22 months after last returning home from France, I am on my way over there again. There have been many occasions when I thought this might not eventuate, but now it seems like it's real. So, as mid-winter arrives in Taggerty and the wattle is making a pre-emptive attempt at pretending that it's almost Spring, I was ready to leave.

But this year, there were a few more things that had to be attended to before leaving, including:

- Getting an Australian Border Force Travel Exemption to enable me to leave Australia for at least 3 months - tick

- Getting two Covid vaccine shots - tick

- Getting a negative Covid test result, within 72 hours of leaving Australia - tick

- Suspending Medibank, Foxtel and Optus accounts for 3 months (saving about $2000) - tick

- All the usual things around the house including cleaning out the fridge and pantry, filling the water tank up the hill, turning off the hot-water heater, switching off all lights and appliances etc etc - tick

So now I was ready to go, and this year I was driven to the airport by Taggertarian Vicki Cooper, who in return will be borrowing my little tractor for 3 months while I'm away. Had a very chatty 2 hour drive to the airport, which as expected was virtually deserted. Only in Australia can you ask friends to drive 2 hours each way to drop you at the airport!

Before leaving I thought I would also just check to see if the barge was OK, using the webcam at Port Royal in Auxonne. But on calling up the webcam, focussing on Pontoon A and then scrolling down to where Kanumbra is moored, I found an empty space. At first, I panicked a little until I remembered that Kanumbra had been moved to Ste Jean de Losne to have some repairs and maintenance done before we arrived. Phew!

I later discovered that we had "dodged a bullet" on our trip through the Blacks Spur, which had recently been closed for several weeks after major storm damage, when I learned that soon after we went through, a car had gone over the edge on one of the numerous turns, and police had closed the road while it was recovered. Could have made it a very close thing if we had had to find an alternative longer route to get to the airport.

After a longer than usual check-in because of all the Covid formalities, I learned that I had dodged another bullet when one of the counter staff told us that the State Premier had just announced another Covid lockdown starting at midnight, because of new cases in Victoria arising from the Sydney outbreaks. If I was travelling tomorrow, I wouldn't have been travelling!!

All the paperwork and formalities went OK, except for the check-in staff and the departure lounge staff both telling me that I would have to fill in a Sworn Declaration on reaching France that I was not Covid affected etc etc, until they read to the end of the Advice to see that it didn't apply to arrivals from Green Zone Countries (of which Australia is one). I must admit I felt sorry for the staff, because these regulations are changing almost daily and they are different for every destination country. Don't know how they manage to keep a smile on their faces.

Eventually I went thought Customs Control (very quickly) and then though a deserted but functioning Duty Free Store to reach the Departure Lounge, which was equally deserted. Then onto the plane, which was only about 20% full, with all those travelling alone having an entire row to themselves. Looking forward to a good sleep on this flight.

We arrived in Singapore about 10pm (local time) to a very different Changi experience. Gone were the bustling crowds and the plethora of stores selling all and sundry. On leaving the plane, we received a wrist-band and were then led to a central holding area where all transiting passengers waited. The departing flights were then called out one by one as their departure time arrived, and you were then escorted as a group to the plane without any waiting in a normal departure lounge. The Paris-bound flight was about 50% full, as there seemed to be more family groups and they were allowed to sit together. But all sole travellers (like me) got their own row again, and this time I really was going to make the most of the horizontal sleeping opportunities.