End of Travelling Year - and How!

 Well, here we are again - back to lockdown....

So that's the end of travelling for 2020, I fear. We look forward to our trips to the local supermarket. At least we managed to complete the intended parts of our UK coastal tour, which turned out brilliantly - now the 'van gets a wash and polish before it goes back into storage. We've got to completely empty it, too, because it's going back to the Swift factory in Hull over Christmas to have another replacement rear panel after their (ex)dealer-who-shall-be-unmentionable messed up with the last one. 

Oops, that's not how you do it....

Good for Swift, though, because, after reviewing photographs and a report from WKD Caravan Services (Thanks), Swift's engineer gave the OK to sort the problem. The timing of all this is not too great because we're downsizing our house in a very big way and we'll have to take all the gear, cushions and mattress out; goodness knows where we're going to put it all.

So no posts from Spain, no Malaga Lights 😢. We'll be in the UK sorting out our house stuff ready to move to Leigh-on-Sea in the early New Year: fun of a different kind.

 See you in 2021.

A Different Sort of Travelling

 So...

😥Our Scandinavian caravan tour is cancelled.

😢Our motorhome tour of China is cancelled

😢We can't go to Nerja; infection rates are going up.

😞Our coastal tour is problematic because of Covid and the caravan sites we need are all booked with staycationers.

 OK, lets move house; it's a kind of travelling, after all, it's just a bit more permanent and dear Rishi has driven the housing market into a frenzy with his stamp duty holiday. LET'S DO IT.

A big decision

We resolved to consider the big decision of downsizing at the next big birthday (which is just around the corner) but COVID lock-downs, quarantining plus the house purchase stamp duty holiday presents the opportunity to do so without sacrificing a major travelling trip or so. We want somewhere a little more manageable, within striking distance of London and family and within walking distance of a vibrant cafe culture street: looks like here, then.

This decision is not without anguish; our current home has been extended and designed by us to some extent and has been a wonderful family home for some 22 years - but now it's time to move. It's oddly exciting to house-hunt again, although the chances of joining all this up to get the kind of house we want in the location we want feels a little remote at times. Time will tell.

Venturing out again

We've had a couple of trips out; how exciting is that, these days!

Our youngest daughter treated us to a trip around Kew Gardens for our birthdays. We drove, parked easily and met her and boyfriend complete with picnic gear: a wonderful day.

A nostalgic trip to Clacton and Jaywick was fun with our middle daughter; nostalgic because I lived in Jaywick as a student, taking my physics degree at Essex University in the late sixties; don't ask! Jaywick is listed as one of the most deprived areas in the country and little had changed since my period of residence - which is quite amazing if  you think about it. 

Beach is still great though.

An enjoyable and fascinating day out with friends at the Henry Moore sculpture park and gardens distracted us from the stresses of house selling and buying. Highly recommended if you like sculpture. Picnic again!

Enough!

Let's escape to Herne Bay in the 'van; it's coastal tour time.

Can we Should we

Well, we're booked into the Caravan and Motorhome Club's site in Brighton next week and all set to complete a part of our coastal tour of the UK down there - not amongst the potential crowds in Brighton but along the coast travelling east towards Eastbourne, an interesting section that we somehow missed on earlier tours. We also hope to meet up with friends, suitably socially distanced, of course, and walk the seven sisters path. We'll see!

We're used to being self sufficient in the 'van with its on-board shower and suchlike so we don't recon that we're neither posing significant risk to locals or, indeed, to ourselves, fingers crossed. We have a suitable stock of gloves, masks and sanitiser so we feel as prepared as we can be.

Yes, we're prepared:

Given that, before Covid-19, we would have been travelling through Sweden and Finland at this time, this is a very small trip in comparison but we feel as if it's a major adventure. Who'd have thought...

Anyway, our 2020 coastal tour starts HERE

Just Saying

London Protests: Black Lives Matter

Rosie Smith & Jim Curran from Twitter post by Rosie Smith

A Different Life

Covid-19 Pandemic Year 1

Well, this is a first; a 'staying-put' post on our travelling blog, if you see what I mean. Our travelling life has well and truly ground to a halt as we remain locked down here in our Essex home with our two 'London Daughters', our travelling plans shelved.

We count ourselves as very fortunate, though, as we are able to exercise by walking the banks of the creek at the bottom of our garden, which is part of  a designated country park a little further on where it joins the river Crouch. Like many others we have drinks with friends on Zoom and Skype, decorate and spruce up the house and garden, catch up with reading that we always meant to do, bone up on our Spanish and watch some great dramas on catch-up TV. No travelling, no seeing friends, no shopping, no Formula 1 but, somehow, part of this slowed-down existence is somewhat uplifting. Who would have thought it?

Our sheltered life is in stark contrast to others at this time, though, as we hear, daily, of the sacrifices being made by key workers in the NHS, Care Homes, the Police and others. All we can do is clap on our doorsteps every Thursday to show our appreciation. Perhaps, as we move out of this nightmare, we will all think a little more about the injustices in our societies and even, perhaps, do something about it; is that a forlorn hope?

It's been fascinating to compare the leadership of different countries through this crisis. At this stage female leaders have my vote by some margin. You can't argue with that - can you? Here's an interesting article.

Anyway, I guess the next post will be when we have some travelling news. Goodness knows when we will see our Spanish home again; first we lose our European citizenship and now the world turns upside down. How will we all adjust to the new reality?

Let's just try and stay healthy.


Hasta Luego

Lock Down to Lock Down (eventually)

Covid-19 Pandemic Year 1

The reality of the Covid-19 pandemic and what it might mean for the world is dawning on us...

We're here in Nerja, with Spain now operating under the newly imposed State of Alarm, which gives the government special powers to restrict movement etc. for 15 days. This will now become a no-travelling blog, I fear....

Here's a summary from El País of  the announcement by the PM, Pedro Sánchez made yesterday.

In effect, we are confined to our house and allowed out, singly, only to obtain food and medicines; we must take our passport and Spanish ID and the Police and Guardia are enforcing the emergency powers using drones. Penalties for non compliance range from 100 Euros to prison terms. There is a published fine of 600 Euros for walking within the urbanisation other than for the above purposes .

Although incoming borders are closed to non residents and most flights are cancelled, we are booked in a flight on Sat 19th with Ryanair; we've also got our daughter Alessandra with us, booked out on a 'rescue' easyJet flight.

The beaches are, of course, closed:

[this image was taken the day before the lockdown]

Given the rise in Covid-19 infections in Spain, we're more than approving of this approach by the authorities, despite the slight twitch over the loss of our personal liberty. 

Update #1

It's no surprise that the lockdown is likely to continue beyond the 15 days

Our Ryanair Saturday flight is cancelled later in the day but we are able to grab seats on a flight the preceding Friday; that's, er, tomorrow but one of the few remaining flights out as it happens. Naturally it costs a lot more and there is a glitch on the website that means it won't give me a refund for the cancelled flight. The alternative is sometime in April or even later. While I appreciate the difficulties the airlines are dealing with, each cancellation produces a chain of issues for each customer; it certainly does for us. Do we have faith that we're going to get to the UK? If it wasn't for a UK medical appointment, we would be happy to spend the next couple of months locked down here; it feels safe and there's always Skype and the like for the family. Alessandra's easyJet rescue flight whisks her off to London Stansted without a hitch, thank goodness.

Update #2

We catch the 17.40 Ryanair flight to London Southend without a hitch. The airport is  quiet, with all observing the metre rule, which means long queues moving quickly! The 'plane is around two thirds full which is a bonus in these circumstances but we still wear our masks and refrain from food and purchased drinks on board. 
It's a stark contrast in the UK, though, where 'social distancing' doesn't seem to have caught on as yet and, after Spain, it all feels alarmingly conducive to virus contagion; I actually feel mildly traumatised as we shop for essentials. It will be interesting to see how this is managed as the infection rate increases. We're going into lockdown for a couple of weeks in any event.
Fingers crossed...

Update #3

source: twitter, @YourSouthend

Decisive action.
On Monday 23 March, Boris Johnson has, in effect, locked down the UK in a similar manner to other European countries. Some may say that critical time has been wasted in 'advising' the population to keep 2m apart and failing to appreciate the impact of uncoordinated actions such as reducing transport services while not defining essential workers, resulting in scenes such as this on our local commuting line only yesterday.

So now we're confined to our home apart from:

• essential goods such as food shopping 
• trips out for medicines or medical/support need 
• travel to and from work, only where absolutely necessary 
• one exercise trip per day, alone or with household members only
• gatherings of more than two people banned
• all non essential retail outlets to close

Essential needs a bit of defining - already we have Sports Direct claiming they are an essential retail outlet...

Still, is this the start of a real impact on the spread of Covid 19 in the UK? Let us hope so.

Planning our 2020 Travels

What are we up to in 2020?

Well, this might seem a little late given that it's February 2020 already (how did that happen?) but we have an excuse called COVID-19 or Wuhan Coronavirus. Our plan was to motorhome around part of China in September, seeing some of the main tourist sights on the way; this seemed a fantastic opportunity, literally a 'once in a lifetime' chance to do this tour, as our age will preclude us from obtaining a Chinese driving permit in the future. Obviously that's on hold now.

So we're going to Scandinavia in our faithful outfit, all being well, probably taking around two and half months in total, with the majority being part of the Camping and Caravanning Club's escorted tour. That means a separate blog as usual and very a different adventure right up to the Arctic Circle. Looking forward to it, indeed.

Thanks to the C&CC for the map of their tour, details of which can be found on their website.

On This Night

If you've been following our free-travelling European life you'll understand why we're now having to contemplate a rather different future....

😢  😢

So how did we spend this momentous evening?
As it happens, it really couldn't have been more appropriate for us as, with friends, we listened to an outstanding performance of music from around Europe, played in the intimate surroundings of La Herradura Castle by Tjaša Kastelic and Jerzy Chwastyc, originally from Slovenia and Poland respectively.

photo: C. Roseveare

Uplifting [commercial video]

To all the EU citizens we have met on our travels and here in España:
Thanks for your friendship, help and support; long may your collaboration succeed and thrive. Perhaps we'll rejoin you one day...
But, sadly, not in our lifetime.