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.

All Keyed Up

Well, here we are, back in Brexitland for Christmas festivities, but the point of this post is to log our excellent time at the evening Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London courtesy of our Daughter and Son in Law.

This was a great chance to see the ceremony that's been going on every night for over 700 years, hear some of the history again and, thanks to the invite procured for us, have a couple of G&T's in the Keys bar, run by and for the Yeoman Warders; a tie is essential wear for gentlemen but, even so, I wear one too. Anyway, I have to keep up with the sartorial elegance of my dear family. No photos allowed and, in any event, Look up London does the description better than I can, so follow this LINK for more info.

What a privilege! Wonderful. Thanks to all.

Malaga Lights Revisited (again)

Our annual trip to the Malaga (Christmas) Lights takes different forms; this year we travel by Alsa Bus with friends for what turns out to be a brilliant evening taking in a rooftop bar, tapas, the lights and general, well, fun.

From the moment these guys get on the bus we realise this could be a fun evening...

Málaga from the top..

The Lights

With street performers

Viva España!

Nerja Notes

Still learning...

Ancient Córdoba with the Nerja History Group

A fascinating trip to see Las Ermitas and the ancient city of Madinat al Zahra ( the Shining City).

Las Hermitas, high above the thriving city of modern Córdoba are the renovated austere dwellings of hermits who set up the commune at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Fascinating - and a wonderful balcony and viewpoint, too. The full story's HERE.

The Church at Las Hermitas

The Balcony

Moving on to spend time at the heavily renovated (...and continuing) ancient city of Madinat al Zahra again reminds us of the outstanding and barely comprehensible engineering abilities of the Moors. 

Abd al-Rahman, the Caliph, took twenty-five years to build Madinat al-Zahra and it was deserted at the end of his reign. To date, only around a tenth of this vast site has been restored. The story's HERE.

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Velez Málaga with the Arts Society

A fascinating morning looking at familiar Velez through the eyes of the Moors living in a thriving trading town of those times. Looking at history through actors' performances is always an illuminating experience for us as we travel but seeing it in familiar surroundings opens our eyes even more somehow. 

Yes, this could be back then - or Morocco - with a slight suspense of the senses... and a mental photo-shopping of the power lines and air-con units. This really emphasises the Moorish roots of this place though, which is a powerfully evocative feeling.

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It's a while since we've explored Andalucía on one of our road trips from David Baird's book 'The Backroads of Southern Spain' and we must do so soon - but in the meantime it was great to meet David and to put together a PowerPoint for him of fascinating images from the days of the Guerrilleros during Franco's time here. His presentation for the History Group: 'The Last of the Guerrilleros' was an opportunity to understand the motivations of the Guerrilleros in those difficult times.

He was kind enough to sign our well-used copy, too! Thanks David.

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We find time to take a short trip back to the UK to see family and attend the Camping and Caravanning Club's Worldwide Presentation Day - a day of presentations and information gathering about the Club's escorted motorhome tours of far flung lands. It was also great to meet up with many like-minded friends made on past tours. Great Day. We've put a deposit on a motorhome adventure in China; more on that later.

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And last, but certainly not least, we, very sadly, say farewell to our friend and neighbour, Penni, who passed away on Tuesday 19th November. 

Penni Wilson

Enjoying life to the last moment and contributing so much to our community, Nerja has lost a shining star; we'll really, really miss you, Penni.

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