2049. Russian Ring

I bought this ring in Volgograd and can’t quite believe that it’s been over 10 months since we visited Russia, it was such an amazing trip.

Normally at this point we would be half way through our usual planned trips and looking forward to more to come.  So far we have had to cancel three trips aboard, to Gdańsk and Toruń, to Gran Canaria and also a battlefield tour to Germany.  I also had to cancel a birthday trip to Durham for my husband which should have been this weekend coming.  We have booked two nights away in Scotland for his birthday and also a week away later in August in Aberdeenshire.  Our planned trip to Dubrovnik in October may or may not happen and that will be down to Jet2 to decide whether or not the trip can go ahead and so far they have been really well organised.
I consider us to be very fortunate to have managed to sort these cancellations with only minimal loss of money and I know there are plenty of people who have lost thousands on planned trips that either didn’t happen or they felt compelled to cancel themselves.  We have so far managed to rebook two cancelled trips for next year, one to Gran Canaria and the other to Germany for the battlefield tour.  Our annual trip to Lanzarote is still booked in for January next year but my youngest has decided not to join us because he’s nervous about flying and the pandemic will still be an issue when we go no doubt...I don’t blame him, especially now that we will have no reciprocal arrangements for urgent medical care with the EU and probably no roaming data either.

I am still hoping to book my husband’s 70th birthday trip next year to South Africa but don’t have to make a decision until December this year.

I don’t think we will do any further planned trips for next year once our cancelled trips are sorted and we will be very cautious about booking so far in advance again.

I think this ring is particularly in my mind today because apparently it has a blessing for travellers written on it in Russian, our tour guide translated it for me when I bought it.  I had no idea how much it was when I bought it because I just couldn’t get the exchange rate in my head for the whole trip to Russia so I used my credit card to buy it and when we returned home and I checked the card it had cost me a whole £13!  

My hubby has a chiropractor appointment this afternoon and as it’s pouring with rain I have stayed indoors in my jammies all day....