Rules and regulations

Now that the quarantine laws are more relaxed and there is a Pets Passport system in place in Europe, to return with our cat who, as you can see, is completely unconcerned about the whole process, all we are responsible for is:

1. Checking the identity of our pet by scanning with a microchip reader (always handy to have one lying around).


2. Checking the pet passport presented relates to our pet, is valid and shows that our pet has successfully been vaccinated for rabies.


3. Checking that treatment for ticks and tapeworm has been carried out between 24 and 48 hours before check-in.

And with the third we have a problem.

We have our return booked for early afternoon on 15 July. We thought we would like to enjoy our town's Bastille Day celebrations before leaving - they are great fun.

We weren't particularly expecting the vet to be open on 14 July but on 13 July we did expect them to be working and as long as the treatments were given after 3:00 pm we should be fine. What we certainly didn't expect was the vet to say, "No we aren't open, but if you come in earlier I'll change the papers for you". We didn't expect it but somehow there is something not entirely surprising about it.

Now I just can't cope with that. I would spend the whole journey back looking over my shoulder for someone, anyone, coming to arrest me. Indeed it would probably be at least a whole year before I could relax in case anyone spotted some discrepancy on the passport.

So we're bringing our travel plans forward a day and will travel on Bastille Day. We'll be missing one set of fireworks in an effort to avoid a different set.