It's official

Yesterday Boris announced that it is now safe for us to travel to many countries, Italy included.  Of course Mr FF had anticipated this happening and made a booking early in the week for us to start our journey tomorrow.  We leave early in the morning for the midday crossing, we don't even have to get out of the car, just drive onto the train, sit and wait, drive off again in France.
We have booked two nights accommodation en route, one in the Champagne region one near Lake Como.  Both are small family run establishments each with only 3 letting rooms, we imagine we will be the only guests, we will have our meals there, probably outside and follow all the rules.  We are happy to support these small enterprises rather than stay in chain hotels, particularly at this time.  
We have sanitiser and masks, we will take our own lunches, drinks and snacks for the journey, we are doing everything we can to be safe although toilet stops might be a challenge.
Once we arrive at our house, which is fairly isolated, we shall be fine and fully occupied with the garden that has been neglected for 8 months.
I had a message from a friend in the village last week saying that she and her family had taken a walk up to our house and seen a grey cat they thought was Grigio.  I do hope it is her, she will have been waiting since last November for us, bless, or maybe just waiting for Mario to turn up to fill the feeder. I can see me being outside all night calling her if she isn't around when we arrive. 
So there we are.  Today we have all the madness of packing, sorting the penthouse, moving plants, eating too much because we want to empty the freezer, though quite a lot is being given away.   I hate this last day when home isn't home any more but it will be fantastic to get to Lazio and relax.
And the icing on the cake.  I phoned my hairdresser to cancel my mid July appointment, he asked when we were leaving and said I could go this evening for a haircut.  Perfect, its not going to be the usual relaxing pamper but at least I won't have to cross Europe wearing a hat.