The Pandemic is now official.
Got the bus to Bristol, arrive at my lovely hotel and upgraded to a lovely room with a view over the park.
I walk to Clifton Village but google gets it wrong and I head away from it and then it starts to rain and then sleet and I finally hail a taxi and lunch at the Primrose cafe and have a great mushroom kebab. The little village is beautiful and on the way home there are daffodils everywhere, raising their hatted heads to a patchy blue sky.
That night I meet up with a former tenant and we go to the Florist bar which lives up to its name.
Next day I walk down to the water and old port where there are supposed to be container shops open but everything is closed so back to town I go and find this amazing Gin and Juice bar that not only has the the "mother's ruin" but also great organic coffee. I don't know where to sit it's so beautiful. It looks Edwardian. The girl who serves me worked in Australia and has just come back from Indonesia and isn't concerned about the virus. I stay for ages, drinking in the atmosphere and I return in the afternoon for a Violet gin and tonic surrounded by candles and then meet up with the tenant and her girlfriend for dinner at a Japanese bar.
The next day we're off to her town of Llandudno in Wales. I get an Uber to her tiny cottage where dinosaur books, Harry Potter paraphernalia and cactus plants mingle. On arrival she drops me off at my lovely little guesthouse. Carol, my host greets me and says that the place is empty because everyone has cancelled because of the virus and I can take my pick of rooms. It's still hard to believe this virus is changing the way we live.
I walk down to the sea front and discover Alice in Wonderland statues of it's characters everywhere. It was the holiday destination of Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland. She came here in 1861 at the age of 8. There's beautiful Victorian houses along a promenade, a pebble beach and a very long pier. I feel like I've stepped back into the 50's. I meet up with my tenant and we wander along the pier with it's quaint shops and later that night, I contact the daughter and we decide to cancel our meet up in Scotland. The daughter is coming back from Poland and the borders there are shutting.
We decide to meet in France instead but I wonder how long the borders will stay open. A friend who's in France has decided to go back to Australia as everything is shutting down.I talk to the sister and she says the toilet paper shortage is getting worrying as people are fighting for it in supermarkets.
That night I change all my plans, book a train to London and a flight to France. There's talk of the borders closing soon. The number of deaths in Italy are skyrocketing. Next day we go and look at a castle that a friend of my tenants is trying to raise money to repair. She has two rescue dogs with issues. The British are crazy about their dogs. You see them in their Wellington boots out walking in the fields, by the sea, by the rivers. Cafes and restaurants allow man's best friend in.
That night we dine with my tenants family and I meet her indomitable grandmother. She tells me that during the last war she made cakes and sold them to raise money for the war and that her ginger biscuits scored her a lover. She also has an old dog. A real character.
That night I check to see if the flight is still going and it seems to be. I am strangely calm. The hostess gets up early to make me a full English breakfast and fortified I head off. The taxi driver is ancient but wiry, hauling my bags into his cab. I hope everything is running on time and it is. I get the train to London and then I brave the Underground to the airport, disinfecting as I go.
And I make it to Bordeaux, without even a passport check! Everything seems to be chaotic. I get the bus and the daughter is there to greet me but not to hug me. She wants me to wash all my clothes as soon as I arrive. It's starting to sink in. That night Macron announces that the borders will close at midday the next day. I have made it - just. And now? We wait it out and see what happens. Little did we know...
And tomorrow, after two years waiting out the pandemic, we're returning to Italy. Hopeful but very cautious. One day at a time.
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