Arezzo-Edinburgh: one-way ticket

Thinking back to 2020 still hurts and still causes a sense of confusion and fear. In January 2020, with the team of wedding planners, we went to London for a business weekend. Rumours were already starting to circulate about this virus that was spreading in China, which was highly lethal and whose origin was unknown, nor how to cure it. I remember perfectly that on the plane I saw Chinese tourists with masks and a shiver ran down my spine. But my mind, which always sees the glass half full, led me to think positively: "no, nothing this serious can happen, not in our days".

But things started to get worse in February; the virus was spreading rapidly around the world, until it reached Italy. From there, panic ensued. In March, it was clear that we were in a full-blown health emergency. The news was disastrous from all over the world. Quarantines began and borders were closed, not only at a national level, but at the level of individual municipalities. We could no longer move, we were locked up at home, helpless and stunned. All events were obviously suspended, but the most devastating thing was that we didn't know how long this situation would last. It could last weeks, months or years...we lived in absolute uncertainty.

Denis and I lived in Arezzo and, luckily for us, we had a garden where we could go out and get some fresh air. Consuelo had moved to live in Edinburgh in January and she was in lockdown too. The world had stopped. There were no more people around, the shops and restaurants were all closed, the cars were all parked in the garages, nature was taking its revenge.

We spent the whole Spring of 2020 in lockdown, locked in the house, in front of the TV waiting for positive news, which never arrived. Denis and I began to feel quite worried; we both lived for events/weddings and we had the feeling that this phase of uncertainty would last a long time. So we began to think about alternatives and one of these was to consider moving permanently to Scotland. Now that the world of events had stopped we could finally make our dream come true. We began to think about it more and more seriously, as the weeks went by.

Consuelo started looking for a house for the three of us. The housing market was quite limited, due to Covid. Edinburgh was our first choice. There was a lot of competition and the rent prices were quite high. Furthermore, not all the owners were willing to rent to people with pets, and we had 3 cats. We searched far and wide, through agencies and private individuals. Consuelo looked at three or four houses, and in the end we found the one that suited us: a terraced house in a nice neighborhood, in the west end of Edinburgh. It also had a small garden, which didn’t hurt. On the first day of July 2020, Consuelo moved into the house.

Denis and I were still in lockdown in Italy, waiting for flights to Scotland to be unblocked. In mid-July it was possible to take a flight to Edinburgh and I booked it with a departure in early August and return after 3 weeks. In the meantime I had already sent my CV to Scotland and had already scheduled a couple of interviews that would have been held in August. We would be leaving Italy with a heavy heart, but we knew that if we wanted to move to Scotland permanently, we had to do it by 2020, Brexit was looming.

I spent three wonderful weeks in Edinburgh with Consuelo. The house was comfortable and located close to the city centre. You could easily walk to Princes Street in 15 minutes; nearby there was also a beautiful tree-lined pedestrian path that led to the sea. Supermarkets of all kinds were nearby, in short, everything was OK, we had made a happy choice. In the meantime I had already had two job interviews, one of which on the island of Mull, which had gone well. The owner had given me the OK to start as a Restaurant manager, so the job problem was also solved. It was now a matter of seeing how it went with Covid in the coming months. The situation was still very uncertain and in the UK there was talk of a new imminent lock down.

Back in Italy, Denis and I decided to move to Scotland starting in October. We therefore had to organize the move from Arezzo to Edinburgh, and it wasn’t easy. Plus, we had three cats to move. We found an English removals agency that came to pick up all our things in mid-September; we had entrusted a lot of the furniture, the books, to Antonella and Massimo. I would leave by plane in early October, while Denis would join me by car, ten days later. He would drive, together with his friend Mario, from Arezzo to Edinburgh to transport our 3 cats. A journey of hope, as they say. Seeing our house in Tuscany half empty before leaving made us sad, but, at the same time, we were super excited for this new adventure, the one we had already dreamed of ten years earlier.

On October 5, 2020, Denis accompanied me to the airport in Bologna, where the plane to Edinburgh was waiting for me. It wasn't a sad goodbye; on the contrary, we knew that in a few days we would be reunited to start a new life. However, the news about the pandemic was not good, both in Italy and in the UK. There was a new wave of Covid coming and we would surely be in lockdown again soon. I only hoped that Denis would be able to arrive in time, otherwise it would have been chaos.

In the end, Denis left with his friend Mario who cae from Apulia and 3 cats in 3 carriers. They drove non-stop for 26 hours, from Tuscany to Edinburgh, passing through France and England, via Manica Tunnel. They arrived in Edinburgh in the middle of the night, exhausted but happy. I still remember the long hug between me and Denis when he arrived. That hug said it all: “I’m here, I made it. Now we are ready for this new chapter of our life that we had dreamed of so much.” It was October 14, 2020.