Covid, Birthday in Isolation

The week before we left, Viv decided to take me to the glass factory in Ikeja. We went there on a Saturday morning, and we did a tour. I was asked to make something myself with directions of the chef of glass blowing. After buying some carafes and glasses and speaking to the owner, a lady named Ali from Kenya, we discovered that there was also an art gallery and a coffee roaster. I am a big coffee lover and Ali decided to give us a private coffee tasting training. I tried six different levels of roast and it was a great learning and fun. You had to slurp it up quickly for example. The coffees were all from Africa. Viv watched me doing this, as she doesn’t drink coffee at all.

Viv went to Nike’s Art Gallery and Lekki market with Marc’s girlfriend Marly. They saw many (expensive) paintings Nike had in her gallery. Nike was around as was a gentleman from Zambia. He had to put on a Yoruba outfit and then Nike saw Marly and Viv, so they had to join them. They had so much fun, they made some crazy photos. They had such a lovely day. We also went to Landmark Beach with the 4 of us.

The rules around travelling in Covid time and travelling in general are currently still a mystery. We are always flying KLM and travelled to Graz via Amsterdam. Then flying to Graz was suddenly cancelled and we went for plan B; flying to Vienna, renting a car to go to Graz airport and pick up our own car at Robin’s office. This sounds like a piece of cake, but we had added to the mix Ayo as cabin luggage and Hugo would join us from Amsterdam. So, if your flight is then cancelled you need to make multiple changes. And separately a dog in the plane needs separate approval. But I am getting good at these changes by now. Next step is figuring out what you need to fly via the Netherlands. PCR test 72 hours before landing or is it 48 hours before departure, or not at all. Or does our Nigerian QR-code vaccination proof suffices. And is it the same for Austria? No clue. So, in the end we went on safe side and did for probably the 30th time a PCR test, but this was still the easiest part. The biggest challenge is always to get the paperwork for Ayo done. Every time something new is asked somewhere during the process. This time it was a stamp on one of the papers from the veterinarian and the fact that we had a Malaysian veterinarian with a non-Nigerian name. Suddenly there was doubt on the correctness of her qualifications… So, Viv needed to go back to her, get some additional stamps on the paperwork to be able to send it to the Government Veterinarian Services in Abuja. Since time was ticking she needed to bring the paperwork to me in the office. So after getting the stamps she told Yinka to bring her to Rob’s Office and started crocheting…. Until she discovered that he was going to the wrong office. One hour later she arrived, very agitated, but she managed.

On the day of travelling we expected low traffic to the airport. It had not rained. There were no signs of traffic jams on any of the navigation systems. Therefore, we decided to leave at 16pm. With no traffic you can get to the airport in 30 minutes. Our flight was boarding at 21.40pm, we should be in time at the airport. It started okay but then we came into traffic, heavy traffic. But should not be an issue since having more than 4 hours extra time should be sufficient. Benjamin from airport protocol started to call us how far we were. Totally stuck in traffic. Time started to get a factor. It turned out that KLM closed check in already at 8pm. What a stress! At a certain moment I called Tom and Remco, both working for KLM if they could help us and keep the check in open a bit longer. They managed to extend till 20.30pm. But we were still stuck in traffic and suddenly we were out. Ali, our driver, floored it and did his own version of Max Verstappen for the last kilometres to the airport. We arrived exactly at 20.00pm at the airport. Never ever again are we going this early leaving to the airport not seriously. You age in a few hours a few months. But we made it!

We arrived very early at Schiphol airport and waited in the KLM Lounge for the connecting flight and of course Hugo! Rest of the trip was uneventful, accept the moment we needed to bring our car back to Graz airport and Rob could not find the return counter of Sixt. After more than 30 minutes looking around and searching, it turned out to be in the most logic place of all, the arrival hall….When we got in the car at Vienna Airport we saw the outside temperature was 38C! Luckily when we arrived in the mountains the temperature dropped to a decent 25C.

We made it in good time to the Backyard. Our house looked great. Also in summer a fantastic place to be. Only part we have underestimated a bit is the speed of growth of the grass and weeds outside. We tried to get a gardener, but all local ones are booked for the next 10 years. So in the end we decided to invest in machinery, trimmers, cutters, etc. and did it ourselves. Or mostly Hugo, our gardener, did it.

Hugo finalised his thesis with an 8. He is now the 3rd Master of the family, little note here is that Noa is almost ready with her thesis as well, then all 4 completed one or more master degrees. Hugo wants to keep on studying for now. After looking at studies he liked, he has decided for St Gallen in Switzerland. When we were allowed out of quarantine in Austria we took a trip to St Gallen with Hugo to go house hunting. Now is house hunting one of Viv’s most fun things to do, so she did together with Hugo a thorough review of all possible websites. Looked at all the available appartement and shortlisted about 10 student apartments. St Gallen is beautiful. Hugo stated ‘ I would have signed up immediately for the worst one when it would have been located in Brighton’. All apartments had great quality of finishing, and this clearly went hand in hand with the great level of prices. We also checked out the university with him. Very nice located on one of the hills with nice view over the city.

We stayed in St Gallen at Hotel Walhalla. We went for the name since ’No Wahala’ is a famous expression in Nigeria, “no worries”. It is in the city centre and a great place to stay. Hugo decided for a very nice student apartment directly in the city centre of St Gallen. Every country has this specific thing with housing. In Switzerland it is that they all share laundry facilities together for the whole building. And very specifically that some of them have atomic shelters in the basement which such thick walls and doors! Walking through them makes you almost claustrophobic. On the way back to Austria we drove a scenic route over the mountains and stopped in Gerlos and made this photo of the CicCin bar. We have fun memories of this bar.

The girls arrived already a few weeks earlier at the Backyard. While they were there, some of the backlog improvements of the local carpenter companies were done. Most important improvement is our new bed in our master bedroom as well as extra ‘panorama windows’ in our room. While we were there they also replaced the floor in the Burton-room. We did ourselves the reconstruction and painting of the walls. We had hoped that also new bunkbeds and wardrobe would be ready but like in all countries construction companies / carpenters are very busy and delivery times are long. So we gave them the key and in the last few days we saw them via our cameras very busy in our house. We have given all bedrooms ski-names: Atomic, Burton, Fischer, Volkl and Salamon. This was all made and done by dimarco.nl. Other next steps in the pipeline are: - Sisal for all staircases. - Beautiful new rug in living room. - rebuild of main entrance.

One of our biggest surprises was that we made it to the Formula 1 in Austria, Spielberg. Klaus, the General Manager, knows that we are big fans. They had a last-minute cancellation and he contacted me if we would like to come. Of course, we wanted! It was our first ‘event’ since at least 1 ½ years. It was so good to see all those happy and enthusiastic fans. And the good thing is, Max we are back. Spielberg was orange and Max was great. Every 2nd car on any parking lot had yellow license plates. It was a superb day and we are very thankful that we could join.

In one of the previous blogs we have told you that we are living 5 minutes from the local golf course. Viv and I have not played in a very long time. We decided to get started again with playing golf. The local pro is Jimmy Bray. He is an American guy and funnily enough has lived in Wolfratshausen in Germany as pro for a long time. This was 5 minutes from where we lived in Ammerland when we were in Germany. We trained with him 3 times a week and we are making good progress. After some trainings he wanted me to start with one of my woods. So when he took it from his cover, he put it back directly. As it turned out some of my clubs are apparently from the age of the wooden tennisracket. Viv and I both decided to by a new set and it will be waiting for us when we are back in the Backyard at the end of the month.

We also decided to join the Ikoyi Golf Club in Lagos when we get back after the summer. At the same club there is a tennis section. During one of the European Championship viewings we met Alex. Alex is a very good tennis player and is playing there with a group of expats. He has asked Rob to join to play there also on Sunday morning. There is only one catch to it: The club wants to restore the elite character of the membership, so you are only allowed to play totally in white including white tennis shoes. And I can tell you for free, finding white tennis shoes is not that easy. Being in the Carinthia Mountains is great. I worked almost every day but still at the end of the day and in the weekend we had time to do fun things. We did some hiking, we worked on the house and we relaxed. And of course we had steaks at our favourite steakhouse Adriana. Next to steaks they also have my favourite rum ‘Don Papa’. But to all good things there is an end. I needed to go back to the Nigeria by mid-July. Robin, Viv, Hugo and Ayo went back by car to the Netherlands and I flew back as well to the Netherlands.

Just before we left, we attended Thomas' 60th birthday party in Villach. It was a huge surprise for Thomas. We had such a wonderful evening.

I could spend 2 days with Jack, Ailsa and my parents and Loes. What was really great is that Robin came with us to the Netherlands and spend ten days in the Netherlands seeing her family, grandparents, Loes and her friends. As the photo down below, we love playing card games every night! Scroll to the right/left to see more photos. For me it was a very short stay on my way to Nigeria. Back to work, just 2 precious days to see my parents and meet some friends.

In the Netherlands Viv went to the clinic where I went for my ankle surgery. She fell beginning of June and her knee was/is still very painful. They made an x-ray and she saw a physiotherapist and an orthopaedic surgeon. She already had 5 surgeries in the past and the summery of the appointment is that she needs a new knee. However, having said that, she’s going to extend this as long as possible, first with painkillers, then injections and hopefully this way she can wait years. During the winter she had troubles getting her ski on, this was very painful, and we needed to push her leg in her binding, then she could ski without any problem.

After getting back to Nigeria I went back directly into work mode 24/7, there is nothing else to do when you are 7 days in quarantine until you are tested free for Covid. I already had it very cold for some days with flares but thought it was getting used to air-conditioning again but the evening before I started to feel bad. I got headaches, dripping nose, coughing and not able to sleep. I did not sleep for 3 nights. I felt so bad, so tired, so miserable. The highlight was celebrating my birthday, feeling shitty from covid in quarantine in Lagos. This is a birthday to never ever forget. Yes, I am vaccinated twice and for sure this helped me to get already antibodies in my system. But covid can be bad, I had it badly. I could not even walk to the bathroom without being exhausted. I was freezing cold, then soaking warm. I felt like shit. So do not underestimate the impact even if everybody says and states that you will not get it badly, when you get vaccinated. I know it can be much worse than what happened to me. But please even if you’re fully vaccinated, be careful and stay safe.

In the meantime, I’m back in Austria, again, and we have Sanneke and Joe-Ann here for a week. We arrived the same day a week ago. Viv will write more about this in the next blog. The weather is unpredictable, almost like four seasons in one day. We went for some nice hikes, I worked three days, Jack was working, Robin was working here too, but the rest of the family is enjoying themselves with all kind of things. I’m also re-arranging the garage, building closets and clearing out stuff. Decluttering feels so good. In the evenings we play “boeren bridge”, we taught San and Joe this game, but they use the rules more as they like, now we give them minus points, hopefully they stop with being creative the wrong way, hahaha.

Stay safe everyone!