Well, last week I did it. I got on a plane for the first time in 24 months. We flew to Calgary (the epi-centre of Canada’s vocal anti-vaxxers). Pearson airport was excellent, not crowded, well maintained, very safety conscious. The flight wasn’t full so we were 2 in a row of 3. But we were twitchy, I guess partly being close to people again and after all that time away from travel – it wasn’t a comfortable ride and I think that was mostly our nerves. I suppose it was good practice for flying to Edinburgh. Calgary was great – everyone masked and distancing. Beautiful city.

This was all happening 3 weeks before D-Day, and I thought I couldn’t afford the time away from home, but stepping away from all the moving mayhem and spending 10 days with dear friends was exactly what I needed. Drinking my own weight in wine & gin every 48 hours was maybe something I didn’t need, but hey, whatevs.

I also didn’t need the Emergency Alert that set off all our phones the night before we were leaving – Alberta is going back into lockdown. Clearly time to get out of Dodge.

Scout stayed with her brother & cousin here in Milton. She loves being there, but every now and then can feel a tad out of her element. Below is what Sibling #2 looked up and saw one afternoon. Not disconcerting, no, not disconcerting at all. I wonder how long she had been sitting there, just staring?

Only 22 more sleeps! But so much to do. While I do feel on top of everything that has to be done, I also know that when one domino wobbles, a whole bunch more can fall. Flight booked: check. Movers & property manager booked: check. Cleaners, painters, & yard maintenance booked: almost. Storage locker built: almost. Scout’s trip booked: not until next week. Car sold: almost (and have to say I have the BEST friends – of all the jobs in the world, there are few I dread more than selling a car, and JL &BN have stepped up – the BEST!). Almost all of the above is being done with the help of friends and local businesses – I am a lucky girl. Only two things weighing me down: some tax issues (still waiting for my accountant!) and I have nowhere to live in Orkney. Trying not to dwell too much on that last thing.

This is getting real.  As of Thursday, I have a plane ticket, a place to quarantine in Scotland, renters here in Milton, movers, a contractor to build a storage locker in the basement, and seasonal property maintenance in place.  Still left to do? Sell the car, ship the dog, pack the household, and paint & clean the house.  Oh, and find a place to live in Orkney.  That last one is worrying.

I took the advice of a friend and downloaded Trello project management software.  What a difference it makes to staying on top of everything.  And there is A LOT to stay on top of.  I’ve have sorted the move into a variety of buckets like: The Dog, Finances, Milton House, Orkney Hoose, Packing, etc…  And then each bucket is full of tasks.  Dozens of tasks (quite possibly hundreds of tasks).  And it seems to be working – once I capture a task in the appropriate bucket, (say for example, checking the fire & carbon monoxide alarms, which is now a To-Do in the Milton House bucket), I can stop worrying about it.  The mental load is lifted. 

It is possible to go too far down the organizational road; last month I actually started a GANTT chart.  I started working back from D-Day, with blocks, and arrows, and deadlines, before I realized that might be a tad OTT.  So Trello it is.  And I do feel very efficient each morning as I sit down and update the list.  So there.

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.

I lay awake the other night thinking about the fact that it’s 60 days now until D-Day (M-Day for moving?  S-Day for Scotland?), and I have a freezer and pantry full of food that needs to be consumed.  The last I heard the foodbanks still weren’t accepting food items , only financial donations, and I hate the idea of food going to waste. So it’s time to ramp things up: no more yoghurt or toast for breakfast from now on.  But really, most of the food in the pantry isn’t what you would normally call breakfast food.
Yesterday I had miso dashi soup for breakfast (nothing wrong with that, an entire country often has miso soup in the morning, but it’s not my usual fare).  The day before it was porridge (again, nothing wrong with porridge for breakfast, but it is July and it was already over 25 degrees by the time I sat down to a steaming bowl of oatmeal).  And today was tuna salad stuffed in a tomato (now that is just plain weird).  At least you can’t say I’m not eating healthy. 

Edit: Wrote to the local foodbank who advised me that yes, they are indeed accepting packaged and canned foods again, so I can lift my foot off the all-must-be-consumed gas pedal.  Whew – I was starting to wonder how I was going to incorporate canned peaches, smoked mackerel, and couscous into a tasty breakfast. 

After shopping around I landed on Animal Travel for flying Scout to Scotland in October. I applied for a quote, and received a seven (yes, 7) page email, full of different coloured fonts, bolds, italics, highlights, etc… outlining costs, requirements, and potential issues for the journey. The opening paragraph quite clearly asked that clients read the email in full, as they are swamped in this post-lockdown world, and simply don’t have time to be answering questions that they have addressed in the initial email. Fair enough. So I printed out all seven (yes, 7) pages and started reading. The first section clearly and firmly addressed the size of crate that would be needed, so I started researching crates online. I must have measured Scout a half a dozen times (she does NOT like the tape measure) and searched Wayfair, Amazon, Rens, and so on. I finally found one for order from a store in London and called them to place an order and arrange for pick up. There, done.

Then I moved on to the next section of Animal Travel’s email, which stated that they (Animal Travel) provide the crate. Seriously. I called the store back (3 minutes after finalizing the purchase) to cancel. She must have thought I was an idiot. Two hours of my life I will never get back. If I had just done as the email said, and read the whole thing BEFORE doing anything – shades of the cruise down the Elbe River, and not reading the client brochure. Will I never learn?

I just found Tyler Moore’s videos on how to make a website.  This is excellent – I am going to follow step-by-step. 

Edit: OMG – this has been the best thing I’ve done so far. Tyler’s 2-hour video (worth every single, solitary minute) was brilliant. I followed step-by-step, and setting up this website was so easy. Love Hostgator, love WordPress, love it all!

I have always been someone who finds it very hard to throw away or donate things that are still in good working order or were purchased relatively recently, but which I don’t love (I know, I know, spark joy, whatever).  But these days, everything I touch or look at has me thinking, toss? donate? sell? pack away? I mean, I don’t want to end up packing tons of stuff, but at the same time, if something still works, why would I pitch it?  So this has created a new mindset: two days ago I dropped a vase and it broke.  And today a perfectly good but much too cumbersome umbrella broke a rib.  And both times my very first thought was, “Yippee, now I can throw this out.”

One thing that has surprised me is that flats & houses are mostly to let unfurnished.  I don’t know where I got the expectation that they would be furnished, and one or two are, but for the most part I will be buying everything.  That is both exciting and terrifying.  The closest Ikea is Glasgow or Edinburgh (I’m not counting the Pick-Up location at Aberdeen) and I dread to think what the delivery fees are to the islands.  I would love to go all Ikea – I’ve been watching Nick Lewis, Lone Fox, and Alexandra Gater on YouTube and I can really see an all-Ikea apartment.  I think there is an Argos Pick-Up unit in Kirkwall, so most likely that is what I will be relying on.  While I’m staying with my uncle in Lanarkshire, I can go to Ikea (it’s almost all nice, easy multi-lane from his place to the store), and buy as much as will fit in the car for the drive north – a car which will also have a medium-sized dog, 3 or 4 suitcases, and a new-to-this-side-of-the-road driver who will need all her sightlines as clear as possible.