There and back again

The trip to England was well planned, all sorted, until the Haunted Haystack announced that the arrival of the new MORONIC variant of our favourite bug warranted some changes to protocol.  He told us that we'd have to have to self-quarantine until our "day 2" covid test, now to be a PCR test and not the lateral flow test that we had booked and paid for, gave us a negative result.  But he didn't tell us when these changes might come into effect.

The problem was not just the waste of two days stuck indoors, out of a week in England, but the Tuesday of our planned arrival was the last day that the RAF museum at Tangmere would be open this year.  A lifetime ago, I flew gliders at Tangmere and wanted to go back to see what they had done.   This year we were visitng England early enough to go there.

The announcement was made on Saturday, and the necessary information appeared on government website on Sunday morning.  Shit!  The new rules took effect from 04h00 on Tuesday when we were scheduled to arrive at Portsmouth at 06h30.   Can we get an earlier ferry?  Departures from Caen were fully booked for the Monday, how about St Malo?   Yes, space on the ferry on Monday; it's a daytime crossing, can't be helped, book it.

And now the admin.  The cat boarding kennels are shut on Sunday, can we get him in?  Apologetic phone call, yes we can.  Piano lesson to cancel.  Can my sister put us up a day early?  Yes she can.  And while this is going on, Anita sends an email to the testing company -Prenetics-  and the conversation runs like this (paraphrased):

    - Is it possible to change the order from a lateral flow to a PCR?
    - Your request has been received and is important to us
    - Disregard my request because we don't need it
    - When the new regs come into effect you will have to upgrade to a PCR - feel free to contact customer support

But since we're now going early to avoid the new rules, we don't wish to, so we leave it at that, since we don't want to change the order.

Phew, now we're on the ferry.  Sorted, right?

Wrong.  Anita calls up Prenetics, just to confirm that all is well with the order for the Day 2 lateral flow test, and discovers that the order has been cancelled.   She then ends up in an argument with the person on the "help desk" who tries to tell her that the new testing rules apply right away (they don't)  and that a PCR test is now mandatory (it isn't).  Regardless, we can't buy the cheaper tests any more and have to get the more expensive ones.  *sigh*

So the bottom line is that we heard the news, changed the ferry to one that got in 6 hours earlier, and I got to visit the Tangmere museum.  It weren't that simple, though.