This week – hashtagtravelling

This week… escape from lockdown

So the UK is more or less out of lockdown. It feels weird. Or rather it’s a strange experience trying to revert back to life-as-usual. After over 100 days of lockdown the world has turned and it feels we’re like waking up in another dimension altogether. Stepping outside your front door and picking up where you left off simply isn’t an option. This week I visit the dentist for a check-up and the experience leaves me a little shaken, I have to admit.

Despite a careful process of masks, face shields, sanitiser and more, lying captive in the dentist’s chair with someone inches from my face, after weeks of isolaton, is a little scary. This is the new reality. We have reemerged from hibernation and the goal posts have moved. I wonder if Cinderella felt this way after 100 years of slumber?

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This week… under lockdown (fourteen)

Food & wine, Sustainability, This week

Travel highlights this week included taking the car to the garage for a check up after weeks of sitting idly in the car park. A second trip out was to the local Household Recycling Centre. I kept tripping over the old hoover in the hall after it blew up a few weeks ago and it had to go. I’ve also been doing my civic duty (ahem) and went shopping online with a £100 M&S voucher (courtesy of my new broadband supplier, a gift for switching, thank you!).

Small potatoes you might be thinking but actually it’s a start in my coming-out-of-lockdown process, and it felt good to be doing something normal again. Venturing out it’s clear that despite people’s attempts to appear upbeat, we’re all a little jumpy. In the UK the hospitality sector is scheduled to reopen on 4 July but the worldwide news is troubling. Fresh outbreaks of the virus in many destinations has meant reapplying the brakes. Staying at home forever isn’t an option, however, and this week I feel the need to make a bid for freedom, however tentative the initial steps.

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This week… under lockdown (thirteen)

Destinations, Food & wine, Hotels, Sustainability, This week

Another interesting week in the new social landscape. I’ve been under lockdown solo since it all began and this week a PPE-clad engineer came to carry out the annual boiler service, the first person to enter my apartment since March. He seemed as nervous as I was. I also spent four days without internet connection, so this visit was quickly followed by another engineer to fix the broadband. I began to wonder how on earth people coped during the Black Death. While they didn’t have to concern themselves with luxuries like running hot water and internet connection in the 14^th century, there must be many similarities to today’s pandemic.

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This week… under lockdown (twelve)

Food & wine, Sustainability, This week, Trends

First prize for trends this week goes to Bubble Tourism. It seems to be popping up everywhere. It’s likely that, in our quest to avoid busy airports and crowded planes, we will be looking to ‘travel alone, together.’ It’s all sounding very SciFi. Beam me up, Scotty.

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This week … under lockdown (eleven)

This week

I’ve tried meditation, virtual festivals, coffee mornings and yoga. I’ve brushed up my social media skills with online training and travelled to Slovakian green pastures courtesy of Zoom. Most days I feel I’m getting a handle on the world. This week though has been a humdinger. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry any more.

In the words of Simon Evans, writer and director STAGED BBC1, “If the world is going to end, get on and do it. I’ve had enough of this f**king teasing”. @SimonEvans25
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