An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague – 5: June 2020

 

1 JUNE

Now Italy seems to be getting ticked off with Greece. Greece indicated, quite understandably, that it doesn't want planeloads of visitors from countries that have had a bad record with coronavirus infections, eg the UK and Italy. But the Italian government says it won't stand to be treated "like a leper colony". Hard on the heels of this, Greece seems to be "clarifying" its previous announcement. Now it says flights to Athens will be possible from 15 June (and to island airports from 1 July).

But, for the moment, there will be strict rules: on arrival, you'll have to stay overnight where you are told to and be tested. Here's the bad news and the bad news: if the test is negative, you have to self-quarantine for a week; if it's positive, you will be put in supervised quarantine for two weeks. After 1 July, there will just be random checks apparently. And until then, although Greece's current blacklist includes Gatwick and Heathrow and Manchester, other UK airports are deemed to be OK and arrivals from these will only be subject to random checks (and will only have to be quarantined if they test positive).

So that's all very clear, then. Basically, travelling from the UK to Greece is going to be fraught with all sorts of unknowns for the next couple of months at least. And if the much-talked-about second wave hits the UK – or if the tourists bring the virus to Greece – then I might as well just lock up and stay home.

2 JUNE

I had a socially-distanced lesson with my Alexander Technique teacher this morning. Touch and adjustment are normally a vital part of an AT session but we managed to make it worthwhile while keeping apart – and outdoors. AT really is life-changing in that it affects how you approach everything, not just how you use your body – and I've really missed lessons over the past 10 weeks. I'm also hoping to see my grandchildren – at a distance – this week. The return to some sort of "normality" has begun – but it feels like it will never be the same "normality" that we had before. 

3 JUNE

The UK has very graciously suggested that it might not be so tight quarantine-wise on people coming from countries with lower rates of virus infection. There don't actually appear now to be any countries with higher rates of infection! And might it be the case that hardly anyone will want to come to the UK in the foreseeable future because the health situation here is in such chaos? 

Portugal has said it's happy to have British people fly in for summer holidays – presumably the money outweighs the health risks. And there is a general rumbling among the British media, asking why the European countries are being so awkward about letting holidaymakers from the UK go wherever they want to go. This British exceptionalism seems to increase rather than diminish as it becomes apparent that the UK has made a complete hash of dealing with the virus crisis, of lockdown, of saving lives, of care home deaths, of testing, and now of tracking and tracing. What is it about the British that leads them to believe they are entitled to special treatment when nothing about them is special – apart from their jingoistic boorishness and arrogance.

4 JUNE

The reopening of Greece isn't going totally smoothly. When 12 passengers on a flight from Qatar to Athens tested positive for coronavirus, all 91 people on the flight were put in quarantine (infected ones for 14 days, non-infected ones for a week) – and all flights from Qatar to Athens have been suspended for two weeks. The only good thing about the prospect of being quarantined on arrival in Athens is that at present the Greek government says it will cover the costs. The Greeks know that tourism is vital to their economy, but they also mean business when it comes to protecting themselves from the level of virus chaos that has been seen elsewhere in Europe. The UK, Spain and Italy remain the places from which it is going to be difficult to get into Greece.

5 JUNE

British Airways has just confirmed my "insurance policy" flight to Athens on 24 August but who knows what conditions may prevail as we get nearer to that date? Today I sat with my musical mentor, the master drummer John Marshall, in his garden. His band, Soft Machine, are off the road with numerous gigs and festival appearances now in limbo. John's wife, Maxi, a strong candidate for most amazing woman in the world, was badly hit by coronavirus and is still recovering several weeks later. She joined our conversation from her bedroom window. Apart from sharing our disgust about the UK government's deceit and inefficiency, we all delighted in the blueness of the south London sky, after weeks of relief from aircraft pollution. John was ecstatic – and quite rightly so – about a huge and perfectly white cloud that hovered over his house looking like something from a hyper-real movie.

6 JUNE

The weather in London has turned from summer to autumn – cold and rainy. I just had to make a journey across London and back by bus – I really don't want to use the tube – and it was almost exciting, almost like visiting a new place. On the buses most people are masked, and from 15 June everyone on all public transport will have to be. Why then and why not immediately and why not weeks ago? Because the country is being run by half-baked ministers who have been several weeks behind reality since this whole mess began.

7 JUNE

Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the world (utterly understandable and to be supported) after the murder of George Floyd have added another dimension to the potential spread and second wave of coronavirus. Everywhere from Milan to Manchester there is talk of a resurgence of infections and deaths which could lead to a return to strict lockdown measures. Some things seem to take precedence over this anxiety: protesting against racism and (for the English) having a barbecue or going to Ikea. 

I have just finished rebooking accommodation along the route of the odyssey – something that has cost me very little apart from quite a bit of time emailing back and forth. As with the train and ferry travel in Greece and Italy, people have been nothing but helpful in rearranging overnight stays. If I manage to make this trip, I will remain grateful to all of them.

8 JUNE

Well, I should have been at the mouth of the Underworld today (at Lake Avernus, the volcanic crater associated with Odysseus's entrance to the land of the dead). Instead, I probably won't be going much farther than the shops at the edge of Wandsworth Common, probably the grimmer of the two locations today as a grey and wintry chill continues here and the sun shines over Campania.

The 14-day quarantine for people coming into the UK allegedly starts today but it's already being seen as unenforceable.

9 JUNE

I'm three days into a Michel Thomas course in Greek and really love it. I've read criticism of the Thomas method online, saying it's superficial and unreal, but, like thousands of users, I find it not only a brilliant way of learning but also a truly enjoyable entertainment – like listening to your favourite radio programme. Over the past 11 weeks, I've completed a Teach Yourself course in Greek, much more traditional and based on a lot of reading and writing as well as listening. I think I've learned quite a bit from it, but it feels like everything really sinks in deep with the Michel Thomas approach. Perhaps the secret is to do both. I did Michel Thomas Italian a while ago, and I've now ordered a Teach Yourself Italian course to do after the Michel Thomas Greek. By the end of August, I should be able to speak a reasonable amount of Greek and Italian – but who I'll get to speak it with remains to be seen.

10 JUNE

Today I should have been taking a boat from the land of the Man-Eating Giants to the island of Circe... but I'm not. Some potentially good news is that Greece is going to allow visitors from Italy from next week. It's also potentially alarming, since Italy's record on the virus is almost as bad as that of the UK. Could the Greeks' desperation not to lose this summer's business entirely doom them to suffer the importation of the virus whose effect they did so much to minimise? Even if, later this year, I can get to Greece via Italy, I am sure that the possession of a UK passport could still be a major hindrance...

11 JUNE

Someone referred to the virus situation in the UK now as "the twilight zone" – that's certainly how it feels. We just seem to be drifting, with no feeling that anyone has any idea what's happening or what is likely to happen. I had a socially distanced chat with my daughter yesterday, outside, just about sheltered from the rain. We agreed we are both trying to do the right thing, ie follow what we think are the lockdown and distancing rules, while seeing many people around us no longer doing either. It's a combination of sad, depressing and anger-fuelling. The miserable, drizzly weather doesn't help. 

12 JUNE

Slightly depressing news this morning... Skyros, the Greek island that has over several decades established itself as the home of trendy yoga and "wellbeing" holidays, has announced that all its courses for 2020 have been cancelled. This is slightly shocking because some of those courses run through September, and the organisers have decided that they can't commit to something even three months from now. That's totally understandable because, as things stand, even if people from the UK can get to Greece, they face the possibility of 14 days' quarantine there and then 14 days' quarantine when they get back home. It's a lose-lose situation, which must be largely put down to the failures of the UK government to get a grip on the virus crisis at the right time with the right rules and with the right resources. Skyros and its many fans (along with many, many Hellenophiles) are part of the collateral damage (although of course not the worst hit by a long way).

Relatives of some of those who died, most probably unnecessarily, in UK care homes that were infected by patients being released to them by hospitals are taking legal action against the UK government... and others are demanding an immediate public inquiry.

I sympathise with them totally and have some insight into the hell they must be having to deal with. My mother died (thankfully) last year after a fall in a care home and after dying of sepsis in hospital. The complaints that my brother and I felt compelled to make about her treatment and the way that her death was handled and wrongly recorded are ongoing... nearly 12 months after her funeral.

From what we saw last year, care homes and hospital wards for the elderly often treat their residents and patients as little more than a nuisance for doing their best to hang on to their lives. When the virus hit, all the shortcomings, failures and abuses of the system must have been magnified over and over...

13 JUNE

Today I should have been sailing from Circe's island back to the Italian coast for the final stages of my odyssey... But of course I'm not... The sun has returned here, probably temporarily, which makes being stuck here easier to put up with. A neighbour was saying this morning that this time of great change reminds her of the feeling of 1968... and I can see what she means up to a point – with the virus, the Black Lives Matters protests, the reappraisal of history, and the radical rethinking of the presentation of the arts and music, and of how we work and live... But what changed after 1968? Perhaps not very much, one could argue. So will there be real change for the better this time round? 

14 JUNE

Greece's stance just got a little tougher. There will be no UK flights into Athens until at least 30 June. And, as I've said before, who can blame it for trying to defend a country where there have been hardly any virus deaths from one that has the worst pandemic record in the world after the US (which perhaps should be seen as a special case for its appalling non-handling of the crisis)?

15 JUNE

Well, that's 12 weeks of lockdown gone and here we are in just the latest version of chaos, with no clear idea of what's happening and what is likely to happen. But wait... non-essential shops in England are being allowed to open today. This news has been greeted with mild hysteria in some quarters of the media. The clue in how important this latest development is in the word "non-essential"... But then, perhaps it is a particularly important development for "restarting the economy", since that economy, as has been shown, depends greatly upon people wanting to buy non-essentials.

Another, perhaps more important, step today is the compulsory wearing of face coverings on public transport. Why on earth has it taken us 12 weeks to make compulsory a simple and possibly life-saving measure that people in some other countries hit by the virus adopted voluntarily three months ago?

16 JUNE

Everywhere there seem to be worries about the dreaded "second wave" of the virus – everywhere, that is, except in the UK, which continues to blunder out of lockdown without a coherent plan. Its belated introduction of 14-day quarantine for arrivals from abroad (which, if the government's past record is anything to go by, will be a shambles) has succeeded in prompting France to introduce a two-week quarantine for UK visitors.

The UK has said it will not have anything to do with an EU data-sharing app and website aimed at promoting tourism via up-to-the-minute information as European countries attempt to reopen. Why would anyone be surprised by this head-in-the-sand show of independence?

Meanwhile, almost-virus-free New Zealand has just found that it has two new cases... which came from guess where? The UK of course. The two people involved had been given exemption from quarantine on compassionate grounds – but it looks like New Zealand won't be making the same mistake again.

17 JUNE

Spain is now considering compulsory 14-day quarantine requirement for visitors from the UK when it opens up again this coming weekend. It's a mixture of tit-for-tat and common sense. The UK remains the sick man of Europe.

Some good news... Greggs will reopen lots of its stores tomorrow. Although the bad news is that some of them will not be reopening at all. For those of us fortunate enough to have a surviving Greggs nearby, this means its wonderful and surprisingly successful vegan sausage rolls will be available once more. They're one of the things I've really missed in lockdown!

The Greek government has been accused of using the virus crisis to directly award lucrative contracts to select private companies without transparent oversight. So, despite the vast difference in the number of infections and deaths in Greece and the UK, and the difficulties in opening up travel between the two countries, their governments may have something in common...

18 JUNE

I went to the Moon and back yesterday... Well, Wimbledon, actually... But it felt like an epic voyage. I needed a new exercise book for my latest language course and the Rymans in Wimbledon was now open. Yes, non-essential, I suppose, but it was kind of nice to get a green exercise book for my Italian notes to match the blue one I got for my Greek notes (in my local Rymans at Clapham Junction 12 weeks ago).

The bus was socially-distanced busy, with just about everybody obeying the rule on wearing a mask or face covering. And Rymans was pretty much empty and looking very clean and tidy – and had just one green exercise book. I bought that plus printer ink, got on the return bus straight away and headed home. The whole journey took about two hours and felt like a real adventure into the almost unknown – although to be honest, Wimbledon town centre is pretty dreary and dreadful, and I was glad to be back at Wandsworth Common.

19 JUNE

Things are looking up... There's a new Bob Dylan album out today... And Wales has made a surprise announcement that it's opening up from 6 July. Tempted as I am to go to the nearest HMV store and buy the Dylan CD, it's unfortunately at Westfield shopping centre, which I visited once for a similar reason and found that it was hell on earth, like the biggest and worst airport you ever visited multiplied by a factor of ten. So I may resort to mail order. On the Welsh front, it looks like I should now be able to rearrange my much-postponed trip to Pembrokeshire for mid-July... if I  can fix somewhere to stay. On top of that, the Brighton Electric studio is reopening for business and I'm hopefully going to be able to get together with some musicians for a jam later in July. Plus, a drummer is needed for a jazz weekend course in Northamptonshire at the end of next month, so that should be doable too. The idea of actually playing drums (rather than practising rudiments on a pad in my bedroom) is extremely exciting.

20 JUNE

B&B in Carmarthen booked!  Brighton Electric studios booked! Jazz weekend in Northamptonshire booked! Now I'm wondering how on earth I'm going to manage to fit in my Italian course and piano lessons if I start gadding about the place. Does this suggest that one day soon we will be being nostalgic about lockdown? On the other hand, as the news comes in of the virus in resurgence in China and elsewhere, maybe lockdown is still a long way from being a thing of the past.

21 JUNE

A glimmer of good news this morning... Trump's much-heralded return to the campaign trail with a rally in Oklahoma which was supposed to have had a million ticket applications and was expected to fill a 19,000-seater stadium plus large overspill area with relay big screen... actually turned out to be a PR disaster with the hall looking half-full and the overspill area having to be abandoned. On top of that, half a dozen of Trump's organisers tested positive for the virus and had to be quarantined. Whatever spin the Trump campaign tries to put on this, the pictures of empty seats tell the story. Maybe some members of his so-called base are beginning to show some sense, at least about risking catching or spreading the virus, and maybe even about the descent of this man into some of the lowest places humans can go.

In Italy this weekend there have been protests, particularly in Milan, about the government's mishandling of the virus crisis and about workers' needing to be treated better. It may not be long before we see something similar here. And of course in the US, where things continue in many states to go downhill while being ignored by a White House in denial.

22 JUNE

This week I would have been on the last legs of my odyssey, making my way back across Italy, then to Paris and finally London. Instead, I'm still here in London, travelling to foreign parts only through Greek and Italian lessons. I would have been coming back to a UK heatwave, it seems, since temperatures are forecast to be going up to 30C this week. With things opening up generally (albeit with the feeling of being in the shadow of some as yet unknown catastrophe), I probably need to make some sort of decision as to whether to go ahead with putting the final touches to an odyssey starting in the last week of August...

23 JUNE

The UK seems to be pressing ahead with opening up "the economy" – with pubs, restaurants, theatres and cinemas being told they can go back to work from early July. And no one seems to think the quarantine regulations for people coming into the country will last long – or that they will be policed properly anyway. So either we'll go back to "normal" or there will be a second wave. The US reopening debacle which has led not to a second wave but, it seems, to a swelling of the first wave is an illustration of what happens when lockdown is lifted too early and too few people respect the rules. Hopefully, Europe will be sensible enough not to let any Americans in for the foreseeable future. But will the UK be that sensible? A saving grace may be that many, many Americans will be too frightened to travel – from past experience, it doesn't seem to take much to make them stay put.

24 JUNE

The EU does seem to be giving serious thought to a ban on travellers from the US – or at least from those parts of it where the virus is still rampant. The EU may have its faults but at least it seems to have some heavyweight people who actually think things through a bit. How different to much of the US and our own dear UK... Having said that, one should add that Wales and Scotland are not being quite so gung-ho about opening just about everything up as soon as possible, and appear to be putting health concerns up there with the politico-economic ones – unlike England. The Westminster government is of course only really concerned about England – and that could be narrowed down further to the Tories and their pals...

25 JUNE

Today my odyssey would have been over... if it had started. So now I still have it to look forward to – perhaps. An optimistic neighbour is planning to go for a family holiday in Spain towards the end of August and tells me I shouldn't hesitate to follow in her footsteps a week later and head for Athens. I explained that I'm not over-concerned about travelling through Greece or even Italy – just slightly worried about the logistics of getting there and possible quarantine restrictions that could throw out all my itinerary calculations. Unlike Odysseus, if things go awry, I am unlikely to be taken in by rapacious enchantresses. Far more likely – at the moment – is being locked up in a very basic Greek hotel room near the airport or the docks.

26 JUNE

I felt very strongly that the UK should have stayed in Europe – rather than go down the path of the Brexit disaster. But seeing the pictures not only of the hordes of people crowding onto the beaches of England's south coast but also of the filth and litter they left behind them, I think now that it's absolutely right that this country should leave Europe. Wales and Scotland may still have some European sensibilities left, but England seems to have descended into being a land fit for morons. And Europe is better off without it.

27 JUNE

The British (and I suppose that includes me, although I don't want it to) seem to think they have a right to go wherever they want and do whatever they want. Despite the government's failure to deal with the pandemic and its success in recording the highest number of related deaths in Europe, plus the moronic behaviour of so many selfish rule-breakers and potential virus-spreaders, there is now endless talk of: will we be OK to go on a holiday in the sun? A friend I was talking to yesterday referred to the people who crowded and despoiled the south coast beaches this week as "those motherfuckers" whose actions could negate everything that we might have gained by being in lockdown for three months. "It could all have been a waste of time," he said – and that seems a reasonable view.

The government is now talking even more about "air bridges" with other countries – another plan that is almost completely about economic concerns and little if anything to do with health. There is even a suggestion of an "air bridge" with Greece. As I keep saying, why on earth would Greece want to risk all that it has gained by letting in hordes of irresponsible Brits?

There is no plan for an "air bridge" with the US at the moment – which is a bit like saying there is no plan to poison the water supply.

The EU seems even closer now to banning travellers from the US – which seems a no-brainer, since that country appears to have avoided a second wave of the virus by simply keeping the crest of the first wave riding high.

28 JUNE

Have hit some kind of wall... Have not been feeling great yesterday/today... All through the good weather there have been screaming kids playing outside my flat... which has very slowly been driving me mad...

I was trying play something difficult on piano yesterday and they were making a noise outside that distracted me, even through headphones... I went outside and found two girls (about 10) playing with a water outlet from the flats which is not supposed to be used by anyone except the council... and they had flooded quite a large area... which leads into an area of storage sheds where most of my drums are... To cut a long story short, I told them off – as politely as I could – and asked them to stop being antisocial... They apologised and went away... But I've felt awful ever since... I feel I've turned into a real grumpy old person... And I think this has keyed into the fact that I just can't stand living here much longer... even though I have no idea where I do want to be!!

On top of that, I checked the website I work for last night (for no reason at all) and found that we had a major problem and had lost lots and lots of pix and illustrations from stories... so had to spend an hour or two patching things up... and am still doing that this morning...

Maybe things will turn around... And maybe there's a macrocosm/microcosm thing going on... with the external lockdown exit turmoil being mirrored by inner turmoil. Maybe we're all just going crazy...

29 JUNE

With the virus apparently raging across the US, Europe keeping its fingers crossed that the second wave doesn't get going, the UK stumbling blithely/blindly out of lockdown (and the city of Leicester being threatened with its very own lockdown), the only sanity seems to be in conversations with friends (in the deep end rather than on the shallow side) and in listening to music (which I've realised I've neglected to do much of for too long). I'm working through a list of tunes for a jazz workshop in Northamptonshire at the end of July; the multiple versions of the six tunes are all an education, although researching into the musicians, and particularly the drummers, hammers home the realisation that pretty much all of them are dead – and many died young. The music, though, lives on, and I'm looking forward to my turn to play it – as long as any Leicester lockdown doesn't start spreading down the road to Northamptonshire.

30 JUNE

American visitors are essentially supposed to be banned from Europe for the time being (and Europe is supposed to include the UK until the end of this year) although individual EU countries can still make their own decisions. There was a report that Greece was thinking of opening up to the US (which would surely be madness) but now it says that it isn't. And Greece has no problem about extending its ban on flights from the UK which was due to end tomorrow but will now go on until 15 July. The Greeks claim to be optimistic about setting up an air bridge with the UK, with Brits not having to be quarantined when they return home. But what about having to be quarantined when one enters Greece? That seems rather crucial.

An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague – 4: May 2020

 

1 MAY

The Italian government has said it will reopen the country region by region, depending on the state of play with coronavirus. Rome and Florence airports are reopening, and long-distance trains are also going to be running again. In the UK, BA is shedding more than 1,000 pilots and heavily cutting back its Gatwick operation. BA has told its workers that it does not know when its services can start up again at London City or Gatwick, and that its remaining services at Heathrow may be shut down.

In the process of cancelling and rebooking a number of hotels and boats, I have been dealing with many travel workers in Greece and Italy, and I have to say (as someone who has been known to complain at the drop of a hint of bad service) that they have been without exception polite, helpful and quick to respond. I'm doing my best to write to them in Italian and Greek (both of which I've been studying, just in case I ever get there) and that may have helped, but their English, too, is perfect. A minor cock-up was averted when I realised just in time that I had written an email in Greek – to someone in Italy.

2 MAY

I've just been out for the first time in three days – a walk to Asda at Clapham Junction, mainly to buy some shorts in celebration of the unseasonal summery weather we keep having (because you can't buy shorts anywhere else at the moment). As a result of coronavirus, the changing rooms were closed. So I bought the smallest size available – which I now find is too big for me (Asda seems to cater only for people of a certain size). That means another walk to Asda before too long – to take them back. There seems to be an increasing amount of traffic and an awful lot of cyclists and runners. Social distancing is actually quite difficult to achieve. A few people – including me – are masking up. But most people are not. And some almost walk into you, while absorbed in their phones. The UK government's lackadaisical approach seems to have resulted in lackadaisical behaviour. Many people are doing their best to follow the guidelines, flawed as they are, and a few don't really seem to give a toss.

3 MAY

The French government plans to extend its emergency measures for up to two months – which will take us into July. There will also be some sort of quarantine for people entering France – which could put paid to any plan I have for taking the train from London to Paris, although that wouldn't be until late August. Eurostar is now saying that from tomorrow its passengers must wear face coverings, otherwise they won't be allowed to travel. Meanwhile, the Irish government has upstaged the UK by publishing a detailed and lengthy timetable for a way out of lockdown. I seem to have picked the worst country in Europe from which to begin an odyssey.

4 MAY

There is talk in France and Italy of "health passports" which might allow foreign visitors to enter these countries. From today, Italians have had some travel restrictions lifted: they can visit their relatives as long as they stay within their region. Travel between regions is allowed only for work, health or emergency reasons.

Heathrow has made the (fairly obvious) point that social distancing won't work in airports and on planes – but that health checks, masks and more rigorous hygiene might make passenger flights possible again.

5 MAY

Italians have started emerging from their lockdown – which really was a lockdown, as opposed to the woolly and increasingly frayed-at-the-edges lockdown which seems to have been happening here. Some Italians have not left their homes for two months – while in the UK the parks have been full on sunny days. Some Italian children haven't been allowed out – while in the UK kids happily relieved of having to go to school have been playing outdoors with their friends for hours on end. It remains to be seen whether the Italian lockdown will have "worked"; and even if it has, it will be no indication of how things might go here, where politicians have seemed frightened of frightening the populace. 

6 MAY

The only thing we know for sure about the coronavirus is that nobody really knows very much about it… So governments now seem to be throwing caution to the winds to varying degrees (to the extreme in the US, with something similar probably being hatched here, although not quite so blatantly). And everywhere now there is talk of the second coming of the virus – even in Italy, where people this week started cautiously putting their heads above the parapet – and that it could be worse than the first. Meanwhile, old people are dying in their hundreds and thousands – an awful lot of them in care homes. I used to think the worst place one could end one's life would be in hospital, but I think now that it would be in a UK run-only-for-profit "care" home – many of which are staffed by low-paid, low-skilled and often low-on-any-compassion people and where medical expertise extends not much further than dishing out the daily multi-dose of drugs. God save me from ever entering such a place to end my days.

7 MAY

A neighbour who's a doctor was saying something similar about "care" homes today. He was saying that when a GP is summoned to a care home in an emergency, it's always a dreadful situation. He was also saying that colleagues working in intensive care reckon that it's now a 95 per cent mortality rate – if you go in there, you are unlikely to be coming out. Like me, like despairing Italian, Greek, Spanish and American friends, the doctor felt no one really knows what is happening or what will happen next.

I bumped into the doctor (not literally, we stayed two metres apart) on my way back from an errand to the local DIY shop (not a DIY superstore but one of those rare, old-fashioned shops that is happy to sell you just one screw of the exact size you want for a few pence rather than force you to buy an overpriced pack of two dozen of everything). Just going there to buy a can of WD40 to fix a jammed door lock was a treat – a flash of a much older "normality" than the old "normal" amid the misery of this new "normal". And now the door lock is unjammed. This is the joy of small things...

8 MAY

France is staying closed until at least 15 June – so no trains to Paris for a while. That was to be the original start of my odyssey – a Eurostar to Paris. Will France be open by August? And if it is, will it let people from the UK, with its (so far) fairly abysmal record on coronavirus, into the country?

Until today, I'd never heard of the UNWTO (the United Nations' World Tourism Organization), despite writing a fair number of travel pieces over the past 40 years. Anyway, it's predicting a huge decline in international travel as result of the coronavirus. Hardly rocket science, you might say. If borders open up in July, it reckons the hit will be 58% down; and if borders stay closed until the end of the year, it will be 80% down.

9 MAY

The whole of the EU is being encouraged to keep borders closed at least until mid-June. The European Commission's advice is not binding on individual governments – and no doubt, the UK won't pay attention. However, it has at last announced plans for quarantining  for two weeks new arrivals into UK airports, ports and Eurostar stations. Why on earth was this not done seven weeks ago? The UK has never taken the virus threat seriously and has paid – and may well go on paying – the price. 

I'm pissed off about having to cancel my odyssey and having to re-arrange my odyssey – and I'll be even more pissed off if/when I have to forget about it altogether because of the uselessness of this government that has only ever been firm on one issue – the ridiculous Brexit. I've started but won't finish...

Britain doesn't have a monopoly on idiots. It seems that crowds of Italians flocked to walk along the canals of Milan with no regard for social distancing – and only for themselves and their newfound freedom to behave irresponsibly. Understandably, the city mayor, Beppe Sala, used colourful language to condemn their behaviour as shameful.

Back to the UK's quarantine proposals... airlines, predictably, say they see this as the final nail in their coffin. The death of international flights  would not entirely be a bad thing, of course. I will take that last flight to Athens if I have to... and if I can... but after that... no more.

10 MAY

The latest shock-horror story from the tabloids is that over-60s may not be able to go on holiday this year. This misleading coverage is based on the fact that insurers may not cover old folk if they head off in the virus-infected blue yonder. If that is the case, it is hardly surprising. Insurance companies were increasingly wary about insuring "old" travellers even before the arrival of the pandemic. One small reason that I wanted to complete my odyssey this year was because I would still have my EHIC health card for Europe to fall back on – I wasn't planning to take out any travel insurance. I used to take out travel insurance regularly, as if it were impossible to travel without it. But I never made a claim on it; and I'm sure that if I had done, I would have been directed to paragraphs in small print making it (not all that) clear that either I wasn't covered or I would have to pay an excess payment. So several years ago, I stopped bothering – or even thinking about it. Travelling round the Greek islands had become no different to going to the Midlands – so what was the big worry? That was then, of course. The problem about travelling to Greece and Italy now or soon, or even to France, is that one has no idea whether you might be caught up in a second or third wave of the plague and be locked down, quarantined or whatever. Being forced to stay in Greece doesn't fill me with too much dread. Being stuck in England... that's another matter.

11 MAY

How do you make chaos more chaotic? Involve the UK government, it seems. A statement was made last night by the UK prime minister that seems to have left everyone confused. From what I've read (I can't stand the sight of Boris Johnson, so never watch him – and try not to read too much about him), it sounds vague and with the usual mixed messages (on school, work, transport etc)... it sounds as if everyone can take from it what they want to hear... so those people who've been ignoring the rules, partying, going to beaches, not social distancing... will feel completely justified now in doing that... the rest of us will probably stay locked down for a while... and after that, who knows?

The UK is indeed talking about quarantining people coming into the country, but at the same time it's saying that these measures would not apply between France and the UK at the moment.

Meanwhile, Italy has recorded its lowest daily rise since before I started this journal in early March.

In Greece where, remarkably, only 151 people have been killed by the virus, it is now possible to leave home without authorisation, some shops are reopening and some older children are returning to school.

A week from today I was due to start my odyssey. A friend suggested that I should write about the trip from my imagination – what I think it would have been like. I may try that – although it could be tinged with sadness, as I am seriously beginning to think more frequently about calling the whole thing off.

12 MAY

Bars, restaurants and hairdressers in Italy (along with shops, museums and libraries) will be able to open next week – two weeks earlier than was originally planned – if regional authorities agree to it. There will need to be four metres between diners in restaurants – which could make intimate soirées difficult – although some couples (including ones that I've been involved in) often seem a much greater distance apart than four metres when they go out together.

I just heard that my ferry ticket from Bari to Greece next week has now been turned into an open booking. All I have to do is give the ferry company a new date for when I want to set sail from Bari and all will be well – that is, if I can get to Italy via France and if Greece will allow me in. I wonder if Odysseus spent a lot of his 10 years at Troy thinking about how (or whether) he would ever make it back to Ithaca. I suspect he knew that it is the journey, not the destination, that is the thing…

13 MAY

Greece – which has done so well so far in dealing with the virus – understandably wants to take no risks and is going to be very careful about opening up to flights and tourism. But it's been talking to several countries with low infection rates (including Austria, Israel, Norway, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand) about the prospect of a safe tourism "bubble". Thanks to the UK government's ineptitude and success in achieving the worst virus death record in Europe, this country is unlikely to be allowed inside any "bubble" and the prospects for my odyssey look another step bleaker.

14 MAY

Would you believe it? There is confusion over what the UK government is doing about its expressed intention to impose a 14-day quarantine on people arriving from abroad. It said these measures would not, at this stage, apply to France; and now it's saying that people coming from France would not be exempt. It claims there is no confusion because it said "at this stage"... but then it doesn't apply to people coming from anywhere "at this stage". Apart from all the obvious closing-stable-door-after-horse-has-died-and-gone-to-the-knacker's-yard implications of this policy which may or may not be a policy at some stage or other, all this just adds to the existing uncertainty for anyone even contemplating trying to travel between the UK and Europe.

Let's be honest: if you were in Europe, would you want anyone coming into your country from the UK – after all the Brexit posturing and disinformation, and after the failure to deal with the virus?

Greece is due to lift internal travel restrictions next week, with city hotels reopening in June, and holiday resort hotels reopening in July. But whether it will be possible to get into Greece from the UK (or via France and Italy) remains to be seen. There is talk of tests on arrival and possibly even tests prior to departure.

The mood music from Italy is getting better and there seems to be a positive feeling that the summer season will actually happen there.

15 MAY

So Greece is opening up some of its beaches for what is forecast to be a very hot weekend – complete with social distancing of four metres between sunloungers (and heavy fines for offenders). The kind of beaches I head for in the Greek islands tend to have social distancing of many more metres than that  – and ideally a mile or two. And they don't have sunloungers. As I think I've mentioned previously, a picture of one of my favourite spots – on the island of Tinos – adorns the cover of the notebook I'm using for my Greek language course (I've been doing an hour every morning pretty much ever since the lockdown started here). So I've been reminded of that beautiful place every day for many weeks, and – if the gods are willing – I will swim there on the evening of 1 September.

16 MAY

Italy was expected to open up inter-regional travel from 3 June. But it appears to have gone a step further and said that it will be possible for international travel to take place to and from the country from that date – just under three months since the big shutdown and the start of this journal. This is a huge step forward (hopefully). But will Greece really welcome visitors from the UK so soon?

17 MAY

Last autumn I was on another odyssey – walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela with some very good friends. Because of fairly awful weather conditions for most of the walk, it turned into an ordeal as well as an amazing journey. I wrote about my experience for a UK magazine, and my Spanish friend who was on the walk has just written her own account of the trip – hers is a completely different piece of writing but in a way our conclusions were very similar. 

I had written: "The Camino is a metaphor for life. We are all the same on this road – all travelling in the same direction, with the same ultimate destination. Sometimes we have to endure setbacks and pain, but if we recognise that we are all frail mortals, and that if we support each other, then the journey can be joyful." 

My Spanish friend has written: "Without facing the rain, and without adding mine to the footsteps of so many others, I never would have realised that however we walk, all walking implies pain and glory, and that, ultimately, nobody is alone in doing it. I believe that to see oneself in those who walk differently to us is to arrive at God. Today, I know that the place I went during that pilgrimage is not in my country or in any rainy forest... I know that it is here, in the heart that finds communion with another, travelling side by side, at different rhythms, following this arrow we call time, along this ground we call Earth, on this path that we call life." 

I think both of us were trying to capture that wordless experience that comes from committing oneself to an odyssey – to seeing where it leads, but perhaps all the time having an inner awareness that its conclusions will be revelatory yet ultimately indescribable.

18 MAY

My diary entry for today says: Odyssey Starts. But now it has a line through it. If this odyssey does ever start, it will either be in the last week of August or a year from today. But in a year from now, the UK is doomed to no longer be part of Europe – which is terribly sad. I wanted to go before the final disastrous chapter of Brexit came to an end. I had toyed with the idea of tracing my odyssey virtually over the next six weeks – but I think that might prove a bit depressing. Suffice it to say, I should now be on a train half an hour away from Paris... and I'm in lockdown (increasingly self-imposed) in south London. The only consolation is that this is due to be a very sunny week. 

Greece is now talking about relaxing border controls at the beginning of July, but whether it will continue to impose quarantine on foreign visitors (particularly from the virus-ridden UK) remains to be seen. Ferries between Piraeus and Crete (one of the best journeys in the world) are reported to be running today, so maybe the islands will gradually start to open up. One can only pray that Greece doesn't get hit now by the pandemic that It so brilliantly and seriously closed the doors on.

19 MAY

I said I wouldn't do this but... today I should have been on a train from Milan to Bari to make a connection with an overnight ferry to Greece... Oh well... I've been consoling myself for the past few weeks with a wonderful screensaver image of a woman on a Greek beach. No, it's not a dirty picture... but it is perfectly seductive. She's lying on her back on the white sand in the sun with the clear sea and sky before her. But really all you can see is her big blue straw hat and her lightly tanned right hand with pink fingernails holding it in place. Beyond that hat she could be old, young, wrinkled, flawless, fully clothed or fully naked... It's impossible to tell... and always will be... The only thing for certain is that it's more enigmatic than the Mona Lisa... and I know which of the two pictures I would prefer to have on my wall... Before I get too carried away, I should explain that I found this photo by chance, while searching for images for Pembrokeshire.Online, the county's community website, for which I've been editing and contributing articles for the past few months. Pembrokeshire is a place I love and another place that I would have been visiting if it were not for the virus and the lockdown. With luck, I may be able to go there in June... although I'm unlikely to encounter anything like the woman with the blue hat.

20 MAY

This morning I should have been sailing past Ithaca... But I'm not. There's now a report from Italy that the numbers of virus cases and deaths have both risen again, just a couple of days after restrictions began to be lifted. Everything, it seems, remains uncertain. I've just finished reading The Arabian Nights, concluding with the seven voyages of Sinbad. Sinbad has a lot in common with Odysseus in that he gets into one nasty scrape after another as he sails the world. "By Allah, it seems that as soon as I get myself out of one dangerous situation, I fall into one that is more perilous or distressing," he observes – more than once. But he does go to some interesting and exotic places. The temptation comes to mind to undertake a journey in the wake of Sinbad (which would definitely be a dangerous one) after the odyssey. But that would be crazy, wouldn't it?

21 MAY

Today I should have arrived on Andros to spend five days exploring the island... But while Greece tentatively opens up, and Europe braces itself for a second wave of viral infections, here in the UK (where the first wave seems to be still going strong in the face of not an awful lot being done about it in time) research has suggested that over 50 per cent of people over 30 are not complying with lockdown rules. One could more or less tell that from taking a walk through a park, or even down a busy street. The "rules" are partly to blame for being vague and illogical, and younger people are increasingly to blame because they are fed up with the lockdown and don't see that it has any connection to them. The "new normal" that has been much talked about is actually set to be "same old, same old" where selfishness takes precedence...

22 MAY

I just heard from an old friend who has lost his job... In fact, I've lost count now of the people I know who have lost their jobs or their self-employment in the past two months. They certainly outnumber those I know who have contracted coronavirus. It feels as if the economic mess can only get worse and worse... My friend, who has many contacts in Hong Kong, was reminding me that HK managed to limit coronavirus deaths to four people... yes, four people. Perhaps it wasn't quite so well handled here in the UK, he mused... You can say that again...

23 MAY

The weather here stays bright and sunny but not quite as hot as it is in Andros. Along with the rest of the Greek islands, Andros remains virus-free and tourist-free, so it must be pretty quiet. Although Athenians will probably be taking advantage of the chance to pop over on the ferry from Rafina and have the place pretty much to themselves. Envious, me? Of course. But the delay to my odyssey means that I'll be able to finish my Greek studies – and also do more work on my Italian – before I head off into the blue in August (if some semblance of sanity has returned to the world). 

24 MAY

Like many people I know, I feel a continual low level of disgust for the establishment's corruption, hypocrisy and (right now) uselessness. But after the news that Dominic Cummings had seriously broken the lockdown rules (possibly more than once), with the implication that his family concerns are more important than those of "ordinary people", I felt so angry that I have just written to my MP, to 10 Downing Street and to Conservative central office along the following lines: "I have not seen my children or grandchildren for nine weeks. Even when one of them was seriously ill and waiting for an ambulance to arrive at their home in the middle of the night, we agreed that I should not go there to be with them because of the lockdown rules. Dominic Cummings is an example of shameful hypocrisy – and if he is not fired, then the Government will be seen in a similar way." Writing this didn't make me feel much better, but it did make me feel better than if I had written nothing at all. I remain ashamed to be part of a country that voted to leave Europe and put a bunch of charlatans in control.

25 MAY

The disgraceful Cummings hangs on to his job (with the shameless support of his employer), the media (from left and right) fume, and "ordinary people" across the country (particularly those who were not able to be with sick or dying relatives) are furious. Will any semblance of justice prevail? Don't hold your breath...

With ferries between the Greek islands back in (domestic) business, Greece is saying that flights there will resume by 1 July and there will no longer be a 14-day quarantine for foreign arrivals. But, as ever, doubt hangs over whether that will apply to visitors from countries with high rates of infection, eg the UK.

26 MAY

Today I would have been on my way across the water from Andros to Tinos to stay one night in a fondly remembered place: the Stone House, an old cottage in the grounds of the home of Francy Foskolou and her family. Francy was a kind host to me last year and, thanks to her, I went on a most enjoyable walk into the interior of the island – organised as part of the Tinos Food Paths festival. I'm guessing that the festival – organised by Francy and a number of local restaurateurs and foodies – might not be happening this year, or if it is, it will be quite low-key. I was also looking forward to a reunion with the four Foskolou dogs who patrol the grounds, and who also made me most welcome last year. I never did learn their real names but I made good friends with all of them: Brownie, Blackie, One Ear and Noisy. I would also have been swimming this evening on that favourite little beach just over the road from the Foskolou house – and whose picture is on the front cover of my Greek notebook.

27 MAY

Today I would have been taking the boat to Syros to stay for a few days with my friend Eleni, a remarkable carer for many, many cats (20, the last time I visited) and a remarkable swimmer. Most mornings, she heads down the road to the bay of Galissas where the water is broad and shallow and still, just like a vast swimming pool. Maybe in September…

28 MAY

After a lot of online toing and froing, it looks like five of my odyssey's Greek ferry bookings can be transferred without any problem from May/June to August/September. I have to say that the woman I've been dealing with at the Paleologos agency has been not only brilliant at replying straight away to every query, but also at explaining and resolving "issues". I wonder if a Greek person would get the same excellent service if they were rebooking a series of British ferry trips…

29 MAY

According to my occasional (over the past 15 years) writing partner Rowena J Ronson: "This period of time is an invitation for us to look at the shape of our life – and consider what we might shift! That might be thoughts, or negative feelings, or limiting behaviours. I am working much more deeply now – on myself and with others – to use this time to Shape Shift. Let's Shape Shift our planet together. Let's wake (the fuck) up!" 

My response was: "Just as the lockdown (despite its tragic dimension) has given individuals the opportunity to re-shape themselves and their lives, it perhaps points the way for humanity to get itself into shape. And the forces of nature are helping in that respect. I would ask in what way you think we will shift shape... but I suspect the answer is that we can't know that. If we come up with some sort of plan or target to aim for, then aren't we still stuck in the old paradigm? Don't we have to be completely open to being reshaped in a way that we can't foresee?"

Just after that, I read a report that referred to "re-shaping" cities in favour of cyclists and pedestrians. Athens, Berlin and Paris are all said to be increasing their car-free areas.

30 MAY

Today I should have been leaving Syros on a boat bound for Piraeus. While there, I hoped to see the big shaggy street dog whom I've encountered there for the past two years. I hope he is still alive and that he will still be alive on 5 September, which is when I now hope to be there.

Greece has listed 29 countries from which it will accept visitors from 15 June. They, of course, do not include the UK. Why would they? They may add other countries to the approved list in July.

I wished I hadn't, but I started reading online views of the Greek ban on UK visitors and it mostly turned out to be a torrent of racist vomit online. Shall I count the ways I'm ashamed to be part of this country. France and Italy are also not yet on the approved list for Greece.

31 MAY

This was going to be a tricky day... getting from Piraeus to Patras, over to the west, in the Peloponnese. I think the plan was to get the metro into Athens and then a bus and/or train. I was last in Patras in 1985 and have hazy but fond memories of it. With luck, I'll see it again on 6 September.