morning, but it was very entertaining.