UK – Barrs Court, Bristol – 4th March – 14th April 2020

The world Coronavirus pandemic. “It’s life Jim, but not as we know it” …..and there will be no trekking now!

Our blog posts have served as a communication to our friends and family during our overseas travel since 2013. However, this blog entry is more of a diary entry and a historical record for us. We don’t want to have a missing period of time on our website, as we did in the past, between our adventuring.

Previously we returned to work and normal life before setting off again. This time it is not a case of returning to normal. We are not returning to work, or our home.

Although our house is still being rented out and we are not abroad, we feel that we are very lucky in the fact that we are still ‘adventuring’ albeit a LOT nearer home this time.

Not only is it not normal for us but it is sadly not normal for anyone the world over because of the world coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19.

As you know, we flew back into the UK on March 4th. We had only planned to stay in Bristol for three weeks. During that time we wanted to see our family and as many friends as we could as often as possible to catch up with hugs from the last five months. Our friend Karen had a holiday booked from the 3rd so we asked her if she would like us to stay in her house for four days, to feed her cats, Gus and May while she was away. She said that she did and asked if we would stay one more night when she arrived back from Budapest so we could catch up after our five months away.

By the time Karen came home we realised that we needed to stay for more than one more night! The situation meant it was best to wait 14 days before seeing our parents in the unlikely event that we had caught the virus in India or on our way home. We both had colds in the last few weeks and Glen returned into Heathrow with a temperature and what thankfully turned out to be tummy bug. We’d taken two flights to get home, the first into Dubai before the onward journey to Heathrow, which, to Glen’s delight was on an Emirates double decker! Official/grown up name ‘Airbus A380‘ the world’s largest passenger airliner.

Just a week after we returned from India things got serious. On 11th March Covid-19 was declared a world pandemic by the World Health Organisation. As Courtney (our youngest daughter) celebrated her 30th Birthday in New Zealand on 20th March, schools in the UK closed. On the 23rd, India closed its borders and airports and put its country in total lockdown with just four hours notice!! We were relieved that we were safely back in the U.K. but were thankful that we had been able to enjoy two months in India without cutting our journey short. That was possible due to the Indian Government not being aware of the spread of the virus….. or perhaps not telling the truth about the extent of the spread there! Therefore we did not return to the UK any earlier than planned.

The UK was also put into lockdown on the 23rd in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Although we had returned home, life was very different to how it was before we left.

Social distancing in the sunshine, waiting in rows up and down the roof car park in Asda, which continued down the ramp and along the side of the building. People methodically counting in, and out to keep the amount of people inside to a minimum.

At first it was just a case of having to stand on the 2 metre distancing floor stickers when queuing and a one way system in and out so not as to pass each other.

Next came plastic shields in front of the staff on the checkouts. Some now have plastic face shields like riot police. If only the enemy was as simple as a visible group of rioters.

I have to say, Aldi, in Longwell Green is top for cleaning and sanitising (before and after entering the store) every basket, every trolley and every shopper! They now ask you to hold your hands up and spray both of them with some sort of anti-bac spray from a distance.

Tesco’s in Bradley Stoke, where I shopped for my in-laws, is run like a military operation. They have more staff directing you the correct ‘safe’ way around the store, checking that you are socially distancing sufficiently and queuing correctly than they have on the checkouts when you finally get to your allotted numbered checkout.

The photo of the trolley below was taken in Tesco’s in Bradley Stoke. They supplied plastic gloves and paper towels and spray to clean down the trolleys that day. It’s only now, as I upload the photo on to the blog Some weeks later, that I realise that it is an Asda trolley! The nearest Asda to that Tesco store is 3.2miles away…. now that’s what I call social distancing!

Quickly popping to M & S for a few things is a thing of the past.

More floor tiles instructing everyone to obey the social distancing rules.

As the days unfolded and the virus spread around the world we realised that flying to Egypt as we had planned was probably unwise and would put a great deal of stress on the family. They had already been so supportive during our five months away in what, as it turns out, put us just one step ahead of the virus throughout our journey. We had, since the beginning of October, visited China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, northern Thailand and India just before the virus spread to each country. The decision not to go to Egypt for ten weeks was made for us when our flight was cancelled by Easyjet. Egypt too had closed its borders and airports on 19th March. Our visit there and to Jordan and Aswan would have to wait.

Just in case anyone had missed the TV news, newspaper reports, radio news and posts on social media there were portable solar powered message boards on roundabouts reminding us to STAY HOME for anything other than ESSENTIAL TRAVEL.

Karen confirmed what an amazing friend she is by agreeing for us to stay with her until we could move out into rented accommodation for the foreseeable future.

As luck would have it, the tenants in my brother and sister-in-law’s property, which is next to my parents’ house, were moving out on 14th April. We therefore have a home for as long as this situation lasts.

So, whilst staying with Karen we spent our days walking around the area once a day for exercise and shopping for essentials within the new social distancing guidelines.

It wasn’t long before B&Q closed. When they re-opened they only allowed click and collect, in a new social distancing car park setup.

Because of the virus Mum and Dad sadly had to celebrate their 60th Wedding anniversary alone instead of the planned family celebration. Balloons were inflated with a pump (not our potentially infected breath), and then pushed through the window from a safe distance along with a banner and cards.

Photo: Courtesy of Dad and his iPad 😍

The benefit of Lauren and her family self isolating means I get to do some shopping for them and see her and the grandchildren from a distance.

I joked one day, ringing to say that I had left the shop and would be around in five minutes so, “put the kettle on!” When I got there Lauren had a cup of tea waiting on the wall, along with an anti-bac wipe.

One of the few TV shows I was looking forward to seeing again when we arrived back in to the UK was the Graham Norton Show. Unlike many other programmes, which had to stop filming because of the social distancing rules, shows like Graham Norton’s carried on without an audience, being broadcast instead from the host and the guest’s homes.

Collecting prescriptions from the doctors has been interesting! On the first occasion there was only a handful of people ahead of me. I was queuing in the sunshine and so I didn’t mind the long wait. The staff inside came out now and again and were very keen for us to stand apart from each other, and also telling the older man behind me that he should not be here as this virus is deadly, she also looked at me! I obviously looked old! We were asked to fill in our details on a list on a clipboard, which we had to pass from one person to another in the queue! Passing potential germs as we did so! Not really well thought out! The staff seemed stressed and some were wearing their own scarves around their face instead of surgical masks.

I was talking to a nice young man in front of me (2 metres away!) whose twins were celebrating their 2nd birthday on the weekend. I had to keep telling the old man behind me to stand further back bless him. There was a young girl with tattoos on her neck who was with a man with no teeth, or style, 😉 on a pushbike, two spaces ahead of me. She told everyone that she had already queued for THREE hours the day before! Then after about an hour a shabby looking druggy turned up with a dog on a chain, who several people told couldn’t queue because the pharmacist had come out to say that no other people could join the queue today as there wasn’t time. He ignored everyone and just walked to the front of the line, left his dog, and walked inside!!  After a long while he came out and off he went with his bag of ‘medication’….. and his shaking dog! The girl with the neck tattoos gave him some abuse which he gave back….. happy days. Two hours later I was served and was on my way.

The photos above were taken on my second visit, the week after (to collect the balance of the prescription). I didn’t want to put a photo of the actual people I described above on my first visit!

As more people decided to shop on-line instead of joining the queues and potentially putting themselves at risk, we all found that you had to queue on-line too!

I was told at our large local Boots store that it was only open for prescriptions or essential medication. If I told them what I needed they would bring it out to me. A girl ahead of me and various members of her family wanted bunion cream or some such essential item and one member of the family were served. However when the very nice Boots employee asked me what I wanted and I told him ‘hair colour’ for an elderly person that I was shopping for, they said that the only way I could get that “Non essential item” was to order it on-line and then collect it from that store. They would then be able to bring my order to the door. So although I could almost smell the hair colour, it was so close to the doors, I was not allowed to enter. No worries, after listening to the employee’s story about his mother in lockdown in Cyprus I went home to place my on-line order.

I found myself immediately in a queue on-line to actually get on to the Boots website. That was 4pm; three hours later I had only gone about a third of the way in ‘the queue’ according to the little walking ‘man’ at the bottom of the screen.

Bedtime came and I had to stop watching the little ‘walking’ ‘man’ despite the message below.

I woke in the night and checked to see if it was my turn but it hadn’t quite got there yet. By the time I got up in the morning it said I had lost my place because once it’s your turn you are given a code to access the ordering section and it only lasts ten minutes! It doesn’t matter, grey hair will be the ‘new normal’ soon anyway!

During our daily walks we saw the rainbow pictures people were putting in their windows and gardens for children to spot as they walk around; eventually the rainbows were placed in support of the NHS.

Some rainbows were very inventive.

I’m not sure if this ironing board had been flung over the fence by a stressed person in lockdown or whether it was a piece of rainbow art!

Eventually, on 14th April, some 42 days later we finally left Karen in peace! She could now experience the true self isolating lockdown experience. Thank you Karen x