Home Sweet Home

Finally leaving Nigeria came pretty unexpected. Suddenly AirFrance announced 3 flights in consecutive weeks starting from June 20th and the last flight on July 2nd. We decided to take the last one with the idea that somewhere late July but latest in August normal flights to Nigeria would resume. So this would allow us to come back on a regular flight to Nigeria. The good thing of these flights were that they were organised by AirFrance and that because of that dogs were allowed. So we got what we wanted and could take Ayo with us. Arriving at the airport we were already warned that it would be chaotic. You needed to wait and queu outside. Only passengers were allowed in the terminal and because of that you needed to carry your own suitcases. In Europe this would not be such a big thing. You put them on a trolley and there you go. However trollies do not exist in Nigeria. My lovely wife had decided that all her Corona Blankets which she had crocheted during the lockdown needed to go to the Netherlands as well as lots of clothes and shoes. So we ended up with 6 suitcases, backpacks, dog bag for in the cabin and a bag with drinks and food for in the plane. Luckily we saw NB support and collegues in the row and we bypassed everybody and joined them. This sounds easy but social distancing with 6 suitcases and bypassing a huge queue with agitated people all very determined to leave did not help us to make any new friends. 

When we made it to the check in, we ended up in a typical Nigerian situation. Yes, we had booked the flights to Amsterdam with change over in Paris, but no, our bags were not possible to check through directly and we needed to pick them up and deliver them again in Paris at the counter. We said no, since we had booked a connecting flight and expected that it would be solved. Groundstaff came up with a great solution. We could book all suitcases on 1 ticket because for the ticket without a dog it could be done. Oh yes, only downside we needed to pay for an additional 3 suitcases at 600 Euro…… After friendly refusing this, we finally solved it without an issue. We thought! But then the next hurdle appeared. Ayo our dog was not allowed in the cabin according to her collegue. Also this was easy to solve. We could check him in as luggage and he could fly in the luggage space in the belly of the plane! In the end when we have KLM issues we call our friend Remco. He works for KLM Nigeria and is extremely helpful and patient and always helps us to solve things. Also this time he managed and yes we were off. Next hurdle bordercontrol, this went by uneventful, except forgetting our tickets with them, but that is nothing compared to our previous flight where Vivienne lost her passport or was it me losing her passport? They X-rayed all our handluggage and all was fine. This was remarkable since there was at least 6 cans/bottles of drinks in our bags. We had taken them with us since we had understood that drinks in the planes would be limited or not available and it was gonna be a long journey and lots of vendors at the airport were still closed. Final checkpoint was boarding the plane. Also here they check your luggage again and suddenly the drinks were a big problem. We were not allowed to take them and they needed to be confiscated. Until I told the man in charge that he couldn't keep it, because it was on the website that we could take them on board, this was a quick little lie of course. And by magic we could take it all into the plane. Welcome to Nigeria, the country where simple things can get very complicated and impossible things are possible.

We were flying with AirFrance to Amsterdam via Benin and Paris. This was almost 24 hours door2door. Face masks obligatory at the airport and on board of the aircraft, which is a long time. At the airport in Benin the crew changed and we were waiting on board with no drinks, no air conditioning, not allowed to move around, but when you then arrive in the Paris and a few hours later in Amsterdam suddenly it all feels like a piece of cake. We took a taxi home and it was great to be back with Noa, Hugo Jack and Ailsa in Zoeterwoude.

The first 2 weeks after that, we were in quarantine, except the second night when Ard, Louise, Annabelle and Fleur came by. When they left Viv and I got the riot act from our children. We were not used yet to the Dutch version of social distancing but had not realised that it was this hard. During our quarantaine we only cycled and walked around Zoeterwoude. We discovered all kind of nice areas and places around our village. Almost like being on holiday in your home village.

During our quarantaine I kept on working from Zoeterwoude. It is a little bit more unorganised and hectic to work in a house with 6 adults and 2 dogs. Finally after 2 weeks we were released and we went on a shopping spree. After almost 6 months of being deprived from going to any shop, you can imagine that even going to the Jumbo was a feast. From the discovering Zoeterwoude tour we had realised that upgrading our bikes was very necessary, so we decided to buy ebikes. On our first journey, from Rotterdam to Zoeterwoude Viv crashed into a pole on the side of the street. She was a little banged up, but despite some bumps and scratches she was very happy with the new bikes. This allowed us to make some nice tours. We biked to Rotterdam, Noordwijk and went to the beach. The ebikes we bought in Rotterdam and while going there to pick them up Viv had found a brilliant Art Gallery with the name Willem Schildert Rotterdam. (www.willem-bijl.nl). Willem paints beautiful abstract paintings of Rotterdam.

The next weekend we went with Pieter and Tineke to Zeeland. We stayed in a very nice hotel in Bergen op Zoom and from there we visited Middelburg, Burgh Haamstede, Zierikzee and some other nice places. The week after that we celebrated my birthday and that of my mother (one day later) together with the Kleinjan family. It was very relaxed. Summer in the Netherlands has been extremely warm and luckily we had decided early in the year to make the house airconditioned as well as greener, so we also put the roof full with solarpanels. Technology is great, with all this machines running on apps now. It is unfortunate that when you want to switch on you airconditioning in the bedroom with the app and you can not find the right screen, only to discover after at least 20 minutes trying, checking the website etc, that you are in the app for the solar panels. So August had started and still no planes flying to Nigeria. How long would it take us to get back home to Nigeria?