We are getting back on the road…. it has been a tough interlude

We’re Ok but life has changed a lot, still finding a new balance.
Lockdown in India was really hard, then I was locked out of  Australia [9 months and 8 cancelled flights later ]…. and freaked out a little. I am a Grandma and that is a hands on connection, so I came alone and Praveen stayed in India to look after his family.
I run the workshop via zoom… they can’t escape me that easily 😜
Lucky me caught Covid leaving India but had no symptoms, shortly after arriving I got Q Fever little known and something to miss… it took many months last year to get over it. All going well now.
With the inital closing of the World we did not know how long it would take to open. We had had 2 very busy years in front of us with bookings and tours and started a mad scramble cancelling bookings and trying to get money back from all over the place to make refunds…
The process progressed through 2020… then our bank in India started being weird and blocking us from making refunds. We spent 2021 proving again and again who we were KYC- trying to get our refunds released. Sending money out of India is not an easy task for anyone- we have to submit 6 request letters to various departments, a letter from accountant showing how money came in and refund has to go back to exactly to the account it was sent from… weeks of finangling just to set up…then unresponsive bank manager …. so stressful and we felt horrible because it sounds like to you are making up stories.
What was happening? No idea still….finally Xmas Eve 2021 we squeezed a refund out through the bank.
Praveen is onto the manager every day or two- manager mostly does not answer the phone, though, so Praveen drives over to the bank to push…. slowly, slowly he is able to push the manager to process another refund.
This has been a nightmare and so stressful.
We have vouchers and credit all over the place because a lot could not send funds back to us, flight vouchers that don’t line up any more and are awaiting the processing of the last few refunds so Praveen can come to Oz for a while.

Australia is now my home base… after the bank fiasco we are basing CAS here as well- paperwork is so much easier, and unclear practices like the ones we have experienced with the Indian bank/Govt will not occur.
Praveen we need to go back and forth for a while until his family commitments are sorted more.
Our baby The Stitching Project can be managed via zoom and good staff.