Canterbury.

The pandemic is gathering speed.

Waiting for the train from London to Canterbury and they announce that it's running late as a passenger was taken ill. Coronavirus? I try not to touch anything and constantly disinfect, my mask firmly in place. My hotel is a lovely old mansion outside of the city, we pass the old walls, Medieval built on Roman.

The hotel is lovely but the room is minuscule and has no Wifi. Off I go to ask if I can be moved and they do, I end up with a larger room with a bath as well of Wifi.

I walk into the centre, it's all Tudor. I find an old pub built in 1500 on the canal and have mushrooms with stilton cheese and wine. I'm a bit depressed after Cambridge, having watched the young and the beautiful with their lovers and whole lives in front of them talking of philosophy and their studies. I am beyond that stage of my life and it's bittersweet.

Canterbury is very different, the girls overly made up, already drunk in the afternoon, hanging around with tattooed and overly pierced boys; homeless people in the doorways and the famous Canterbury cathedral is under repair so I can't go in.

I walk till I'm exhausted and have an early dinner at a faux French place that was in Cambridge as well, Rouge Cafe. The meal is good but I'm still unsettled. The couple next to me having dinner with another couple are both blind and are navigating their world with laughter and I'm here with most bits intact and I'm vaguely miserable.

Walk home backdropped by a beautiful sunset, having bought myself a Lush bomb in order to enjoy my bath. That night a friend from the US says that Italy is going into lockdown for two weeks. Everything will be shut except for necessities. I can't believe it. The daughter is supposed to be starting to study in Heidelberg soon. What will happen in Germany?

I have walked every inch of the centre of Canterbury so decide to take a bus to Sandwich, the most comprehensive Medieval town in England. It's Sunday. Everything is closed. Find a cafe open for a coffee and then go into the Town Hall and am welcomed by a guy who says with evident delight: "A customer!" and tells me about the history of this very quiet but perfect Medieval town.

It used to be the second largest port outside of London and 800 houses were built here for the fleet and merchant ships and then in the 1600's the channel silted up. Queen Elizabeth 1 visited and said she'd open it but never did and so the houses became empty and the Huguenots (who were Calvinists and persecuted in France) came over and established a Flemish colony here. In early days it was a Roman settlement as it was the port gateway to France, Europe and the Netherlands.

I don't stay long, I'm a restless soul. Head back home with a haul of Easter eggs, Marmite cashews and eat at the hotel that night, a surprisingly delicious stuffed eggplant dish. Back to London tomorrow to see my favourite singer, my male muse - Bryan Ferry in his home country!

Cambridge.

The pandemic heats up.

I got the train to Cambridge, it's a quintessential English village even in the rain. I have a lovely room opposite the river. I unload and walk into town for the famed Chelsea buns at Fitzbillies. The coffee is fantastic and the bun hot out of the oven, perfumed with cinnamon. Then I wander into the centre, past all the cool looking and nerdy students who are off to the world's fourth oldest surviving University, built in 1209.

The shops are beautiful, crafty and quirky. I lunch at the original 1920 Fitzbillie. Such is the importance of this place that Stephen Fry helped to save it when it went broke. Had fantastic Welsh Rarebit with leeks, sooo good.

A bit more wandering in the rain, trying to remember that all the students seem to ride bikes and I'm likely to be run over by one. Then it's time for scones at Bills, this place is gorgeous, the decor for this chain throughout England is so bohemian. It's pouring as I'm about to leave and the waiter gives me one of the umbrellas that has been left by a patron to go home with! "Don't worry about bringing it back, enjoy your time in Cambridge!" he tells me.

I eat at the restaurant at the hotel, it's like Fawlty Towers with surly beautiful Balkan girls who don't want to engage in conversation. Old music playing, multi patterned carpets and curtains that don't match, grey looking older men slurping soup, and the menu of choice seems to be hunks of ham with chips. My meal was edible, wine undrinkable, bit depressing. Missing home which is a first in all my travels.

The next day I walk through the town again, there's a market on and I am freezing. Because I was supposed to be back in Italy, collecting my winter gear, I am not prepared for this chill. I find a beautiful vintage coat at the markets and I head to the river as the sun is out and I'm going on a punt ride. Am a bit unsettled as the reports about Coronavirus are making me feel a bit nervous. I hear from the daughter who is in Paris at the Louvre and it's shut! Because of the virus.

The punt ride is interesting, narrated by a man with the most perfect curliqued moustache I have ever seen. We pass the University where C S Lewis, Newtown, David Attenborough, Charles Darwin's family and Stephen Hawking went. It's truly gothic and beautiful.

Then I'm off by bus to St Ives but it's very small and after a brief wander, I lunch at the River Terrace restaurant, looking out on swans hanging around the old bridge. I get messages from a friend who's stuck in the north of Italy. Reggio Emilia and some of the northern provinces have shut down and she's trying to get back to the US via Milan but she can't get there.

I return to Cambridge and have dinner at the Wild Woods, even the 2 for 1 cocktails are not allaying my fears. The lovely Sardinian waiter wants to go home but he'd have to self isolate in Italy for 2 weeks before going to his island. Things are really heating up. No one is wearing masks yet but the daughter suggests that I do.

Tomorrow I'm on the train to Canterbury and I'll be wearing a mask.

London - The pandemic begins.

So we've decided to return to Europe after going home for a month. The daughter has gotten into Heidelberg Uni, her partner will be studying in France and I will live like a gypsy for a while longer. We have it all planned but the world as we knew it will suddenly change and the doors will start to bang shut in the sudden uptake of wind that is Covid. But we don't know this yet.

We arrive home and catch up with friends, we go out for dinners, dine at people's houses and live life the way we have always lived it. Strange to think of it now, writing this from across the time wave of 2022. I had a pre-sixtieth cocktail party with a crowd of people; we went to a Mardi Gras party, visited friends in Canberra and had a huge full moon event with our witches.

When I was in Venice, a girl from Hong Kong messaged me about the room that was being vacated. I hesitated as this Covid virus seemed to have an epicentre in China but she said her and her family had been wearing masks and hadn't left their home for a month. It should have dawned on me then that this was more than a flu virus but even though I thought twice about taking her on, I merrily went on my way and told her to come.

She arrived a week after we returned in a cloud of disinfectant and with a box of masks, and still it didn't fully sink in. Another girl also moved in as another tenant left and I had to worry about her as her boyfriend's mother had just returned from Beijing.

And then we started hearing about the deaths in Milan and the spread of Coronavirus in Italy and other countries. We talked about what we should do, we decided to leave but not go straight to Italy as I didn't want to put my sister-in-law, a heavy smoker, in danger. We were sure it would blow over in a month or so. My daughter was going to meet her partner in France, I decided to go straight to London which is where I was going to after Italy.

In between all this, I had some medical tests done to make sure all was well for the trip and one of the samples came back with an issue so that had to be dealt with. Things started to unravel, especially when the results came through negative only two days before I was due to leave.

But being the determined woman I am, I re-packed my bags, left me house in the loving hands of my friends and made it to the airport and then just inside customs I realised I still had the car and house keys and luckily they allowed me go back out with an escort to give them to my sister who had gone for a coffee rather than leaving the airport. By then I was extremely anxious. Of course, I was summoned over to have my bags searched and dusted for drugs, as per usual. I couldn't wait to get onto the plane and have my first drink, only to remember that Qatar handed out drinks after you had your meal! I was also placed between two lovely men, an architect from Sicily and an Aussie returning to work in London. I had to tell them that due to the fact that I was nervous from the key episode and from the Covid issue, that I'd have to frequent the toilet. They were so lovely and I took it in turns to exit from both sides so they weren't too inconvenienced. The perks of being almost 60, I would have been so embarassed to discuss the situation when I was young, especially with men.

I finally arrive exhausted to London at the ungodly hour of 6.30 am and my room won't be ready until 3! I drop off my bags and walk through a beautiful wintry park and decide to hang out at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It's stunning and I wake briefly from my exhaustion.

Then I collapse into a cafe for caffeine purposes and I receive a free biscuit. London so far has been welcoming. Then I go to a pub for lunch and order a stuffed potato which takes so long that they come and apologise and say I can have anything off the menu, whatever price! I choose the warm brie with cranberries, nuts and fresh bread. Bolstered I wander next to Harrods, take a few snaps but I'm too tired to appreciate the beauty of this place, I'll have to return.

I go for another cafe stop (because it's still only 2 pm), to a pink confection of a cafe, smothered in flowers and pink and run by beautiful Russian blondes, male and female, loaded down with thick gold jewellery and I have an expensive but glorious Macaron.

Next day, after a decent sleep, I'm off to Camden Market by bus. A pick me up good coffee and a wander through but it's so quiet and a lot of shops haven't opened so I head back to Liberty which is always glorious. Sadly, I can't afford anything but window shopping is enough. I then get an Uber to Leadenhall which is on the Instagram hit list but it's under renovation.

Then I walk forever thinking I'm heading in the right direction but then double back thinking I'm not but it's worth the walk because the modern buildings in London are amazing. Then I decide to get an Uber home as it's now raining and he heads back the way I was going! Need to use Google maps more. He's Romanian and left in the midst of the communist conversion because it was too hard and he was left with nothing so he worked his way through Europe cleaning shoes, sleeping in hay barns, stealing vegetables from gardens and then made it to London, married and adopted three Romanian children and made a life here and is very happy with his lot.

After that I find a pub near my hotel, the pubs here are so beautiful! The food good, reasonably cheap. I fuel up for tomorrow's trip to Cambridge.