New wounds and travel into Ukraine (UKR1)

I haven’t posted much recently largely because I haven’t had much to say, but ‘times, they are a changing’ With a very concerning war in the Balkans and me feeling like the home guard, I made it known at work that I wasn’t feeling overemployed. That could be a dangerous thing, of course, as it could attract the award of the DCM (Don’t Come Monday), but my employer luckily took it as a show of willingness and promised that there would be something active for me to do in the near future.

Sticking my head up and over the proverbial parapet led to me joining a number of WhatsApp groups and I could see that my colleagues had recently bailed out of the Ukraine, just ahead of the shelling. They had been there to evacuate the local employees of a global client, but the employees had decided that they wanted to stay put. It was very clear however, that there were a whole lot of our clients whose people who did want to get out.

My part in all this started with a wonky door.  The dogs (and there have been a number lodging at the house recently) had discovered that there was a ‘sweet spot’ on the back door that when hit with the front paws at a full gallop, would swing open and they would have full access to the cat food bowls and any food item or tasty smelling shoe that we’d been daft enough to leave unattended.   Soft toys and kids socks had been savaged and I had dodged the entreaties of Mrs. Jerry to do something about it for long enough.

I examined the door and admired the nice stained-glass panel that somehow had survived the not so tender ministrations of our family and quickly ascertained that the root cause of the door problem was loose screws in the doorframe.  I have mentioned before that we live in an old house (by Australian standards) and most of the door hinges had been replaced several times over the years.  That meant that there were many screw holes that were no longer usable and the old standby of pushing a matchstick in the hole before screwing the hinge on just wasn’t cutting it anymore.  I purchased new hinges and set myself up in the tiled boot room to work on what was shaping up to be a really nice day.

I unscrewed the top screws and the bottom ones just pulled straight out. Sighing, I propped up the door against the wall and finding a clear area of wood in the frame, I marked out the new holes, drilling pilot holes and then fixing the hinge to the door and married up the new holes in the frame.  The smallest and naughtiest of the dogs made an end run around my legs and clipping the door, sent it slowly but inexorably falling towards me.   Somehow, I sensed it coming towards my head and almost at the same time as it crashed into me, my hand reflexively shot up to protect my skull and the glass sliced a large chunk out of my knuckle.  It bled spectacularly but aside from hurting like a bastard; didn’t seem too bad.  I roughly dressed the cut, finished the hanging of the door, mopped up the blood and went to check my email.

Like most people over the last two years, I have been working from home and apart from a couple of business trips domestically, work has been fairly pedestrian.  One email did catch my eye however and it was from Frank (yes, the Frank of the blue suit story) and Frank was in the Ukraine, preparing to evacuate any of our client’s local staff who needed to get out of dodge in the face of the Russian invasion.  Things were turning nasty and he gave me a heads up that I’d probably be getting a short notice movement order to get myself over to Eastern Europe.  Sure enough, there was message 30 minutes later telling me to get on the first plane to Poland.  For me, in reality that was going to be the following night, but it still didn’t give me a lot of time to sort out all the personal admin I needed to close out before I could get on a flight.

The next morning, my knuckle was throbbing but it had at least stopped bleeding and I launched myself into a list of jobs that needed to be done before I could leave with a clear conscience.  Of course, rushing through a list of jobs with #2 son as my trusty assistant isn’t sensible when you’ve got a wounded paw and it wasn’t long before I whacked the finger and burst the freshly healing scab.  This time, there was no staunching the bleeding and I got #2 son to drive me to the emergency room.    

With only three hours to go before my taxi to the airport left the house, I decided to go to the private hospital in town and miss out on the usual two hours of being left in soak by the nurses at the public hospital to see if I was exhibiting drug seeking behaviour and so I paid my $230 examination fee.  After 45 minutes, I was taken into an examination room and my very rough dressing was removed.  ‘That’ll need some stitches then’ the nurse said.  No shit, I thought.  I was ushered back into the waiting room and told that I’d be seen soon.  I could count six people ahead of me and given that patience was eluding me that day, I got my money back from the hospital and I had my press-ganged chauffeur take me to the hardware store, where I bought some super glue.

Borne out of the hubris of the middle aged DIY’er, I glued the wound, slapped a plaster on it, kissed the family and hopped into the cab. The flight actually wasn’t bad, although I did end up doing babysitting duty for a very nice Scottish lady sitting next to me whose irascible toddler refused to stay asleep when she had to nap or nip to the loo, which seemed to be rather too often until I noticed she returned with an odour of hastily quaffed white wine each time.  I certainly couldn’t blame her, having left my own wife and kids to the kindness of strangers on planes many times over the years.  The kind hostess donated a few glasses of red as compensation and eventually, we got to Dubai.    

I switched on my phone and lo and behold, there was change of plan… I was to complete my Polish flights, reunite with my luggage, stop at the airport and then go straight to Romania, all without collecting 200 quid. 

There was however, the small matter of my now rapidly swelling and throbbing finger.  It was looking like an angry plum and it didn’t take long for me to convince the Filipina pharmacist near the departure gate that I probably needed some antibiotics. She agreed and I loaded up on the strongest they would sell me.

I had begun to feel a little bit lousy and after a bit of a hike across Dubai airport, I was getting cranky and was very ready to be in my seat, albeit one at the back of the plane and so it was a nasty surprise when the boarding pass for my carefully chosen aisle seat was torn up.  I was about to growl at the ground staff when I saw that a boarding pass of a different colour was being printed out.  Somehow, economy was overbooked and due only to my historical frequent flyer status, I was getting an upgrade. Wonders would never cease.

When I landed in Bucharest, there was a mass scramble towards the automated gates that allowed people with the appropriate passports and Covid 19 clearances to get out of the airport quickly. I had thought that I did but oh no, I needed to join a distressingly long queue to obtain a local certificate. They were not impressed with my Rapid Antigen Test result that was processed at the airport in Oz, but thankfully, they accepted my proof of two vaccinations plus the booster icon on my phone.

It was -1 degree and snowing outside of the terminal but an Uber got me away from the airport with a minimum of fuss and into a very nice city centre hotel.

Nodding off as I had dinner with the team that night, I began to wonder what the next few weeks had in store for us. I knew had to coordinate local fixers, drivers with vehicles and potentially tens of dozens of people, all trying to escape the fighting. I’ll let you know how I go!