Our Covid-19 Lockdown Experience

 

Out on one of our many safaris in South Africa. Feb. 2020

As the Covid 19 virus started to spread around the world we were blissfully unaware and travelling in South Africa on our Trip Number 10 (see our timeline in ‘Our Travels – Where we’ve been’).

We’d flown out there on December 22^nd 2019 when the virus had barely started circulating in Wuhan and was yet to be reported to the WHO. By the time we arrived back in the UK on 22^nd February 2020 cases had been reported in Thailand, the USA, The Philippines and Italy, with cases starting to spike there. The WHO had declared a global public health emergency and named it COVID-19. It was making our news in the UK, but it still seemed to be too distant for us to be terribly concerned. There had been three bodybuilder type guys on our return flight wearing masks, but we just thought they were odd. We very nearly added a mini cruise onto the end of our trip, delaying our connecting flight from Dubai by a week to catch a cruise liner from Abu Dhabi and sailing round the Strait of Hormuz to Muscat, before continuing home. We decided against it, not because of Covid-19, but the bigger news story at the time was the killing of Iranian General Quassem Suleimani by a USA drone strike on 3^rd January and rumblings that Iran would be seeking revenge, particularly on shipping on the Strait. Sailing close to Iran through the Strait seemed to us, not worth the risk. That was how low down Covid-19 was on news stories.

Meal with Iain, Ian and Helen in the days before. March 2020

We’d already been thinking about our next trip which was to be a trip across the English Channel in our motorhome, a drive down through France, onto Spain to visit Jackie’s dad and Elizabeth, followed by a tour through Europe to, maybe Eastern Europe, - lots of thoughts, but no definite plan, as usual. We’ll plan it as we go, or so we thought!

So the few weeks of staying at Jackie’s mums was occupied with our initial planning. We’d booked a ferry crossing from Dover to Calais for Friday 13^th March and arranged travel insurance for a three month trip and starting to decide which route we’d take through France.

Pub crawl in Birmingham before it all - March 2020

We were still doing normal things, meeting on Monday evenings with friends for drinks in a pub, visiting dentists, going to the cinema, car MOT etc, but then on March 8^th Italy placed all its 60 million residents into lockdown. Suddenly it seemed close and we heard our friend, who had been on a weeks ski trip in Italy had to return home early as all ski resorts were closed. He came from a locked down country and just walked out of the airport terminal and, even then we wondered why there were no restrictions on this.

Although we had growing anxiety about it, it still seemed remote and ‘couldn’t happen here’, despite the fact that a few cases had been reported in the UK and the first death reported on March 5th. Anyway, we weren’t going to Italy and infections in France and Spain were growing, but not too bad so, on Monday 9^th March we collected Big Ted, our motorhome from storage and started to prepare him for a long trip away, packing summer clothes and climbing gear for hot weather in Europe.

Big Ted in Canterbury Aire with others who had raced home

We’d got most things ready and were going to head off on Friday morning for Dover, but on Wednesday 11^th March the WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic and daily news bulletins were reporting ever growing infections and deaths in Europe and around the world. With our heads still firmly ‘in the sand’ to its seriousness we decided that we’d head across The Channel and drive down through France much more quickly to Jackie’s dads than we’d planned and wait the few weeks there until it had passed and we could safely carry on.

On our way to Scotland for our lockdown

Friday morning arrived and off we went heading towards Dover. News bulletins were getting much worse, infections in both France and Spain were escalating, the USA declared a national emergency and we had a nagging feeling that we were making an unwise decision, but on we drove. My daughter Fiona was frequently messaging us imploring us not to go, as was our friend Helen and several other people. Were we really mad going as they said? Indecision, doubt, worry and now Dover is only about 20 miles away and about 2 hours to our sailing. It somehow seemed defeatist to not go now and, anyway, we’ve already paid for the crossing and our travel insurance, but our friends and family were piling the pressure on us not to go, the news was getting worse – we were both on a knife edge.

Parked up at Tony and Nicky's with two days to spare

With about 13 miles to go we aborted the trip, phoned local motorhome sites and, booked into a campsite for a couple of nights, then on to a motorhome ’Aire’ at Canterbury. Once we’d made the decision we felt an overwhelming sense of relief and that was confirmed by our fellow motorhomers on the site in Canterbury, most of whom had just returned from the continent, one driving all night from Spain and through France to get a ferry back before France was locked down. Definitely a good decision then!

Our next thoughts were ‘what shall we do now?’ Well, we’re in the UK, it’s an island, yes, there’s been a few cases, but it won’t get out of hand and surely the borders will be closed to stop it getting here. We’re in the best country to stop it spreading we told ourselves so let’s tour the south coast of England as there’s many places we haven’t visited.

Straight to work laying concrete for a porch

Well, that lasted a couple of days, many places in Europe had locked down and cases were climbing rapidly in the UK. It was getting out of control and we decided we needed a contingency plan, even though we didn’t think a lockdown could happen here. Rather than tour the south coast, why don’t we head slowly north towards our friends in North Scotland who own a large old building that they are gradually converting into two large luxury houses. There we could sit out the few weeks of any lockdown helping them with all the building work. A quick phone call and we were welcomed up there anytime. First though we needed to return to Jackie’s mums to take out the summer clothes and replace with warm ones and working clothes.

A mad dash to get supplies before everything closed

We took a couple of days to get back there, but sensing the growing emergency started to go much quicker. We left Jackie’s mum on Thursday 19^th, did a short drive to north Staffordshire for an overnight there, drove to Lockerbie, just into Scotland the next day and then, sensing an impending lockdown, hurried north with one more stop near Dundee and then a rapid drive to their house, arriving on Sunday 22^nd March. The next day, Monday 23^rd March PM Boris Johnson ordered the country into full lockdown from Wednesday 25^th March 2020.

Fertilised eggs in their incubator

What we thought would be a short few weeks stay with Tony and Nicky in their isolated property in the Scottish county of Moray turned out to be much longer, as we now know. They had 12 fertilised chicken eggs delivered that had an incubation time of 21 days and we thought at the time that we’d have to stay longer in order to see them hatch. We didn’t only see them hatch, we watched them grow too while we locked down there!

Our first stay there lasted from 22^nd March through to the end of July, 130 days! In that time we not only hatched chickens, but helped Tony and Nicky look after their other several dozen hens, guinea fowl, ducks and geese, rotovate and plant out their vegetable patches and do lots of building work under Tony’s expert eye. We learnt many new skills and renewed many others, mixing mortar and concrete, laying concrete floors with underfloor heating, building a porch, putting on a roof, doing lead work, fitting windows, building wooden internal walls to support upper floor joists and a host of other things. If you’re inclined you can read all about it in our blog entries. Just look at the right hand side, scroll down to the year 2020, click the arrow just to the left of it to open all the months, then click the arrow to the left of each month to open each blog entry. Clicking on the name of each blog entry will open it up. Our first stay there is covered in the months March to August 2020.

That hatched into gorgeous chicks

We stayed there in splendid isolation while the rest of the world went into lockdown. Life seemed pretty normal to us and we lived quite happily rarely going off the property. Tony was on furlough so able to devote full time to the building project with us and Nicky was also at home at first, still recovering from a bad break of her leg. She did eventually return to work and brought all the shopping in. Covid-19 to us was just a bad news story.

We would have remained there longer, but we had a request through the Trusted Housesitters website asking if we’d like to look after two cats in a big house with huge gardens near Cheltenham for a month and we jumped at it. 

Preparing for more concrete laying

The news coming in indicated (in the UK at least) that the lockdown situation was easing, the worst seemed to be over: some schools had returned, retail shops had reopened as had zoos, safari parks, pubs and restaurants. There were now some treatments available to lessen the severity and vaccines were undergoing trials. All seemed optimistic so we headed back down to England in Big Ted, put him back into storage, picked up our car and went down to Cheltenham for the months housesit in the lovely Cotswolds, during a spell of hot, sunny weather. We had a great time (read all about it by following the instructions above and looking at the entries in August 2020). The governments ‘Eat out to Help out’ scheme had started and we caught up with friends and family who visited us for walks in the summer sun followed by cheap, government funded meals out. Life was good!

We returned to The Midlands in early September to stay with our friends Ian and Helen for a weeks ‘Staycation’ at theirs. We went out every day, the Severn Valley Railway, West Midlands Safari Park, The Black Country Museum, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno in North Wales and a canal walk through Central Birmingham.

Our housesit near Cheltenham for a month

We’d hardly noticed that cases of Covid-19 were starting to rise but it came suddenly to our notice on 18^th September when Boris Johnson announced a second wave had arrived and on 22^nd September new restriction in England from 24^th September, severe restrictions in Birmingham and the West Midlands, where we were staying at Helen and Ian’s.

We got out just in time back to Jackie’s mums in Alvechurch. Only 8 miles south, but in a different county, so subject to slightly less restrictions. It was clear infection rates were again going to spiral rapidly upwards so we decided that another trip to Tony and Nicky’s in Moray in Scotland was in order as long as they were prepared to have us. They were, so we lent our car to my daughter, Fiona, whose car had recently permanently died, picked up Big Ted from the storage and headed back up.

West Midlands Safari Park with Ian and Helen

As Scotland has its own parliament with Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister, able to set her governments own Covid-19 restrictions, what she said was now more important than PM Boris Johnson, now we were in Scotland. Restrictions announced by her, particularly in the central belt around Edinburgh and Glasgow, through which we had to pass on the way up, made us rush up to avoid breaking any rules. The banning of mixing of households was our main worry; once we were with Tony and Nicky we were part of the same household, so abiding by the rules, however, we’d been away for nearly two months so not now part of their household. We therefore had to get there quickly, rushing up with only a couple of stops on the way, to resume looking after hens, ducks and geese, cats and helping with the build.

With Ian and Helen on our September Staycation

It wasn’t quite the same as before, it never could have been, Nicky was fully back at work and Tony was teaching online several days a week whilst working part time with us, as well as trying to complete his university degree and getting his building warrant details up to date. They were both therefore fully stretched and the stress showed, making it much less relaxed than the previous four months. It was still fun and we felt we achieved a lot up there.

The Covid-19 Tier System of restrictions per country were now in force and, in November 2020 we found ourselves in the lowest Tier 1 in Moray and neighbouring Highlands, which meant we could travel, with campsites and pubs open. 

Back to the building work

How lucky to be isolated in Northern Scotland. The days were now short and the weather can change very quickly up there but, in early November the weather seemed settled for a few weeks, so we took the opportunity to head off on a mini trip to the very North of Scotland and tour part of the NC-500 route. We set off on 3^rd November 2020, it was very quiet as only locals, like us, were free to travel, the weather was settled and sunny, so we made the most of it travelling up the east coast to John O Groats and on round the north coast, taking our time, doing lots of walking and sightseeing. What a glorious mini trip it was. Have a look at it by clicking this link: Trip 12 Scotland's North Coast 500. We started to head back to Tony and Nicky’s after only a week, as the settled weather was forecast to end, and we got back there on 13^th November, having had a fabulous 11 day mini break in Big Ted.

Back out in Big Ted on the NC500 in glorious sunshine

We continued work on the build, interspersed with odd days out, at Tony and Nicky’s insistence (it was so easy to get totally wrapped up in things there) and started to slacken a bit as Christmas approached. Nicky’s daughter Shannon, her two children and Shannon’s partner came to stay for a few days over Christmas and we stayed in Big Ted on their front drive. It was a pleasant change, the first Christmas we had not spent on our own for quite a few years, most other year ends spent on our travels in various parts of the world.  Tony had banned us from any work in the Steading and we had a relaxing time right through to the New Year, when we began to make preparations for our return to The Midlands. Jackie’s mum had suffered from isolation during lockdown and Jackie’s friend Sarah had sadly died on 28^th December, after a long illness (not Covid-19 related), so perhaps it was time to think about heading south, as we needed to see Jackie’s mum and we wanted to attend Sarah’s funeral. We searched the internet for available furnished accommodation in, or close to Alvechurch and found a two bedroom first floor flat available in Headless Cross, a suburb of Redditch, about 6 miles from Alvechurch. We booked it through Airbnb for a month from 11^th January with an option to extend if required.

Christmas at Tony and Nicky's

We hadn’t been paying much attention to Covid-19 restrictions whilst there, we were aware of a worsening infection rate caused by the mutation of the virus first detected in Kent, Scotland was now in its highest Tier 5 restriction and England its highest Tier 4 and it looked as though a further full lockdown was looming. If we were going to go, we had better make a break for it whilst it was still semi-legal to travel.

We packed up, said a final goodbye to Tony and Nicky and, on 4^th January 2021 we headed south, planning just one stop on the way, at the Metal Bridge Inn, just into England, to get back as quickly as possible. 

Volunteering in Redditch delivering food parcels

During the journey the news took a dramatic turn for the worse, Nicola Sturgeon announced a full lockdown in Scotland, effective from midnight with only essential travel allowed. We arrived at the Metal Bridge just over the border in England at about 16:30, and how thankful we felt to have got out with seven and a half hours to spare. It didn’t last long as it was announced Boris Johnson was going to make an announcement at 8:00pm and we knew he’d be taking the country into another lockdown. Although we’d planned to stay the night at the Metal Bridge we changed our minds with the impending announcement, if he locked down the country at midnight as Scotland had done we’d be stuck there with no chance of getting home. I had a couple of hours sleep, we had a good meal and, at 7:00pm we headed on down a cold, icy M6 towards home. Not quite home (Jackie’s mum’s) as we had to retrieve our car from my daughter in Kenilworth, so a journey that started at 09:30am in Northern Scotland, finished at 11:00pm in The Midlands with a two hour break at The Metal Bridge.

Outside our apartment in Headless Cross on a snowy day

The announcement by the PM was a full lockdown in England, but not fully effective until Wednesday 6^th January, only advisory until then. We arrived at Jackie’s mum’s at 11:00pm on Monday 4^th, if we were quick we could empty Big Ted, wash him and get him back into storage on Tuesday, still semi-legal to travel. Moving to the flat on 11^th was still possible as moving house was allowed during full lockdown. We persuaded the storage area’s owners to open especially for us on Tuesday, got Big Ted back into storage and breathed a sigh of relief! Since the beginning of all the lockdowns and restrictions we seem to have escaped in the nick of time. And we thought motorhoming was going to be relaxing!

Celebrating Jackie's mum, Pauline's birthday

We moved in to our Headless Cross apartment on Monday 11^th January, extending the term to take us through to Saturday 10^th April. During that time we’ve both had our first vaccinations, had various medical and dental checkups, attended Sarah’s funeral, regularly seen Jackie’s mum, who we formed a support bubble with, volunteered to deliver food parcels to Redditch residents in need and done lots of local walks and bike rides. We’ve been busy and time has flown.

Now that over half of the UK population have had their first vaccination and second doses rapidly catching up (I’m due my second on 4^th May) and lockdown restrictions have started to ease, we’re feeling optimistic for the future. We know things are still bad in Europe and most of the developing world, so foreign travel is not going to be possible or, for us, desirable this year, or at least until near the end of the year.

Lockdown starts to ease! A walk with Denise and Paul

We move out of the apartment in Headless Cross on Saturday 10^th April, will spend a few days with Jackie’s mum and then, when travel is allowed to stay in self-contained holiday accommodation from 12^th April, head off in Big Ted on 16^th. We’ve pre-booked campsites through to 20^th May (with the exception of a short return to The Midlands on 3^rd through to 9^th May for my second vaccination and to attend Rob and Alex’s wedding – yippee!), as we figured everywhere will be very busy. Our plan is East Anglia, the Norfolk Broads, the wildlife sanctuary of The Wash, Lincolnshire (an ascent of its highest peak!!), North Yorkshire Moors (where we meet up with friends Simon and Diane) and the Yorkshire Dales.

And the suns come out. We're hopeful!!

Following that we have a summer of housesits in various parts of England through to the end of September, with only a few week gaps in between some of them. Many of them are in very nice parts of the country, enabling us to get out walking, sightseeing and – yes – visiting pubs and restaurants again.

It at last seems that the end is in sight, let’s hope things don’t take a turn for the worse again, none of us want any return of restrictions again.

We hope we won’t be adding anything to this long tale of lockdown, let’s hope this really is the end, or at least the beginning of the end and not the end of the beginning!