Sunday morning I found myself in a queue at customs, Calais France….
I was travelling back to the UK for a very short visit to get my hair done and also do some shopping…
This is a journey I’ve done countless of times in the past…
However this time I was really worried…
In fact,
- I could feel my heart racing…
- I was beginning to sweat…
- And I felt very nervous…
Everybody including Dave had told me that I should not risk it..
What was going on?
This saga all began on Saturday…
I had my train ticket pre-booked…
The only thing left to do was fill out a special form online because of the coronavirus…
Whilst filling out this form they asked for my passport details…
When it came to putting in the expiry date I realised my passport had expired!!
In fact it had expired over a month earlier…
And because of the coronavirus I had completely forgotten to renew my passport…
I tried phoning up the passport office in the UK but couldn’t get through…
On the Eurotunnel website they said you cannot travel without a valid passport!!
Since I couldn’t get anybody on the phone to ask what I should do…
I thought I would just drive to Calais and get their advice on what I should do…
Now bearing in mind Calais is about a 300 mile car journey…
However I realised this was a good opportunity to catch up on some Internet marketing training material…
I always like to use time in the car like this…
Whenever I have a long journey planned, I download loads of videos and audios..
I then just listen to the audio section through my car stereo system…
This is particularly useful if you’ve got a three-day workshop you want to listen to…
To be honest I very rarely get time to listen to these at home….
So the thought of having to drive 300 miles….
And then another 300 miles back home didn’t really seem a big deal to me…
After about three hours of driving I got thinking….
Sometimes it’s better to beg forgiveness then ask permission!!!
What if they didn’t check my passport and just waved me through??
If they did stop me I could just plead ignorance…
What’s the worst that could happen?
So that’s exactly what I did!!
When you enter the channel tunnel complex the first thing you do is print out your ticket…
Because of the coronavirus the machines were out of action so I had to drive up to a window…
The French woman behind the glass asked for my passport!!
I just smiled and handed it to her…
She then took my passport and scanned it with a computer!!
I could see my photo come up on her computer screen!!
At that moment I really thought I was done for!
Surely the computer would sound an alert that my passport was out of date!!
She took the passport out of the reader…
And studied it with great detail, and then compared the photo to my face…
She then handed me back my passport and told me to proceed!!
I then drove forward to the UK customs, basically the UK border…
Once you get through this, you can drive onto the train..
When the train gets a UK, you simply drive off the train straight onto the motorway/highway.
In other words there is no other customs or passport checks once you get off the train…
Now here’s the weird thing…
The man behind the glass at the UK border did exactly the same thing…
- Scanned my passport…
- Studied the photo..
- Compared it to my face…
- Then handed my passport back to me and told me to proceed…
I could hardly believe it….
I made it to UK safe and sound…
But then it dawned on me that I had an out of date passport!
How would I get back to France…
So first thing Monday morning I got some passport photos done…
Then applied online for a new passport….
Unfortunately all the FastTrack options are currently suspended due to coronavirus!
So who knows how long it will take before my new passport turns up?
I guess I’m going to be stuck here in the UK for the next four or five weeks…
I think in life we sometimes have preconceptions of the way things have to be done…
Sometimes it’s worth trying something different…
For instance most people think you have to build a huge email list to be successful online…
Did you know you can make over six figures per year from a list of just 200 people!!
I’ve made a video explaining a little bit more about it…
Click here to watch the video 🙂
Since I’m going to be here in the UK for several weeks I’m going to use this time to my advantage…
Catch up with some old friends…
I’ve also got a scratch on my car that needs fixing…
Because my car is a Tesla I didn’t want to take into the local garage in rural France!!
So this is something I’ve been putting off for a long time.
Next week I am planning to take my car to a specialist body shop in Battersea to have the scratch removed…
The other thing I’ve started doing is sorting out my storage unit I have in London…
I’ve got loads of A/V equipment, projectors screens and PA equipment i need to get rid of.
If you’re based in the London area,
and you are in need of any A/V equipment for putting on events drop me a line…
I’m giving some stuff away for free, and some stuff I am selling...
Have a great weekend whatever you’re doing,
Sarah Staar
PS: Did you know you can make over six figures per year from a list of just 200 people!!
I’ve made a video explaining a little bit more about…