Back in mid-November I must have been feeling naïvely optimistic, I booked a crossing from Portsmouth to Santander for January 19th figuring that it would be preferable to be locked-down somewhere warm and sunny than in the cold, rainy Pennines. Back then it was not a pipe-dream, friends who headed south in early December managed to dodge the restrictions on foriegn travel. We now receive a steady stream of pictures from the Costa Luz or Cabo de Gata of fellow travellers living an outdoorsy existence under bright blue skies.
By mid-December it was becoming clear that our window of opportunity had closed, so at some point between Christmas and New Year I changed the Brittany Ferry booking to 24th March. However, right now as I stare out of the window, storm 'Christos' soaking the the garden and the ash trees beyond blowing about like crazy, I am happily imagining feeling queasy on a ferry heading south across the tempetuous Bay of Biscay. However in reality it is difficult not to conclude that our new departure date in late March now seems as much a misapprehension as today's did two months ago.
So many unknowns - Covid cases do seem to have reached their peak here and the lockdown measures are working, but they are going have to be in place for weeks before any kind of normality returns. In many parts of Europe the spike we have experienced since the New Year has only just begun. Spain's measures are in place until May, no-one knows when we will be free to travel again.
Then on a more personal note, there is the question of our vaccinations. For once the government's plans seem to be on track and all over 70s will have received their first jab by mid February. We are in the following group, there is a realistic chance we might be vaccinated by mid March. Even so, we will probably have to adjust the Brittany Ferry booking yet again, as any change has to be made two weeks before the departure date, and since the vaccine can take up to three weeks to trigger anti-bodies we would still be unprotected if we headed off in late March.
This leaves us with a conundrum. Perhaps it would be nice to head for Northern Spain in mid-April for a six week trip. Even if travel is possible, tempting as it would be to spend May in Asturias and Galicia, we still would have had only one of our jabs, so maybe the most sensible thing to do would be to give up on going to Europe until the Autumn.
'Cornwall looks nice,' we keep telling ourselves as we watch, along with half the population, Rick Stein's 15 episode series showcasing its delights. The place does look glorious and, apart from one May Bank Holiday short break in the mid-nineties, we don't know Cornwall at all. I suppose the only downside is we will not be the only ones thinking this way. It could be packed, sites busy and its infamous narrow lanes jammed.
So, if we opted for a spring staycation that would mean changing our Santander crossing to the autumn. Yet again we would have to postpone our planned return to Greece. Frustrating, but perhaps sensible for now. Covid is not magically going to vanish later in the year, mass vaccinations will make it less deadly and not so prevalent, but the risk will not be eradicated nor restrictions removed entirely. Heading to Greece involves crossing six international borders unless you are prepared to pay for a return on the ferry from Italy to Greece. The long crossing to Santander means you get straight to your destination and the drive back through France, all familiar territory; even so there are still places there we have yet to visit. Nonetheless it not as exciting as discovering a new country like Montenegro or Albania. The question is, for the moment should we be adventurous or sensible?
Gill had an interesting idea. The rules around changing Brittany Ferry bookings allow you to move dates as many times as you wish within a calendar year. She had the bright idea that we could change the ticket originally bought for the January 2021 crossing to late December, we still could have a family Christmas, catch the Santander ferry before New Year, using our 'spare' ticket as the outward leg of next winter's Iberian escape. This would have worked any year up until now. Sadly such a common sense solution has been kiboshed by Brexit.
Indeed the ideal provides a good illustration of how post-Brexit the Schengen visa waiver will impact on travel plans. At first sight these new arrangements can be a confusing, and the shorthand version often quoted in the media that in future travellers will be 'limited to a stay of 90 days within a period if 180 days' glosses over the complexities of the rules in practice. Helpfully the European Commission had developed a handy on-line ready reckoner to assist bewildered tourists.
So, back to Gill's idea about using our spare Brittany Ferries ticket sometime in late December - say the '27th' for the sake of argument. The 180 day Schengen waiver period is calculated back from your planned entry day into the Schengen area (27/12/21), in this case that would be 1st July 2021 Any days you have spent in the Schengen zone since that date are subtracted from 90 (the maximum days you are allowed to stay within a 180 day period). The resultant sum is the number of days you are authorised to stay beyond your planned entry date on 27/12/21 - in this case 29 days because you have already visited for 61 days previously earlier in the autumn. It is just as well there is an on-line spreadsheet, because working from first principles it is very easy to become utterly flummoxed..
In fact, the regulations are even more complicated. If at any point you leave a gap of over 90 days between exiting the Schengen Zone and re-entering then your slate gets wiped and you are authorised to stay for up to 90 days. In effect, both the 180 days and the 90 days work as a 'moveable feast' calculated from your entry date into the Schengen zone. To be honest, I can't get my head around it properly and only can see how it works through examples.....
In this imagined near future, fully vaccinated we head off across the Channel in mid-April wandering about for 45 days, perhaps to Brittany and France's Atlantic islands, or a return to Denmark, or maybe take the trip to Sardinia we scaled back last autumn. June to mid August back here, enjoying the odd warm sunny day we get 1000 feet up in the Pennines while dodging the showers to tend the garden.. Then a late summer jaunt, perhaps to Croatia, it is more than 20 years now since our last visit and we have not been to Split or Dubrovnik - both cities are on our 'wish list'. If we returned home by the 26th September we get the 90 day break between then and heading back to Spain just before New Year..
In truth nobody knows what restrictions might be in place over the coming months, but we must live in hope. Brexit and Covid have been a double whammy for those of us whose 'happy place' involves wandering freely around Europe. Regret is pointless. All we can do is to make the most of the opportunities the future brings without unduly putting ourselves or others at risk.