A year like no other

Of course there have been many moments of crisis in human history. It is no coincidence that in popular culture the four horsemen of the apocalypse were dubbed War, Famine, Pestilence and Death, and 2020 has provided a sharp reminder that technological ingenuity can only provide a partial panacea. Death and Pestilence have run roughshod across across the planet, while their compatriots skulked in the background; small wars broke out  in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ethiopia; closer to home, Marcus Rashford reminded us that children going hungry is not merely some distant third world issue. . 

What has made this year unique is the extent to which our attempt to 'control the virus' has affected the minutiae of everyday life. It is not difficult to find precedents for limits on travel or the imposition of curfews - in times of plague, war or totalitarianism. Where this year has been 'like no other' is the extent we have readily accepted legal restrictions on the intimacies of social space. I cannot think of an example from the past where social gatherings have been so micro-managed, from the imposition of the 'two metre rules, to complicated and ever-changing regulations about who can meet with whom and what constitutes a household. Who could have guessed this time last year that the word 'bubble' would become a verb?

Around  New Year I usually do a bit of arithmetic and tally-up our travels over the previous twelve months, updating the spreadsheet I have kept since we retired.

As you might expect we have spent fewer days on the road than in recent years, but surprisingly given the circumstances we still managed three months of wandering about. Half of those were in January and February before Covid went global, then we took the opportunity in the autumn to snatch six weeks in Italy when infections were declining both here and in Europe. What went by the board was our mantra about visiting new places; on the whole we followed familiar roads, though in the autumn circumstances were such that even familiar places seemed slightly odd. 

In past years there have always been stand-out moments or new discoveries to treasure. In 2020 those have been few and far between. Perhaps the crystal clear winter days we spent around Sagres in early January will remain memorable.

The drive from Beas de Granada to the Capo de Gata across the Tabernas desert, in scintillating light, with the snow-clad peaks of the Sierra Nevada gleaming to the south, that too was a wonder to behold, reinforcing our belief that Iberia is the only place in Europe where you can capture the grandeur of an American style road trip.

Tuscany in autumn was oddly subdued. Italy without the habitual street theatre of the everyday simply did not seem right. We avoided cities and eating out, compensating for the gastronomic deficit by almost daily visits to gelateria. Maybe delicious ice-cream is destined to be the abiding memory of the trip.

So far as 2021 is concerned, finally we have become reconciled to the prospect of being holed-up in Buxton until late March or early April. With over 53,000 new cases of Covid reported today a second national lockdown seems inevitable. The more virulent strain of Covid which emerged in the Southeast during November has spread across the UK, and with smaller outbreaks occurring beyond our shores most countries are banning British visitors. Amongst all of this, the new restrictions on European travel due to Brexit seem almost a side issue, January 1st will come and go and no tourists will be there to grumble about border controls at Dover. As it stands Kent seems like an exotic destination given that Macclesfield, twelve miles away in Cheshire, is off-limits. Our horizons shrink day by day.

My brooding sense of claustrophobia has been amplified today with the first significant snowfall of the winter. It looks very seasonal, but I would rather be staring at the sparkly Med than the Peak District in monochrome.

Finally, I have accepted the inevitable and changed our crossing to Santander from January 19th to March 23rd, hopefully the situation will be much improved by then and the pair of us will have been vaccinated. All we need to do between now and then is to find a way of staying sane during the most dismal months of the year with no immediate prospect of getting out and about.

Meanwhile, all that remains to be said is to wish everyone who reads our blog all the best for 2021, stay safe, keep well - better days lie ahead, even though our freedom to wander around Europe as we wish has been somewhat curtailed.

In pursuit of the uncertainty principle

Finally, I've caved, no amount of scenario modelling, contingency planning or nocturnal machinations will enable us to 'game the system' to ensure we are somewhere in the sunny south by mid-January. The combination of the effects of a mutating virus, chaotic government and the likelihood of a period in January where  'no deal' chaos reigns means it is impossible to second guess tomorrow never mind next month.

Last Wednesday Boris called a news conference asserting it would be 'inhuman' to cancel Christmas, three days later he did exactly that citing the virus mutation as the game-changer. Within 24hrs most of the near continent closed its borders to travellers from the UK, France going one step further, banning all HGV traffic too. The result, early onset no deal Brexit...

Whereas we had been gearing up for seven of us to be gathered here at Christmas, now there will be four. At least we managed to post Matthew, Laura and Connor's presents to them in time for them to arrive before the 25th. Now plans centre around scheduling Zoom calls to fit everyone's Yuletide habits. Mid afternoon could be a good common time. Let's face it, we Turpies are individualists with very different personalities, however there is no way any of us could be deemed monarchists, 3pm is definitely a possibility Zoom-wise. Anyway, a useful précis of this year's Queen's speech has already been leaked on Facebook.

The other day I found myself ruminating about how the pandemic has been a gift to the Tories. Their hold on power is strengthened by playing on people's fears, prejudices and anxieties. It is difficult not to  conclude that the government's messaging is a clever mix of fact and fiction using inconsistency as a ploy to wrong foot critics. Maybe I have simply become cynical and curmudgeonly, I wondered. Then the next day's Guardian articulated a similar thought much better than I ever could:

"The virus thrives on indecision. Johnson’s method is effective for one thing, though: it guarantees a sustained pitch of political drama, with the figure of the prime minister lit centre stage. It forces the nation to hang on his word, waiting for him to act, while the consequences of his inaction play out. That bathes him in an aura of power, but it is not leadership." Rafael Behr

In the meantime the rain pours down, darkness falls by early afternoon, people get on with life as best they can hoping for better times. Hardly  the promised  sunny uplands. Buxton, December, early afternoon, the Gregg's socially distanced lunch queue... says it all really.

I know, from a personal view point our 2020 has been uneventful in comparison to others. No-one in the family  succumbed to the virus, no one has been furloughed or suffered redundancy, none of our kids is a front line worker, all of them can work from home. As for us, we managed a two month trip to Iberia last January and February and escaped for six weeks to Italy in the early autumn. Our big building project over the summer was challenging, but was finished on time without a major hitch. It's important to acknowledge the positives. Still, I am a traveller, happiest with the thought that next week I will be elsewhere, these days of lockdown will pass. As soon as we can head off again we will.