Where has time gone

Sarah Newton on 23 March 2020
Where has the time gone? So it’s been a little while since my last blog, yes yes 2 years to be exact ??, but now travel is opening back up again I thought it was time for an update! Covid has affected everyone over the last two years but none more so than the travel industry. However, throughout the pandemic I have been busy ensuring my customers could still dream of a well-earned break somewhere – whether abroad or in this country. Of course, whilst travel abroad was not permitted during the various lockdowns, I was helping customers with their existing bookings making sure we could move them to hopefully a time when travel was permitted. This proved to be quite a challenge but one I was determined to do to ensure there was hope at the end of the pandemic. Unfortunately, there were lots of bookings that I moved more than once but I am glad to say that I managed to do this and keep the holiday dream alive for so many of you. With going in and out of lockdowns, so many things changed and the government advice on travel once it started to be permitted was very confusing and constantly changing. I did my best to keep up with this and managed to advise my customers on what was required, mainly the varying testing requirements which was confusing all round! However, I had customers that successfully made it away in between lockdowns to various locations abroad which was so pleasing to see. I loved receiving the feedback and wonderful photographs from customers enjoying a break from the stress of the pandemic. I successfully sent customers to such places as Canaries, Balearics, Turkey & Cyprus to name a few! It wasn’t just about being able to get people on a plane and abroad, with all the restrictions I was also having to be creative and find the ideal break in the UK as well. With no foreign travel permitted, UK breaks were becoming extremely popular and in high demand. I was able though to book some wonderful holidays in the UK and with the lovely weather we had during the lockdowns these were just as good, if not better, than a foreign escape. This country has so much to offer and again, I loved receiving feedback and photographs from around the country from places such as The Lake District, Shropshire, Cornwall & The Cotswolds. Away from sending customers on holiday, what else have I been up to during the pandemic? Well working from home and being a Mum of three lovely children, I also had to become teacher too. My husband was on the essential workers list so had to go in every day leaving me to organise the kids ‘school’ days. So the morning would exist of setting up laptops, phones, tablets etc to log into the various lessons they had planned….. all before turning my own laptop on and getting stuck into moving holidays around for my customers. Fortunately, my husband managed to juggle his hours and be at home every Friday allowing me a little bit of respite! As the world changed and more people were working from home, there was also an increase in home offices appearing in people’s gardens…. After unfortunately not being able to keep my office on at the Grove Business Park, I didn’t want to be left out, So I managed to set one up myself and now have my very own home office, known as ‘The Cabin’! This is a lovely space for me to be able to separate work and home life and a comfortable space for me to be able to meet customers in person now. I did also manage to get away for some breaks within lockdown as restrictions eased but won’t go into those here, so look out for some following blogs! So that’s a brief update on the last two years, what a journey it’s been for us all! I hope you are all keeping well, and I look forward to catching up with old customers as well as welcoming new customers as life begins to get back to the ‘new normal’.