EHIC? What? Yeah I’d never heard of it either! It’s the artist formally known as the E111.
EHIC is the European Health Insurance Card and if you are travelling inside the European Economic Area (EEA) you need it to access free or reduced-cost emergency treatment.
We’re off to Majorca in September and having just read about holiday makers travel insurance not covering them in the absence of having a valid EHIC I have just applied for ours. Its free and should arrive in seven days so I thought I’d post this reminder and the link www.ehic.org.uk all you need are the names, date of births and National Insurance No’s or NHS numbers of all family members. Children and Babies NHS numbers are in the front of their “Red Books” but if you can’t find the kids don’t worry they can travel under the main applicants number.
Don’t not do it people! Hopefully no one has any experience and someone will find this useful? Anything to add – do leave a comment I love to hear from people passing by my blog.
To the two women at Costa Coffee, Terminal 3, Manchester Airport on Saturday 3rd July around 2pm.
Both of you are blonde “for the time being rather than naturally blonde” your hair and nails have been done you are flicking through a stack of magazines, sipping lattes and chatting. Me – hair not done, nails not even thought about, make up in my bag wishfully thought about, magazines a different lifetime ago. I have a toddler in a buggy and wearing my baby in a sling. Not chatting I’m directing a toddler in a hushed tone with “you can watch the planes from here.” Remember me yet?
OK see if this jogs your memory, toddler leaps from buggy which instantly falls backwards with a bang flicking tray of flapjack & diet coke bottle across Costa. Yes you and everyone stared. Yes I was embarrassed and yes I went red. I looked out the window with my children chatting about the planes, baggage trucks etc. Remember me yet? How about this I opened my bottle of diet coke forgetting it had hit the deck less than a minute earlier, it exploded and I am now the one in the diet coke soaked white shirt – aha – that’s right the one you two sniggered at.
Yeah that’s right my humiliation didn’t end there as whilst I was mid mopping up my toddler announced “I need a poo” which took you over the edge from merely sniggering to hysterical laughter as less than 10 minutes from arriving we left. So child-free ladies with your blonde-for-now hair & manicured nails if one day you are luckily enough to have children of your own, remember me and remember that you sniggered and laughed and remember that I rose above you.
I am pleased to report that the rest of our flight to Cornwall was event free and we had a great time – more details to follow in a post near this one very soon!
OK so first time abroad with kids and off we went to Egypt with Lil H 35 months and Baby G 5 months old. There were lots of things I was unsure about but my number one point of anxiety was sterilizing Baby G’s stuff. She’s a bottle fed girlie these days and I microwave/steam sterilize her bottles at home but this isn’t an option in a hotel room over 2,500 miles away from home!
I asked lots of people “how did you do it” and they just said its dead easy, a lot of people were self catering and used Disposable Sterilising Bags which didn’t help me. It was something I wanted some reassurance about and I was fretting a bit about but the reality was a doddle – it really, really was and I think that’s why there’s no information but as a mum doing it for the first time I was anxious about it.
So this post is for me one month ago because I’d have really appreciated it! So if someone out there is feeling like I did about going abroad and takling sterilizing without the home comforts of a microwave here for your delight is me in my hotel bathroom in Egypt!
A quick disclaimer – I had had a couple of beers in the sun – simples!
