“The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life. ” Seamus Heaney, Elegy
“The shadow of a fat man in the moonlight
Precedes me on the road down which I go;
And should I turn and run, he would pursue me:
This is the man I must get to know. “ James Reeves, Things to Come
Not very Christmassy
Since the Green party, Poitiers Collectif, won the elections in June, the municipal council in Poitiers has been rather quiet. This is fair enough, I suppose; the symbolic first hundred days will not have been completed for a couple of weeks yet. They are in power for the next six years, and it’s reasonable for … Continue reading “Not very Christmassy”
Freewheeling
These are strange times. The coronavirus figures in France are steadily worsening. Last night 10,561 new cases were reported, the highest one-day count since the start of the outbreak. The figure was 6,544 last Monday. On television on Friday night, Jean Castex, the prime minister, read out a statement on the current situation in France … Continue reading “Freewheeling”
On my back and on my bike
I was due to go to my Pilates class on Thursday, but on Wednesday evening I got a text message from Sandra, the instructor, saying that the other students had all cried off, either because of being on holiday or from fear of catching the virus. Instead of cancelling the class, Sandra offered me an … Continue reading “On my back and on my bike”
We’ll always have Paris
We had a few days in Paris this week, and next weekend we hope to go La Rochelle. These breaks may be the only holidays we get this year, as the Covid-19 situation here is steadily worsening. There were 7,379 new infections in mainland France on Friday, compared with 6,111 on Thursday and 5,429 on … Continue reading “We’ll always have Paris”
Kicking off in quarantine
The possibility of a non-quarantined visit to the UK seems to be fairly remote for the foreseeable future. The key figure that the UK government use to decide from which countries travellers need to be quarantined is the 14-day cumulative number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 in that country, as recorded by the European Centre … Continue reading “Kicking off in quarantine”
Stranded in Poitiers
We had planned to go to the UK for a quick two-day visit in a couple of weeks’ time. Now they have reintroduced a fourteen-day quarantine period, and France will almost certainly reciprocate. So we’ve cancelled our Eurostar tickets and now have a voucher for another trip, when, or if, this crazy situation ever ends. … Continue reading “Stranded in Poitiers”
