Getting the household ready for summer

It’s early June, the first weekend that has felt properly like summer, and you realise - somewhere in the supermarket, or putting away the school shoes - that you go away in seven weeks. The trip felt months off in March, and isn’t anymore. There’s a small pause while you try to remember whether the passports are in date, whether the car got its service in spring, whether the cat sitter is actually booked or only mentioned in passing back in February. None of it is urgent yet.

The week before a trip is rarely stressful because of the trip. It’s stressful because of the admin that’s much easier to do in early June - when nothing is time-critical, GP appointments are still available and garage diaries are still empty - that gets pushed forwards into the only week of the year it’s actually possible to fail at. What follows is the small list that, done now, turns the week before going away into a packing problem rather than a sprint.

Passports

The passport is the most expensive item on the list to get wrong, because it’s the only one that can stop the trip happening at all.

Two checks. First, when does each passport in the household expire? The practical date isn’t the printed expiry - it’s the expiry minus six months. Most of the EU under Schengen, plus a long list of countries elsewhere, won’t let you in if your passport has less than three or six months left on the day of travel. Check the rules for your destination on gov.uk’s foreign travel advice pages.

Second, if you do need to renew, do it now. The Passport Office publishes its current turnaround on gov.uk; the figure is reasonably stable until late spring, but from June onwards the queues lengthen and the fast-track and premium services book out. By July, the cost of forgetting in February is hundreds of pounds and an in-person appointment at a Passport Office; by early June, it’s £88.50 and a wait.

Travel insurance

If you travel more than twice a year, an annual policy almost always works out cheaper than buying single-trip cover each time. If you’ve got one already, check the renewal date; auto-renewal almost always costs more than re-shopping, and the renewal email arrives in the inbox a few weeks before, when it’s easy to ignore.

Three things worth checking on any policy: the medical cover limit (at least £2 million in Europe, £5 million elsewhere is the usual guidance), the per-claim excess (some policies are competitive on premium but heavy on excess), and any pre-existing conditions, which need declaring or the policy doesn’t pay out.

If you’re going to Europe, apply for or renew the free Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) at nhs.uk - it replaces the old EHIC and gives you state-provided emergency healthcare in EU countries on the same basis as a local. It isn’t a substitute for travel insurance, but it covers the part travel insurance is most expensive at.

Vaccinations and prescriptions

If you’re going somewhere that needs vaccinations, ring the GP this week rather than next month. Some vaccines need to be given six weeks before travel to be effective, some need a course of doses spaced apart, and some surgeries don’t do travel vaccinations at all - they refer you to a private travel clinic, which is another lead time on top.

While you’re at it: if you take a repeat prescription, work out how much you’ll need for the trip and request it early. Pharmacies are busy in summer, repeat turnaround can drift from 48 hours to a week, and getting a prescription dispensed in another country is harder and more expensive than people expect.

Driving abroad

If you’re hiring a car, check whether the country needs an International Driving Permit - some still do, including a couple in the EU. They cost £5.50 from the Post Office and have to be issued in person, so don’t leave it to the day before.

If you’re taking your own car, check three things: that the insurance policy covers driving in the country you’re going to (some cover only the EU; some cover only third-party abroad), that you have the V5C log book with you, and that the car has a UK identifier on the back. Number plates with the UK identifier built in don’t need a separate sticker; older GB stickers are no longer valid in many countries.

The car itself

A service booked in April or May is meaningfully cheaper, and easier to get into the diary, than the same service in the last week of July. If yours hasn’t been done since the last MOT, book it now.

Four things worth checking yourself, none of which need tools:

Tyres. The legal minimum tread is 1.6mm; the safer figure for long motorway runs in heat is closer to 3mm. Check pressure cold, against the number on the inside of the driver’s door.
Oil and coolant. Dipstick on level ground, engine cool, top up if low. Coolant is the translucent reservoir under the bonnet, marked min/max - don’t open it when the engine is hot.
Screenwash. The thing you’ll regret not topping up the first time you hit a country lane of insects.
Air conditioning. Run it on the coldest setting now, before you need it. If it’s blowing warm, the re-gas wants doing this month, not in the queue at the garage the day before you leave.

The house while you’re gone

The bits that get forgotten because they’re not strictly travel:

A timer switch or two, set for the evenings.
Stopping the post, or asking a neighbour to pick it up - an envelope-stuffed letterbox is the clearest possible signal that nobody’s home.
A trusted neighbour with a key, your number, and a written note of where the stopcock is in case something leaks while you’re away.
A check that home insurance still covers the property over the length of the trip. Many policies cap unoccupied-house cover at 30 or 60 consecutive days, after which cover lapses unless you’ve notified the insurer. Five-minute call before you go.

The list looks long partly because it is, and partly because every item sits in a different category - travel documents, health, insurance, motoring, security - which means it lives in a different place in your house, your inbox or your head.

This is the kind of work Oosby is built to hold. If the passport expiry, the travel insurance renewal, the car service date and the home insurance details are all in one place, “getting ready for summer” stops being an annual sprint and becomes the thing you check in early June, tick three of, schedule two more, and stop thinking about.

The trip is in seven weeks. There is plenty of time. The point of doing it now is so that the week before it, you’re packing.